The most comprehensive account of the full range of Leibniz's thought.

Hiob Ludolf (1624-1704) and Johann Michael Wansleben (1635-1679), the master and his erstwhile student could not be more different. Ludolf was a celebrated member of the Republic of Letters and the towering authority on Ethiopian studies. Wansleben, himself a brilliant scholar and, unlike Ludolf, a seasoned traveller in the Middle East, converted to Catholicism and eventually died impoverished and marginalized. Both stood at the centre of the burgeoning study of Ethiopia and spent a formative part of their career in middle sized Duchy of Saxe-Gotha which for several years played a pivotal role in Ethiopian-European encounters. This volume offers in-depth studies of the remarkable life and work of these two scholars in a broader intellectual, political, and confessional context.

Why was Leibniz so fascinated by Chinese philosophy and culture? What specific forms did his interest take? How did his interest compare with the relative indifference of his philosophical contemporaries and near-contemporaries such as Spinoza and Locke? In this highly original book, Franklin Perkins examines Leibniz's voluminous writings on the subject and suggests that his interest was founded in his own philosophy: the nature of his metaphysical and theological views required him to take Chinese thought seriously.

Sámuel Gyarmathi’s Affinitas linguae hungaricae cum linguis fennicae originis grammatice demonstrata (Göttingen 1799) was received as a distinguished work of scholarship in its own days, and its historical importance has been fully recognized ever since. This volume provides an English translation of the entire Latin text, including the Latin glosses of the original (with the exception of zoological and botanical terms, and a few passages where specific reference is made to Latin grammar). This translation includes two additions to the text of Affinitas as reprinted in the Indiana University series: Appendix III, a letter to Gyarmathi by A. L. von Schötzler, and a number of notes in the author’s own hand, found in his copy of the work (now held in the Library of the Lycée of Zalău). The translator’s Preface provides an introduction to the work and an overview of Gyarmathi’s life.

This volume is published in honour of Professor Takamitsu Muraoka on the occasion of his retirement from the Chair of Hebrew, Israelite Antiquities and Ugaritic at Leiden University, a date which coincides with the celebration of his sixty-fifth birthday. The laureate is well known for his expertise in the languages of the Bible and cognate studies and this volume includes contributions covering as far as possible the wide field of his interests. Some of his friends and colleagues from all parts of the world are presenting him with this valuable collection of forty-two articles. They include studies on the Greek of the Septuagint; Hebrew (Biblical and Qumran); Aramaic (Old, Offical and Qumran; Syriac and Neo-Aramaic); Canaanite (Amarna, Ugaritic and Phoenician-Punic); Medieval Jewish exegesis and Karaite studies. M.F.J. Baasten and W.Th. van Peursen, two former students of Muraoka at Leiden, have edited the volume.

This collection contains 24 articles on the history of linguistics written between 1978 and 1988, divided into three parts:1. Methods and Models in Linguistic Historiography 2. Tradition and Transmission of Linguistic Notions 3. Schools and Scholars in the History of LinguisticsThree articles are written in German, two in French and one in Italian. The remaining eighteen articles are in English.

Both Leibniz and Humboldt are scholars in whose work we find a passionate interest in the history and development of languages combined with a strong theoretical commitment. Linking their names to linguistic comparativism draws attention to the contribution these scholars have made to the history of comparativism and also promotes discussion of the relationship of theory and practice in linguistic research in more general terms. In September 1986, a conference on Leibniz, Humboldt and the Origins of Comparativism' was held in Rome. The papers included in this volume are revised versions of the papers presented at the conference.

How did early modern scholars—as exemplified by Leibniz—search 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 language—etymology, vocabulary, and even grammatical structure—for 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 to China, whose itinerary would take them through the nations from whom Leibniz wanted language samples. Drawing on Leibniz's extensive correspondence with the members of this network, Carhart gives us access to the philosopher's scintillating discussions about astronomy and mapping; ethnology and missionary work; the contest of the Asiatic empires of Muscovy, Persia, the Ottoman, and China for control of the Caucasus, the steppes, and the Far East; and above all, language, as the best indicator of the prehistoric genealogy of the myriad peoples from Central Asia to Western Europe. Placing comparative linguistics within Leibniz's intellectual program, this book offers extensive insight into how Leibniz built his early modern scholarly network, the network's functionality within the international Republic of Letters, and its limitations. We see the scholar, isolated and lonely in little Hanover, with his hands on knowledge trickling in from scientific centers across Europe and around the world. By the end of 1697—the year his network finally began to work—Leibniz laughed to one of his patrons, "I'm putting a sign on my door reading, 'Bureau of Address for China'!" Depicting Leibniz not as a philosophical authority but as a scholar with human limitations and frustrations, Leibniz Discovers Asia is a thrilling and engaging narrative.

The Pretended Asian also traces Psalmanazar's later career as a Grub Street hack writer and how his lifelong refusal to reveal his real identity - even after Europeans stopped believing he was a native of Formosa - may have rendered Psalmanazar a permanent outsider."--BOOK JACKET.