# 295: The Grimms’ Dictionary
Story behind the Passage
Yesterday, I watched a lecture online. The speaker, a philosopher, quoted several times from Grimms’ Dictionary. That made me remember that I had wanted to check on the online version of it for a long time. You know, when you write a lot in English, the Grimm’s Dictionary (dt. “Grimmsches Wörterbuch”) is not of much help because translating does not make much sense if you want to deeply explore the roots of a term in German. It only works if you really pay attention to the words the authors chose to define that very term.
I do not know if philosophers are the primary users of the Grimms’ Dictionary in the academy. I have not studied philosophy (yet) but it sounds very reasonable that they count among the most frequent users . After all, this is all that philosophy is about — getting to the root of things. And that root is usually hidden behind language. Or let me put it the other way around: If you are really into language and trying to find out about the original meaning of terms, you quickly end up doing philosophy. The wisdom, not only ‘knowledge,’ conveyed by words tells you all about humanity — at least, as far as we can “express “ it.
So, I decided to not only check the online version of the dictionary, which is pretty cool and I can get lost in it (Wörterbuchnetz (woerterbuchnetz.de)), I also grabbed my book about the Grimms to learn more about the history of the work. I have to admit that I have not read the entire anthology about them but I did read the chapter about the dictionary. I have no idea how one or actually two people can be so crazy as to start such a project but maybe I am just too impatient for such a thing. In any case, I am really glad they at least started the project and other people completed it and finally also digitalized it.
My Learnings
“Sie entfaltet sich aus einem inneren, geheimnisreichen, nur in seiner geschichtlichen Erscheinung zu erfassenden Trieb, aus einer Naturnotwendigkeit….“ / “It [language] unfolds from an inner, mysterious, urge that can only be understood in its historical manifestation, from a necessity of nature.“ This statement about the organic creation of language reads like the description of some plant or other natural phenomenon. But it is so true. It is very simple: If you trace how language changes, you trace how society develops. And we do not change language constantly in the sense that we wake up and say “hey, let’s create a new word”! No, we adapt language and expand it because we have to in order to make ourselves understood and to give meaning to the world around us.
That is, of course, the primary challenge about language. It is not only about beauty, it is about running states and communicating among human beings in daily life that we have to use words. And we refine them in order to be less vague and ambiguous; to make things clearer. Even though we know that we can never fully achieve it, at least I believe this because whatever is in our head cannot be depicted with words, we can get closer to this aim. And when virtually opening up a dictionary like the one of the Grimms, you start a journey to the past that will ultimately explain a lot about your own present.
For me, it is quite fascinating to retrospectively trace my own fascination with words. When learning languages, I am not a logical learner but an auditive one. So, in that sense, words with common roots have no huge significance at first until I start thinking about them in detail. In order to just use them to communicate, that kind of thinking is not necessary. When this analytical aspect kicks in, however, it becomes quite fascinating to consult dictionaries.
I remember that I started all my papers with a definition chapter. This is what you learn in university, particularly in the social sciences, but I got a kick out of this. Even though I had only wanted to start with that part, I usually ended up being able to write 10 pages or more just about this one term and the way I read the definitions of it. After all, this is what scholarship is mostly about, at least originally. Getting to the roots of things and seeing things and words differently than anybody else has ever done. Most of the time, this is an illusion, i.e., other people somewhere in the world are seeing what you are seeing. But it is still motivating and a very thrilling feeling if you think that you are really making a new discovery.
Maybe that connects me with the Grimms somehow. Again, I do not know much about them but they were story lovers. Grimms’ Fairy Tales counts as one of the most famous books of world literature (hopefully it still does). The Grimms placed huge emphasis on tales as keys to deciphering, studying, and preserving national culture. Maybe this is something that I inherited from this tradition, just like their innovative drive. I just really wonder what will happen to the next generations and to all the knowledge and words that we are spreading on the internet. There will be no repository, no collection, no overview in structured manner. Maybe everything will just die at one blow after some technological Covid super virus has swept the world and then we go back to the 19th century because that was when we still had all the relevant knowledge of humankind on paper…
Reflection Questions
1) What is your favorite fairy tale collected by the Grimm brothers?
2) Do you think that language can be developed strategically? Which examples can you think of?
3) How do you best learn foreign languages?