ABSTRACT
During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, debates on language in the German territories intensified when they were increasingly linked to questions of linguistic reform. During this time, two fundamentally different perspectives on the subject were established. Emerging from the Enlightenment, we find a way of addressing language focused on its vocabulary as a tool of knowledge, striving for clarity and precision, but also leading to a political critique of ‘false’ or ‘empty’ concepts. At the same time, a very different perspective on language was articulated in terms of its unique character (or ‘genius’), linked to the national spirit of a people. Comparing these two ‘languages’ of linguistic reform, this chapter shows how they differed not just in terms of their outlooks, but above all of their socio-political implications.
