By One of the Founders of the Modern Sceince of Language
Vejledning til det Islandske eller gamle Nordiske Sprog.
Copenhagen: Printed for Schuboth by J. R. Thiele, 1811.
First edition. Octavo (6 11/16 x 4 1/16 inches; 170 x 140 mm). LVI, 282, [6] pp.
Contemporary half brown roan over marbled boards, beige morocco gilt lettering label. Text lightly browned throughout due to the qulity of the paper, upper corner of front endpaper cut away, slight loss to head and tale of spine. A very good copy.
“The ‘Guide to the Icelandic or old Nordic Language’ was the first of an important series of publications which qualify Rask as one of the founders of the modern science of language... The interest that his writings aroused in the ancient Scandanavian Tongues directed attention to their literature, He was the first to study the ancient Nordic languages systematically. He disovered the correspondence of the consonant relations between the Indo-European languages, which led Jacob Grimm to formulate the rules underlying the Germanic as well as the the first complete texts of the eddas of Snorri and Saemund and added modernised versions. During his journeys to Russia and Persia he collected valuable Avesta and Pali manuscripts which he gave to the Royal Library in Copenhagen of which he was the librarian, and thereby promoted the study of the Asian branches of the Indo-European family fo languages” (Printing and the Mind of Man).
Printing and the Mind of Man 266.
HBS 65357.
$1,750.
Price: $1,750.00
Item #65357