Wilhelm von Humboldt was a Prussian philosopher, diplomat and linguist whose comparative studies of language structure made him a foundational figure in the philosophy of language and general linguistics. Alongside a career as a statesman that included founding the university in Berlin that today bears his name, Humboldt studied an unusually wide range of languages, including Basque and the Kawi language of Java, and argued that a language's grammatical structure shapes the worldview and thought patterns of the people who speak it, an idea that anticipated the twentieth-century linguistic relativity hypothesis later associated with Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf. His posthumously published study of the Kawi language, prefaced by his extended essay on human language structure and its influence on the intellectual development of humankind, distinguished languages by their grammatical typology and argued that language should be understood as a continuous creative activity rather than a fixed, finished product. Humboldt's conception of language as bound up with a people's intellectual and cultural character strongly influenced the later development of comparative and theoretical linguistics in Germany and beyond.
Facts
Birth YearSourced to the subject's own account Birth DateSourced to the subject's own account Death DateSourced to the subject's own account Death YearSourced to the subject's own account FieldSourced to the subject's own account Death PlaceSourced to the subject's own accountTegel, Province of Brandenburg 1 NationalitySourced to the subject's own account Notable WorkSourced to the subject's own accountFounding the education model used at the University of Berlin and shaping comparative linguistics through his work on the philosophy of language 1 BirthplaceSourced to the subject's own accountPotsdam, Margraviate of Brandenburg 1 In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Wilhelm von Humboldt (Wikipedia)
WikipediaLead paragraph, sentence 1 (birth date)
Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt (22 June 1767 - 8 April 1835) was a Prussian philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin.
Lead paragraph, sentence 1 (birth year)
Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt (22 June 1767 - 8 April 1835) was a Prussian philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin.
Lead paragraph, sentence 1 (death date)
Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt (22 June 1767 - 8 April 1835) was a Prussian philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin.
Lead paragraph, sentence 1 (death year)
Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt (22 June 1767 - 8 April 1835) was a Prussian philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin.
Biography section, sentence 1
Humboldt was born in Potsdam, Margraviate of Brandenburg, and died in Tegel, Province of Brandenburg.
Biography section, sentence 1 (death place)
Humboldt was born in Potsdam, Margraviate of Brandenburg, and died in Tegel, Province of Brandenburg.
Lead paragraph, sentence 1 (nationality)
Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt (22 June 1767 - 8 April 1835) was a Prussian philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin.
Lead paragraph, sentence 2
He was a linguist who made contributions to the philosophy of language, ethnolinguistics, and to the theory and practice of education.
Lead paragraph, sentence 2 (contributions)
In particular, he was the architect of the Humboldtian education ideal, which was used from the beginning in Prussia as a model for its system of public education, as well as in the United States and Japan.
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