Uber die Kawi-Sprache auf der Insel Java, nebst einer Einleitung uber die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluss auf die geistige Entwickelung des Menschengeschlechts

Berlin: Koniglichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1836. First edition, 3 volumes, 4to, 11 lithograph plates (each an alphabetical specimen) of which 10 are folding and 1 printed in red and black, 17 folding tables in pagination, handsome set in half vellum over marbled boards, morocco labels on spines; some light foxing, lower margins of several leave in vol. I slightly waterstained, else very good. Includes a printed slip (in French) from "Alexandre de Humboldt" presenting "les trois volumes" on behalf of his deceased brother. Humboldt (1767-1835), the founder of the University of Berlin who showed the philological commonality of Spain with the north of Africa, was the older brother of the more celebrated Alexander von Humboldt. Published posthumously, this is his linguistic masterpiece and inarguably one of the most important books in that broad subject known as Philology. Its subject is the ancient Kwai language of Java, and it incorporates the first issue of his remarkable essay "Uber die Verschiedenheit des Menschlischen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluss auf geistige Entwickelung des Menschengeschlechts" (The Heterogeneity of Human Language and its Influence on the Intellectual Development of Mankind), which was also published separately later the same year. "Eventually, he turned to the study of the ancient Kawi language of Java. The work remained only a fragment when Humboldt died; but he had completed a lengthy foreword on The Heterogeneity of Language ... (Uber die Verschiedenheit...) which was edited by his younger brother ... the great traveler and naturalist, and Dr. Buschmann, and published posthumously ... In the words of A.H. Sayce, a great philologist of our own day: "This essay first clearly laid down that the character and structure of a language expresses the inner life and knowledge of the speakers, and that languages must differ from one another in the same way and to the same degree as those who use them" [PMM]. Graesse III, 390; Printing and the Mind of Man, 301.