SOURCE: Brown, Roger Langham. “Humboldt's Conception of Linguistic Relativity.” In Wilhelm von Humboldt's Conception of Linguistic Relativity, pp. 109-20. The Hague: Mouton, 1967.

In the following essay, Brown discusses Humboldt's theory of linguistic relativity, concluding that his ideas provided the motivation for future scholars to study links between language and culture.

It would of course be wrong to suggest that Humboldt was the first to put forward a theory of linguistic relativity, at least if that term is interpreted in a loose way. The idea that there is some relation between national character and the national language had been current for a long time.

A crude comparative viewpoint is found in Harris's work, for example; Harris goes on from a statement that the characters of nations are reflected in the “genius” of their languages to an opinion that foreshadows nineteenth-century theories of comparative typology:

Nations, like single Men, have...