The Linguistic Work of Friedrich Karl Fulda

160 Pages·1974·5.263 MB·English

by  Joann Vogt

JANUA LINGUARUM
STUDIA MEMORIAE
NICOLAI VAN WIJK DEDICATA
edenda curat
C. H. VAN SCHOONEVELD
Indiana University
Series Minor, 199

THE LINGUISTIC WORK
OF
FRIEDRICH KARL FULDA
by
JOANN VOGT
Lake Forest College
1974
MOUTON
THE HAGUE · PARIS
© Copyright 1974 in The Netherlands.
Mouton & Co. N.V., Publishers, The Hague.
No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form by print,
photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the
publishers.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 74-77154
Printed in The Netherlands by Mouton, The Hague
CONTENTS
I. Introduction 7
II. Fulda's Theories Regarding the Origin and Develop-
ment of Language 24
(1) The origin of sounds 24
(2) Fulda's root system 34
(3) The Preisschrift and the Wurzelwörterbuch 49
(4) Further development of the original roots 52
(5) Fulda's etymological principles and his criticism of
other scholars 57
(6) Development and classification of the languages of
the world 62
III. Fulda's Studies in the Germanic Languages 72
(1) Definition and divisions of Germanien 72
(2) Grammatical features of Germanic 76
(3) High German and Low German . 86
(4) Frisian, English, and the Scandinavian languages . . 94
(5) Gothic 99
IV. Fulda and Modern German 108
(1) Fulda's definition of Hochdeutsch and his ortho-
graphical principles 109
(2) Fulda as a grammarian of New High German . .. 126
(3) Fulda as a Mundartforscher 141
V. Conclusion 147
Bibliography 151
Index 156

I
INTRODUCTION
In recent years there has been a revival of interest in the German
grammarians of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, long
eclipsed by the shadow of Jacob Grimm and the giants of nine-
teenth-century linguistics. One of the most remarkable of these
early grammarians was Friedrich Karl Fulda. Embroiled in the
linguistic and orthographical controversies of his day, Fulda
sought to go beyond the arguments offered by his contemporaries
and examine the nature of language itself, for he saw in this a
basis on which to build a "right" written language for Germany.
His efforts were acclaimed by contemporaries and later scholars
alike. Adelung, who owed many of his ideas to Fulda, praised the
older grammarian as "der erste, welcher uns den Bau der Deutschen
Wörter aufgeschlossen, und dadurch den abendländischen Sprachen
den einigen Weg gezeiget hat, auf welchem sie... zu dem Ursprünge
ihrer Sprache und Erkenntniß gelangen können" j1 and in the twen-
tieth century Max Hermann Jellinek has called Fulda "die eigen-
artigste Persönlichkeit unter den Grammatikern vor Adelung,
zugleich ein Mann, der auch in der Geschichte der altdeutschen
Studien eine nicht unbedeutende Stelle einnimmt".2
In light of statements such as these one might expect that
scholars would have published studies on Fulda's works during
the past two centuries. Yet except for a 128-page monograph which
appeared in 1831,3 no single work or even article has been written
1 Johann Christoph Adelung, Über den Ursprung der Sprache und den Bau
der Wörter, besonders der Deutschen (Leipzig: Breitkopf, 1781), 6.
2 Geschichte der neuhochdeutschen Grammatik von den Anfängen bis auf
Adelung, Vol. VII of Germanische Bibliothek, 2 half-vols., Wilhelm Streitberg
(ed.) (Heidelberg: Carl Winter's Universitätsbuchhandlung, 1913-1914), I, 274.
3 Friedrich David Gräter, Ueber Fulda's Leben, Studien und sein System
8 INTRODUCTION
exclusively about Fulda since his death. In 1913 Jellinek stated:
"[Fulda] wäre wohl einer Monographie würdig. Die (posthume)
Schrift von F. D. Gräter... gibt einen dankenswerten Uberblick
über Fuldas Schaffen und interessante Nachrichten über seine
ungedruckten Werke, aber sie steht nicht genügend über ihrem
Gegenstand."4 Despite Jellinek's words, the twentieth century, like
the nineteenth, has not produced either a monograph on Fulda
or a study of any one aspect of his work. Similarly, many general
works dealing with theories about the origin of language make no
mention of Fulda; even in such an exhaustive study as Arno
Borst's Der Turmbau von Babel: Geschichte der Meinungen über
Ursprung und Vielfalt der Sprachen und Völker (4 vols, in 6,
Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1957-1963), there is not one reference to
Fulda's theories.
It was thus the long neglect of one of the important figures in the
early history of philology in Germany which led me to undertake
a study of the work of Fulda, this "tief forschenden Mann..., der
es wagte, mit 'Sprachgründen' die Richtigkeit der herrschenden
Schriftsprache zu bestreiten".5
The sources of information about Fulda's life are brief and few.
In order of importance, beginning with the most useful, they are:
his five-page autobiography in Schwäbisches Magazin von gelehrten
gemeinschaftlicher Urwurzeln aller menschlichen Sprachen (Ludwigsburg:
C. F. Nast, 1831). Gräter (1768-1830) was an ardent admirer of Fulda; in 1795
he had edited and published Fulda's Natürliche Geschichte der Teutschen und der
menschlichen Natur, and had already at that time expressed his intention to
write a biography of his fellow Swabian. His 1831 monograph on Fulda is
particularly valuable for the information it provides concerning Fulda's un-
published works, many of which Gräter had himself seen. However, it devotes
little attention to Fulda's essays on the grammar and orthography of modern
German. More important, Gräter's admiration of Fulda led him to be some-
thing less than objective, and to fill his biography with long passages defending
Fulda's system and expressing his own belief "daß entweder das Fuldaische
System... das einzig richtige und mögliche oder sonst gar keines gedenkbar
sey" (pp. 31-32).
4 Jellinek, Geschichte der nhd. Grammatik 1,274, η. 1.
8 Jellinek, 283.
INTRODUCTION 9
Sachen III (1777), 378-383; Gräter's monograph; a ten-page
"Nachricht von dem Leben und den Schriften Friedrich Carl
Fulda's" by Johann Christian Zahn, at the end of the latter's
edition of Ulfilas;6 a contemporary "portrait", "Etwas aus dem
ungedruckten Tagebuch eines Reisenden [Johann Christoph
Schmid] von dem berühmten Sprach- und Geschichtforscher,
M. Friedrich Carl Fulda...";7 plus a few obituaries and other brief
references in contemporary journals and in biographical dictionaries.
From these we may summarize briefly the external circumstances of
Fulda's life and learn something of his character and the devel-
opment of his system.
Fulda was born September 13, 1724, in Wimpfen, formerly a
free imperial city of Swabia. His father, Diakonus Carl Ludwig
Fulda, died two months before the son's birth; his mother, Marie
Elisabethe Justine, nie Winkler, remarried and then died when
her son was eight years old. An anecdote about Fulda's child-
hood-perhaps most interesting because it typifies the style of
most of the biographical sources named above-is told by Zahn:
Um diese Zeit bewies sich an ihm die erhaltende Aufsicht der göttlichen
Fürsehung. Sein mütterlicher Grossvater fuhr einst nach Weinsberg.
Der Knabe lehnte sich an die Kutschenthüre; diese öffnete sich, er fiel
heraus, und ein Rad ging ohne Schaden über ihn; er sollte leben !8
After his mother's death Fulda remained for a time with his step-
father, Johann Dieterich Hertelin, from whom he received his
first instruction in reading and writing. At the age of twelve he was
sent to live with his paternal grandfather in Weinsberg. Zahn re-
ports:
Hier war es, wo seine Talente, besonders seine Einbildungskraft, sich
entwickelten. Sein Lehrer Oeflinger unterschrieb ihm einst: tu non es
6 Ulfilas Gothische Bibelübersetzung: die älteste Germanische Urkunde nach
Ihre'ns Text, mit einer grammatisch-wörtlichen Lateinischen Uebersetzung
zwischen den Zeilen, samt einer Sprachlehre und einem Glossar, ausgearbeitet
von Friedrich Karl Fulda... (Weißenfels: Leycham, und in Commission bei
Barth in Leipzig, 1805), i-x.
7 Historisch-litterarisch-bibliographisches Magazin III (1791), 11-18. Hereafter
cited as "Tagebuch".
8 Zahn, i.
10 INTRODUCTION
stoicus! und beehrte ihn wenige Zeit nachher mit den Versen: Sohn!
fahre fort, im Dichten dich zu üben: was gilts? der Musen Chor wird
dich inskünftige lieben.9
In 1741 Fulda entered the Gymnasium in Stuttgart; here, his math-
ematics teacher, Georg Adam Göriz, provided him with the
method he was later to use in his own works. "Görizens Methode",
wrote Fulda in his autobiography, "legte den ersten Grund, oder
gab vielleicht dem sich entwikelnden die erste Genugthuung; nach
jeder Beendigung eines Stüks seines mathematischen Yortrags
pflegte diser theure Lehrer einen genealogischen Conspect des-
selbigen zu geben."10 Two years later Fulda began his studies in
theology at Tübingen. After earning his Magister in theology in
1745, he remained in Tübingen in order to study philosophy and
mathematics.
In 1748 an opportunity arose for Fulda to become chaplain to the
regiment of a certain Colonel von Leutrum, who was in the service
of the Netherlands. His year with this regiment was a period of
strain not only for his health (he contracted a fever which was to
plague him for years), but also for his religious convictions. Schmid,
describing this period in Fulda's life, tells us:
Weil ihm... über dasjenige, was er glauben und lehren sollte, viele un-
auflösliche Zweifel aufstiegen, so wollte er aus dem Predigerstande treten,
und reisste zu dem Ende in Holland umher, um Gelegenheit zu finden, in
einem Comptoir in Ost- oder Westindien angestellt zu werden. Er fand
sie nicht, und hielt dies für einen Wink der Vorsehung, seinen Stand
nicht zu verändern.11
After his regiment was disbanded, Fulda visited several cities and
universities in the Netherlands and Germany, arriving finally at
Göttingen in December, 1749. There he remained for a year, at-
tending university lectures on a variety of historical topics including
the history of the Germanic peoples. Upon his return to his native
Wurtemberg, Fulda became garrison chaplain at the Swabian
9 Zahn, ii.
10 Schwäbisches Magazin III (1777), 380-381. The genealogischen Conspect
is explained later in this chapter.
11 "Tagebuch", 12-13