25.529, Review: Historical Linguistics: Rask (2013)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-25-529. Sat Feb 01 2014. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 25.529, Review: Historical Linguistics: Rask (2013)

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Reviews: 
Monica Macaulay, U of Wisconsin Madison
Rajiv Rao, U of Wisconsin Madison
Joseph Salmons, U of Wisconsin Madison
Mateja Schuck, U of Wisconsin Madison
Anja Wanner, U of Wisconsin Madison
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Date: Sat, 01 Feb 2014 12:16:25
From: Angela Andreani [angela.andreani at gmail.com]
Subject: Investigation of the Origin of the Old Norse or Icelandic Language

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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/24/24-2017.html

AUTHOR: Rasmus  Rask
TRANSLATED BY: Niels  Ege
INTRODUCTION BY: Frans  Gregersen
TITLE: Investigation of the Origin of the Old Norse or Icelandic Language
SUBTITLE: New edition of the 1993 English translation by Niels Ege
SERIES TITLE: Amsterdam Classics in Linguistics, 1800–1925 18
PUBLISHER: John Benjamins
YEAR: 2013

REVIEWER: Angela Andreani, Università degli Studi di Torino

SUMMARY

The volume presents Niels Ege’s 1993 English translation of Rasmus Rask’s 1818
prize-winning essay “Undersøgelse om det gamle Nordiske eller Islandske Sprogs
Oprindelse”. Based on the definitive 1932 Danish edition of Rask’s
“Undersøgelse”, Ege’s “Investigation of the Origin of the Old Norse or
Icelandic Language” is the only full translation of the work available to
non-Danish speakers. The new edition of the translation, appearing in the
Amsterdam Classics in Linguistics series, is complemented by Frans Gregersen’s
substantial introduction.
 
Section 1 of the introduction defines the scope and purpose of the new
edition. The publication history of Rask’s essay is outlined, and the
circumstances which limited its readership to the Danish-speaking world are
taken into account.

Section 2 is dedicated to Rask’s career from his early years as a student in
Odense to his voyages in Iceland and South Asia, and to the difficult path
towards permanent professorship after his return to Denmark in 1832. The
account traces the development of Rask’s interest in Old Norse, the definition
of his scholarly aim, and, importantly, it also reconstructs the scholar’s
network of intellectual and professional connections, as well as the early
19th century Danish academic milieu.

In section 3, Gregersen focuses on the genesis and publication of Rask’s essay
and examines the question posed by the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and
Letters on June 10, 1810: “To investigate, by means of historical criticism,
and to illustrate with appropriate examples, from what source the ancient
Scandinavian language can most correctly be derived [...]” (p. xxxi).

Finally, section 4 is dedicated to the translator, Niels Ege, one of
Hjelmslev’s most gifted students in the 1940s, professor of linguistics at the
University of Copenhagen starting in 1965, and professional code-breaker for
the Defense Intelligence Service until his death in 2003.

Following the editorial introduction, the volume presents a photographic
reprint of Ege’s translation prefaced by a Translator’s Note, which includes
Ege’s presentation of his work, its genesis, and a commentary on Rask’s style
and terminology.

The translation is based on the definitive edition of the essay published in
1932 by Hjelmslev, and reference to the page numbers in the original Danish
text are provided in square brackets throughout the text. The essay itself is
organised into three chapters laying out the foundation of language analysis
as a science.

The first chapter, “On Etymology in General” (pp. 11-53), examines the
concept, subdivisions and uses of etymology and its relevance to the
comparative study of languages, underscoring its applications at both lexical
and grammatical (morphological and syntactic) levels.

The second chapter, “On Icelandic and the Gothic class of languages” (pp.
54-69), describes the structure of Icelandic and discusses the characteristics
of the Germanic languages by comparing Icelandic, Anglo-Saxon, Mesogothic,
High German, Plattdeutsch and Dutch.

The third chapter is “On the source of the Gothic languages, esp. Icelandic”
(pp. 70-289). Rask’s comparative analysis takes into account Greenlandic,
Celtic, Basque, Finnic, Slavic, Lettic, Thracian and the Asiatic languages,
concluding that among the Thracian languages, Greek must be counted as the
“nearest and true clear source of our ancient language” (p. 288).

EVALUATION

By providing an authoritative new edition of one of the original sources of
modern linguistics, the volume makes a hugely useful resource for the
investigation of the early beginnings of Indo-European scholarship . Together
with Markey’s 1976 edition of Dasent’s 1843 translation of Rask’s other
important work on Icelandic, “A Grammar of the Icelandic or Old Norse Tongue”,
it also significantly complements our understanding of the contribution given
by the Danish scholar to the development of the comparative historical study
of Indo-European languages.

The book gives access to the full text of Rask’s essay in its English
translation, on which Ege, a Danish scholar in linguistics himself, worked for
about three decades. By laying down the foundations of language analysis as a
science, Rask deals with important theoretical and methodological implications
that will make the essay a rewarding read for linguists in general.

In the thoroughly researched introductory section, Gregersen stresses Rask’s
pioneering intellectual profile in the comparative historical study of
Indo-European languages by combining epistolary and biographical sources (see
“References. B. Secondary Sources”, p. xliii), and by including a brief yet
informative assessment of Rask’s position in the history of Danish
linguistics. The wealth of sources is conflated into a vivid portrait of the
scholar and his voyages, highlighting Rask’s enduring search for “the
acquaintance of men who had studied the local language, or indeed any
language,” thus making his travels “a truly linguistic expedition” (p. xxi).

The close examination of the genesis, evaluation and publication history of
the 1818 essay are a further virtue of Gregersen’s introduction, which
addresses such significant themes as to what extent the formulation of the
question announced by the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences might have
influenced the structure of Rask’s work. Interestingly, he points out that
while the question indeed imposed Icelandic as the pivot for comparison, this
in fact perfectly suited Rask’s own research approach, “having Icelandic as
the core around which he built his successive raids into foreign territory”
(p. xxxiii). Furthermore, advancing the discussion on the origin and wording
of the essay question published in Hjelmslev’s 1932 edition, Gregersen
identifies the Academy members who signed the document and reconstructs the
intellectual milieu in which it originated.

The comprehensive account of Rask’s historical and intellectual context
provided by the editorial introduction is complemented by the brief yet
significant Translator’s Notes, offering readers an interesting glimpse into
Rask’s own language and terminology, through poignant observations and a
learned discussion of the translation problems encountered. For instance, Ege
underscores the scholar’s penchant for “Danish words (or Danish-loan
translations from German)” (p. lii), which gave the original text that “air of
purism”(p. lii) which was regretfully impossible to transpose into English.
Thus, this section points at new research directions in the study of Rasmus
Rask’s language and style, while it raises significant issues pertaining to
its translation.

Both the introduction and the Translator’s Note contribute to enhance the
significance of Rask’s work, while allowing appreciation of the essay as a
whole. For instance, in Rask’s own introduction to his study, the reader can
readily identify significant echoes of the essence of early Indo-European
scholarship, concerned with the origins of language and with language viewed
as the key means to access the knowledge lying beyond the limits of human
memory: “Within one generation a people may change its religion, customs,
conventions, laws and institutions [...] but throughout these vicissitudes
language endures continuously, if not exactly the same, still quite
recognizable” (pp. 6-7). Furthermore, the essay makes invaluable reading for
historical linguists too, since, while it lays down the theoretical and
methodological implications of language analysis, it provides the earliest
formulation of the system of principles underlying the comparative historical
study of languages: the observation of special rules for the “shifts of
individual letters” (p. 48), and, famously, the relation between the
Icelandic, Greek and Latin obstruents; the distinction between the theoretical
and applied aspects of linguistics; and the development of a system of
principles to establish the historical relatedness of languages.

The volume is enriched by the presentation of such material as the image of
the original manuscript of the question signed by the four members of the
Historical Class of the Academy, and the full transcript of the evaluation of
the essay. An account of the vicissitudes of the copies of Ege’s 1993 English
translation notably contextualises their serendipitous survival.

To conclude, Gregersen’s excellent and clear introduction, Niels Ege’s notes
on the original Danish text and the rich body of sources and materials
presented will make the volume an illuminating resource for both specialists
and students in the field of language sciences.

REFERENCES

Hjelmslev, Louis (ed.). 1932. Rasmus Rask. Udvalgte Afhandlinger. Vol. 1.
København: Levin & Munksgaard.

Markey, Thomas (ed.). 1976. Rasmus Rask. A Grammar of the Icelandic or Old
Norse Tongue. Translated by sir George Webbe Dasent. (Amsterdam Classics in
Linguistics, 1800-1925, 2). Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins
Publishing Company.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Angela Andreani is a postdoc at the University of Turin, where she works on
lexicography and corpus linguistics. Her research interests include philology,
historical linguistics and early Indo-European scholarship.








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