Friedrich Schmitthenner as a grammarian, language philosopher and lexicographer

Abstract

The paper is dedicated to Friedrich Jakob Schmitthenner (1796–1850), a German scholar. He is better known as a specialist in political and cameral sciences, but this article covers his contributions to linguistic philosophy, grammar and lexicography. The paper gives a brief overview of the scientist’s professional and private life against the background of the tremendous development of German science in the 19th century. The author of the paper introduces some new and poorly known facts relating to Schmitthenner՚s fundamental works on linguistics and the way they were accepted by the scientific community of that time. The author highlights Schmitthenner՚s specific view on the protolanguage from the point of view of the language and thought interaction.

Keywords

• linguistic historiography
• Friedrich Jakob Schmitthenner
• linguistic philosophy
• protolanguage
• language and thought
• German language training