Description
Book SynopsisHow did early modern scholarsas exemplified by Leibnizsearch for their origins in the study of language?Who are the nations of Europe, and where did they come from? Early modern people were as curious about their origins as we are today. Lacking twenty-first-century DNA research, seventeenth-century scholars turned to languageetymology, vocabulary, and even grammatical structurefor evidence. The hope was that, in puzzling out the relationships between languages, the relationships between nations themselves would emerge, and on that basis one could determine the ancestral homeland of the nations that presently occupied Europe. In Leibniz Discovers Asia, Michael C. Carhart explores this early modern practice by focusing on philosopher, scientist, and mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who developed a vast network of scholars and missionaries throughout Europe to acquire the linguistic data he needed. The success of his project was tied to the Jesuit search for an overland route t
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations
Conventions
1. Grimaldi at the Gates of Muscovy (Fall 1689)
2. Making the Worst of a Bad Assignment: Origines Guelficae and the Linguistic Project (Autumn 1690-Summer 1692)
3. Building the Network (Winter 1691-Summer 1692)
4. The Jesuit Search for an Overland Route to China (1685-1689)
5. Seeking the Languages of Grand Tartary (August 1693-December 1694)
6. Assembling Novissima Sinica (February-September 1695)
7. Johan Gabriel Sparwenfeld and Gothic Origins (November 1695-December 1697)
8. The Grand Embassy of Peter the Great (Summer-Fall 1697)
9. The Jesuits of Paris and China (1689, November 1697-March 1698)
10. The Foundations of Modern Historical Linguistics (1697-1716)
Acknowledgments
Appendix I. "Desiderata circa linguas quorundam populorum"
Appendix II. Plan for a Moscow Academy of Sciences and Arts
Notes
Bibliography
Index of Letters
General Index
