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Article published In: Historiographia Linguistica
Vol. 11:1/2 (1984) ► pp.21–38

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The reception of Hebrew in sixteenth-century Europe

The impact of the Cabbala

 | University of Kansas
Published online: 1 January 1984
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https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.11.1-2.03per
Summary
The main thesis of this article is that a species of general linguistics arose in 16th-century western Europe as a result of the impact of Hebrew studies. Two features of traditional Hebrew grammatical practice produced this, effect: (1) the phonetic classification of consonants by point of articulation, and (2) the analysis of words in terms of roots and affixes. Two works from the early 16th century are cited at some length: a treatise on the pronunciation of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew by the great Spanish humanist Antonio de Nebrija (De vi ac potestate litterarum), which first appeared in Salamanca in 1503; and Johannes Reuchlin’s Hebrew grammar, printed in Pforzheim in 1506. Nebrija exemplifies the impact of Hebrew phonetic theory, while Reuchlin expounds the traditional Hebrew morphological analysis, in the course of which he introduces the novel concept of the root. Moreover, in his treatment of Hebrew orthography he describes the sounds of the language both auditorily and physiologically.
In the second part of the article, the subsequent influence of Hebrew grammatical and linguistic notions is discussed. Reference is made to a work by the French orientalist Guillaume Postel (De originibus), in which the author contrasts the Semitic languages with the two classical languages typologically, calling the former ‘natural’ and the latter ‘grammatical’. There then follows an analysis of a work by the Swiss Hebraist Theodor Bibliander (De ratione communi omnium linguarum), in which the suggestion is made that all languages can be grammatically analysed in a uniform fashion utilizing the Hebrew descriptive framework and then compared with one another. The acquaintance with Semitic languages also introduced Christian scholars for the first time to a paradigm case of a family of related languages. Thus, we see the tentative adumbrations in the 16th century of both typological and genetic classification.
Résumé
Le présent article soutient en première ligne qu’une espèce de ‘linguistique générale’ évolua en Europe occidentale, déclenchée par le début des études de la langue hébraïque dans la première partie du XVIe siècle. Deux traits saillants de la pratique grammaticale traditionelle de l’hébreu en sont responsables: premièrement, le classement phonétique des consonnes selon leurs points d’articulation, et deuxièmement, l’analyse du mot en racine et affixes. Nous examinerons en profondeur deux oeuvres qui datent du début du XVIe siècle: d’abord un traité de la prononciation du latin, du grec, et de l’hébreu, écrit par l’illustre humaniste espagnol Antonio de Nebrija (De vi ac potestate litterarum), qui parut pour la première fois à Salamanque en 1503; et ensuite la grammaire hébraïque de Johannes Reuchlin, qui fut imprimée à Pforzheim en 1506. Nebrija nous fournit un exemple de l’influence des idées phonétiques des grammairiens juifs. Reuchlin, dans son manuel, expose l’analyse morphologique traditionnelle de l’hébreu et introduit le concept tout à fait nouveau de ‘racine’. Par ailleurs, en traitant de l’orthographe, il parvient à décrire en détail les sons de l’hébreu d’un point de vue auditif et physiologique.
La deuxième partie de l’article examine l’influence ultérieure du schéma grammatical hébreu au cours du seizième siècle. Nous citerons d’abord une oeuvre capitale du célebre orientaliste français Guillaume Postel (De origini-bus), où l’auteur met en opposition typologique d’une part les langues sémitiques, qu’il appelle “naturelles”, et d’autre part les deux langues classiques, qu’il appelle “grammaticales”. Ensuite nous analyserons le traité du savant hébraïsant suisse Theodore Bibliander De ratione communi omnium linguarum dans lequel il avance que toutes les langues du monde se prètent à un traitement grammatical uniforme selon le système hébreu, démarche qui permet en outre de les comparer les unes aux autres. Finalement nous avançons que les langues sémitiques fournirent aux savants chrétiens du seizième siècle un exemple-modèle d’une famille de langues apparentées. Donc le XVIe siècle préfigure déjà une linguistique à la fois typologique et génétique.
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