Vol. 10:1/2 (1983) ► pp.63–76
Alfred Tonnellé Als Übersetzer und Interpret Wilhelm Von Humboldts
Ein Beitrag Zur Erforschung Der Frühen Humboldt-Rezeption in Frankreich
In view of the reception of Wilhelm von Humboldt’s linguistic writings in 19th-century France, it seems appropriate to draw attention to Alfred Tonnelle (1831–58), who translated Humboldt’s Über das Entstehen der grammatischen Formen (1822) into French, and prepared what he called an analyse of Humboldt’s Über die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues (1836). Both texts were published posthumously in 1859 and appear to be little known among historiographers of linguistics. In spite of its tentative character (it was not originally intended for publication), Tonnellé’s Entstehen translation can be said to meet the major requirement for translations as it was set by Humboldt himself (einfache Treue). Unlike Schasler (1847), Gaudefroy-Demombynes (1931) and Valverde (1955), Tonnellé’s analyse of Über die Verschiedenheit is not a critical study of the text, but rather a short summary of the most important ideas put forward by Humboldt; it consists in fact of occasional commentaries, literal translations of selected paragraphs, and summarizing passages.
Article language: German
https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.10.1-2.05kal