The Philosophic Grammar of American Languages, as Set Forth by Wilhelm von Humboldt / With the Translation of an Unpublished Memoir by Him on the American Verb

Transcriber’s Note
The following codes for less common characters were used:
—BY— DANIEL G. BRINTON, A.M., M.D., Professor of Ethnology and Archæology at the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia.
President of the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Philadelphia; Member of the American Philosophical Society, the American Antiquarian Society, the Pennsylvania Historical Society, etc.; Membre de la Société Royale des Antiquaires du Nord; de la Société Américaine de France; Délégué Général de l’Institution Ethnographique; Vice-Président du Congrès International des Américanistes; Corresponding Member of the Anthropological Society of Washington, etc.
( Read before the American Philosophical Society, March 20, 1885. )
PHILADELPHIA: Press of McCalla & Stavely, 237-9 Dock Street. 1885.

Verbal forms classified as they indicate the notion of Being:


The foundations of the Philosophy of Language were laid by Wilhelm von Humboldt (b. June 22, 1767, d. April 8, 1835). The principles he advocated have frequently been misunderstood, and some of them have been modified, or even controverted, by more extended research; but a careful survey of the tendencies of modern thought in this field will show that the philosophic scheme of the nature and growth of languages, which he set forth, is gradually reasserting its sway, after having been neglected and denied through the preponderance of the so-called naturalistic school during the last quarter of a century.
The time seems ripe, therefore, to bring the general principles of his philosophy to the knowledge of American scholars, especially as applied by himself to the analysis of American languages.