Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses Humboldt's unpublished notes on Japanese. They are limited to 18 pages. Based on his view of language as a teleological phenomenon, Humboldt notes on Japanese deal with the genesis of linguistic phenomena as an expression of the feelings and thoughts of their speakers.

Paper long abstract:

Humboldt's examination of Japanese is limited to 18 pages of unpublished notes in French. His handwritten ideas on Japanese can be seen as fragmentary considerations on the nature of language and how language relates to the mind of its speakers. Since the Japanese grammars that Humboldt studied were originally meant to serve the missionary mission of Japan, they pay due attention to spoken language. Humboldt's studies were limited to two grammars, Melchor Oyanguren's Arte de la lengua japona (1738) and Ernest Landresse's French translation of the Arte da lingua de Iapam by João Rodriguez (Eléments de la Grammaire Japonaise, 1825). He did not have access to the Arte Breue da lingoa Iapoa by Rodriguez that mentioned the language studies of the so-called Edo nativist school (kokugaku). This is unfortunate, because the Edo nativists dealt comprehensively with the question of the essence of the Japanese language and its relation to the Japanese mind, that is to say, the very phenomena that Humboldt was interested in in his quest to capture the universal and culture specific aspects nature of language. Based on his view of language as an intellectual and teleological phenomenon, Humboldt notes on Japanese deal above all with the genesis of linguistic phenomena as an expression of the feelings and thoughts of their speakers.

In this paper I discuss Humboldt's view in Japanese on the background of the time, his access to sources on Japanese and the limitations of a universalist linguistic in absence of a general theory of language. As a man of his time, Humboldt's ideas on Japanese shows deep influences of Eurocentrism and Orientalism. The revisions he made in his notes in Japanese shows that he struggled to come to terms with a language so different from Indo-European languages which stood at the center of his considerations about language. This dilemma, albeit in much a weaker form, is still a problem of contemporary linguistics.