This book is the revised version of a doctoral dissertation submitted in 2010 and reflects the author's education and interests in both philosophy and Assyriology. As the title suggests, Sebastian Fink deals with the principle of linguistic relativity, according to which the structure of a language affects the world view of its speakers: the linguistic analysis concentrates mostly on grammar and lexicon. This idea is strongly linked to names such as Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835) and Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897–1941), and these two thinkers are duly treated in the first part of the book (pp. 18–22 and 23–7, respectively). Other scholars discussed include the classicist and historian of religion Hermann Usener (1834–1905), who claimed that language influences a culture's world view in the names of “special deities” (Sondergötter), i.e. the personifications of specialized activities like harrowing as Occator (‘harrower’) (pp. 38–42). Austrian philosopher and psychologist Adolf Stöhr (1855–1921) discussed the formative principles of terms (Begriffsbildner) in language, and the limits of this process, and is comparable to Rudolf Carnap (1891–1970), who developed “logical syntax” to overcome the limits of the linguistic expressions in philosophical discussions (pp. 43–54 and 55–7). The main philosopher presented in this book (pp. 58–101) is Austrian Friedrich Kainz (1897–1977) who coined the concept of the “seduction of language” (Sprachverführung), whereby any language can lead one to specific forms of thinking and thus can be seen as a linguistic prefiguration of thought. Fink understands this as a way to reformulate the principle of linguistic relativity, namely that the same physical facts lead to different world views, since languages lead their respective speakers in different ways (p. 59). Part I concludes with the classicist Wolfgang Schadewaldt (1900–1974), who in a posthumous essay of 1978 proposed that Greek philosophy could perhaps only have developed on the basis of Greek language (pp. 102–8).
The second part starts with a short introduction to Mesopotamia, the Sumerian language and the lexical lists (pp. 113–38), and then introduces two Assyriologists who have discussed the relationship between language and world-view most intensively, Benno Landsberger (1890–1968) and his faithful student Wolfram von Soden (1908–96); Aage Westenholz is also mentioned (pp. 139–66). The author offers his own understanding of how Sumerian transports a specific world view (pp. 167–86) and concludes with a short survey of some studies on the Sumerian and Akkadian lexicon, especially in the semantic field “knowledge, wisdom” (pp. 190–4). In the conclusion, the author argues that an awareness of the linguistic prefigurations offers insights into aspects of specific world views of different cultures (pp. 195–9).
Sebastian Fink explores a stimulating topic that is rarely discussed today, although every philologist deals with the difficulties of translating not only words, but also the ideas they express. He draws on little-known philosophers such as Stöhr and Kainz, and puts their work in a larger perspective. Two factors, however, limit the value of this book: first, factual shortcomings, especially in the description of Sumerian and in the positioning of B. Landsberger; and second, the concentration on semantics (both of the lexicon and grammatical expressions) with no appropriate consideration of pragmatics.
In a central chapter, philosophical theories are applied to Sumerian. The description of the language, however, does not reflect its standard grammar, so even within the system presented in this book the conclusions are simply wrong. In this system, interrogatives would represent basic categories (p. 167); here only three interrogatives are presented (a-ba “who?”, a-na “what?”, me “where?”), but a-gen7 “how?” and en-na “when?”, etc. are missing (but noted on p.122), as are a-na-aš “why? what for?” or a-na-ta “whence”, etc. The verb is seen simply as representing action (Tätigkeiten, p. 168), a simplification that does not hold true for any language; concerning adjectives, only the few primary adjectives are considered, but not all the nouns and infinite verbal forms that are used as adjectival attributes in a syntactic-semantic sense; for the concept of space in Sumerian, only an article by Maul on the religious perception of the cosmos in the first millennium is cited (p. 169); time is seen as cyclical, since this is the more original (ursprünglich) conception of time (p. 171), etc.
The book focuses on a description of various related philosophical concepts, and this explains why it includes a general introduction to Mesopotamian culture. But why was it then published in a series specializing in studies of the ancient world? The general perspective perhaps explains why the name of Whorf was chosen for the title, although he has played no role in the Assyriological discussion of Landsberger and, following him, von Soden. As this reviewer has shown, by identifying striking parallels in the lines of reasoning and even the choice of certain terms, Landsberger was heavily influenced by Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920) from Leipzig, a founding father of psychology who in a global perspective on the human mind understood language as a collective creation of a culture or, as he called it, a people (W. Sallaberger, “Benno Landsbergers ‘Eigenbegrifflichkeit’ in wissenschaftsgeschichtlicher Perspektive”, in C. Wilcke (ed.), Das geistige Erfassen der Welt im Alten Orient (Wiesbaden, 2007), 63–82; W. Wundt, Völkerpsychologie. Eine Untersuchung der Entwicklungsgesetze von Sprache, Mythos und Sitte. 10 vols (Leipzig, 1900–1920); see G. Jüttemann (ed.), Wilhelm Wundts anderes Erbe: ein Missverständnis löst sich auf (Göttingen, 2006), and there on language especially the article by G. Kegel). Although the author cites the article, this line of reasoning is simply neglected, although regarding the role of Wundt at Leipzig and the revival of studies on Wundt in the last twenty years, this would have been a rewarding theme for the subject studied. As already indicated, the main methodological shortcoming of this book is the concentration on semantics without any discussion or even awareness of pragmatics, the study of the use of language, that after earlier formulations as in the famous organon model by Karl Bühler (Sprachtheorie 1934, its second edition of 1965 was edited by F. Kainz) has started with J. Searle's speech act theory (1969). Therefore, most theories discussed and the main scholarly literature cited date to a period not later than the 1970s, when pragmatics became an established part of linguistics.
