Editorial Comment: K. A. F.

Mahn
Author(s): Y.M.
Source: Romance Philology, Vol. 26, No. 1, SILVER ANNIVERSARY ISSUES, PART I:
PERCIVAL B. FAY MEMORIAL (August 1972), p. 67
Published by: Brepols; University of California Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44940647
Accessed: 21-12-2019 12:05 UTC

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

Brepols, University of California Press are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve
and extend access to Romance Philology

This content downloaded from 51.15.49.134 on Sat, 21 Dec 2019 12:05:01 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Notes 67

Médicis et
compose
Le traité
entrevoir
dot l'état
l'attentio
pourtant
reflète da
Henri II e
XVIe siècle. [Marcel Françon, Harvard University ]

Editorial Comment : K. A. F. Mahn

Among those almost completely forgotten pioneers of Romance linguistics and phil
deserve a close second look before they are definitely entombed, is Mahn, who, as was c
in his time, not unlike Bopp and Pott lived a very long life (1802-87) and, in fact, ro
minence rather slowly. He is perhaps best remembered for his - by and large - s
editions of Old Provençal texts and certain satellite studies providing tools for textual c
Gedichte der Troubadours in provenzalischer Sprache. . , 4 vols. (Berlin, 1856-73); Die
Troubadours , mit einer Grammatik und einem Wörterbuche (1846-82); Über die epische
Provenzalen , besonders über die beiden vorzüglichsten Epen " Jaufre " und " Girartz de
(B., 1874); Die epische Poesie.., I: Einleitung , " Girartz de Rossilho " (B., 1883-86; 3 fase.);
Die Biographien der Troubadours in provenzalischer Sprache (B., 18782); Grammatik und Wörter-
buch der altprovenzalischen Sprache , I : Lautlehre und Wortbiegungslehre (Kothen, 1885) - an item
which I regret to have overlooked in my "Tentative Typology of Romance Historical Grammars"
(1960, rev. 1968).
But if all this production conveys the image of an old-style "pure Provençalist" - a type
exemplified in our own century by C. Appel, A. Kolsen, E. Levy, and K. Lewent - other biblio-
graphic items tend to correct this impression. It is presumably safe to disregard certain didactic
ventures like the Lehrbuch der lateinischen Sprache (B., 1832), for which M. found no commercial
publisher. More interesting are his pamphlet-sized onomastic experiments: Etymologische
Untersuchungen über geographische Namen (B., 1856) and Über den Ursprung und die Bedeutung
des Namens " Germanen " (B., 1864). A power of synthesis is perceptible in his 1863 lecture,
delivered in Meissen (Saxony) and later published by F. Dümmler in Berlin : Über die Entstehung ,
Bedeutung , Zwecke und Ziele der romanischen Philologie , a forerunner of similar programmatic
statements by A. Tobler and W. Meyer-Lübke, which I discuss at length in CTL, IX (in press).
But Mahn's curiosity transcended Latin and Romance. In the wake of Humboldt he delved into
Euskaric studies ( Denkmäler der baskischen Sprache , mit einer Einleitung . . . [B., 1857]; one of the
200 copies printed is in the New York Public Library). Above all, he became, in our field, the
first who cultivated etymology for its own sake, ahead of Schuchardt, Thomas, and Jud ; witness
the 24 "specimens" of his highly concentrated Etymologische Untersuchungen . . . (B., 1855),
important for the comparati vist and, in particular, for the Hispanist.
There is one more reason for remembering Mahn in the English-speaking world. Ida Farnell's
translation of one of his books, The Lives of the Troubadours , appeared in London (1896), as a
300-page volume. Also, if his erudition made him the logical choice for revising a Fremdwörterbuch
in his own country, namely the 12th ed. (Hanover, 1859) of I.C.A. [and K.W.L.] Heyse's elaborate
compilation, then one may lend some credence to the rumor that it was he who was charged with
the revision of etymologies in one of the lexicographic reference works deriving from Noah
Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language (1828). Though I cannot check on this
fact, my guess is that the particular piece that benefited from Mahn's attention was the first
Unabridged. ., ed. Noah Porter (1864) - a date that coincides with the peak of Mahn's activities
on the Continent. In those days it was, of course, customary, in England and in North America, to
appeal for help to German experts in "philology" - even the 1902 ed. of the Encyclopaedia
Britannica splits the entry "Philology" between W. D. Whitney (XVIII, 765-780) and Eduard
Sievers (781-790) - but if my conjecture is accurate, Mahn's share in the Webster dictionary
could very well be the earliest bridge between American scholarship and Central European
"Romanistik". [Y.M.

This content downloaded from 51.15.49.134 on Sat, 21 Dec 2019 12:05:01 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms