The eighteenth century was a great era for the
collection and publication of useful knowledge. Interest
in exotic countries and peoples was increasing rapidly.
The fruits of this interest, as far as linguistics is con-
cerned, are compilations setting out to describe all the
known languages of the world. One such work is the
Spaniard Lorenzo Hervas' Catalogue, in six volumes
(1800-05). Another is the three-volume Mithridates
(1806-17) by the German A. C. Adelung. A third is the
Comparative Vocabulary of how 285 concepts were
expressed in 200 different languages, which Catherine
of Russia had the German zoologist P. S. Pallas compile
(1786).
These massive collections of material, however, were
to have less influence on the development of linguistics
than their originators had hoped. Of far greater impor-
tance was the theoretical reorientation that was caused
by the close study of one single language, Sanskrit.
Sporadic references to the similarity of Sanskrit and
the European languages can be found at least from
the sixteenth century onwards (e.g., Filippo Sassetti,
1588). But nobody at that time was in a position to
appreciate the importance of that kind of information.
As long as it was believed that languages could be
invented and changed more or less at will, there was
nothing remarkable in any resemblances that could be
found. And, after all, it was commonly assumed that
Hebrew was the common origin of all languages. But
in the eighteenth century the whole Indian peninsula
was subjected to French or English rule. Among the
colonists and administrators there were many people
with a thorough literary, or even linguistic, education.
The literature of India was discovered, and with it the
extent of the similarity between Sanskrit and the Euro-
pean languages.
But more important than the extent of the similarity
was the nature of it. Europeans brought up on the
classical heritage had been used to look upon the com-
plicated inflexional system of Latin and Greek as a sure
sign of superiority. Now the researches of, above all,
Sir William Jones showed that in precisely this respect
Sanskrit left even Greek behind. “The Sanskrit lan-
guage, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful
structure, more perfect than the Greek, more copious
than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than ei-
ther, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity,
both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar,
than could possibly be produced by accident,” wrote
Jones in 1786.
Sanskrit had not only the appeal of the exotic, but
also the fascination of offering to the Europeans an
insight into what they believed to be the glorious youth
of their own civilization. It was for these reasons that
it caught their imagination and attracted brilliant stu-
dents. A combination of these happy circumstances led
to a complete reorientation of linguistic studies.
