Our Notes & References

First edition of this early study and comparison of the Turkic, Mongolian and, innovatively, Finno-Ugric languages. The first introduction to the Ural-Altaic hypothesis, by “a pioneer of German Finno-Ugristics” (Hasselblatt).

Scarce on the market, with no copies traced at auction in recent decades.

Wilhelm Schott (1802–89) was a leading German orientalist, Sinologist, and Finno-Ugric scholar, “one of the most important linguists of the 19th century, [… he] established a sinological research tradition at the University of Berlin, which included the Chinese ‘colonial languages’ as well as the Altaic languages” (Walravens, our translation here and below). A polyglot with wide-ranging interests, he was also a scholar and advocate of Finnish and Estonian literature, the latter then largely unknown in Germany. His later Chinesische Sprachlehre (1857) became the standard textbook on the Chinese language for many years.

Schott is “considered one of the fathers of the Altaic theory which postulates a relationship between the Finno-Ugric, Turkic, Mongolian, and Tungusic languages” (Walravens), and the present work appears to be one of the earliest systematic attempts to examine these languages in comparison to one another. He explores the nature “of the so-called Tatar languages” (preface) and offers more precise definitions of the various language groups. He more commonly uses the term “High Asiatic”, referring to the languages of high-mountain Asia, including those of Ostyaks, Voguls, and Samoyeds, which he considers in need of further research.

The text focuses principally on Turkic, Mongolian and Tungusic/Manchu, with substantial references to Finnic and Hungarian. Schott compares their vocabulary, grammatical structures, pronouns, and verbs among other linguistic features. The philological discussions are often joined by anthropological observations on the physical resemblance between different tribes and ethnic groups, and passages on their history and origins, based on a range of documented sources, principally Chinese.

Provenance

Library of the teaching department for oriental languages of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (of Imperial Russia; pre-revolutionary stamp to title and shelf-label to title verso).

Bibliography

Hasselblatt, Cornelius. “Wilhelm Schott als Wegbereiter der deutschen Finnougristik”. FUF 62, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, 2014, pp. 77–183.

Walravens, Hartmut for Neue Deutsche Biographie, vol. 23, 2003, p. 497-8.