ABSTRACT
The career of Leo Weisgerber raises many interesting issues and problems. Some of these concern what might be termed the internal history of twentieth century linguistics, the development of synchronic linguistics, the rise of semantics as part of linguistics, the reception of Saussurean structuralism within Germany, the movement known as neo-Humboldtian 1 linguistics, etc. But Weisgerber’s career also belongs to the history of German intellectuals in the Weimar Republic, the Nazi era and the post-war Federal Republic. Weisgerber saw military service in the First World War, and later wrote that the war marked a decisive boundary between an apparently secure world and one of socio-economic, but above all, ‘spiritual’ uncertainty (Weisgerber 1935b: 7). Language is a force that can rescue the German Volk in times of crisis (1935b: 57–8). The linguist is the guardian of the language, and the language is the bearer of all the experiences and wisdom of the people. The language represents the triumph of particularistic national culture over the categories of nature, and its continuity guarantees that the unity of the people can be preserved over the limitations of time and space.
