Saussure by Joseph John E.;

Author:Joseph, John E.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2012-04-13T04:00:00+00:00

PRO AND CONTRA WHITNEY

Three members of the American Oriental Society attended the Geneva Congress, including its vice-president, C. Howell Toy.20 Their presence helps to explain why, on 10 November 1894, Saussure received a letter from Herbert Weir Smith of Bryn Mawr College, the secretary of the American Philological Association, inviting him to contribute a paper for the Whitney Memorial Meeting scheduled for 28 December at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. It would be a joint meeting of Orientalists and philologists, together with the Modern Language Association and four other related organizations.21 Whitney had been the first president of the American Philological Association when it split off from the American Oriental Society in 1869,22 three years after the Société de Linguistique de Paris had undertaken a comparable split from the Société Asiatique.

An initial invitation to take part was likely made to Saussure by the Americans at the Congress of Orientalists when he told them of his great appreciation of Whitney’s work. Teaching and family obligations ruled out his sailing over, but he could send a paper to be read out at the meeting and published in the planned memorial volume.

Toy needed approval for Saussure’s participation from Charles Rockwell Lanman, Whitney’s protégé, who was organizing the Memorial Meeting—hence the formal letter of invitation, dated 29 October. To Saussure’s surprise, it asked specifically for an assessment of Whitney as a comparative philologist. Saussure was by no means the obvious choice to provide this. His one notable work in comparative philology had appeared fifteen years before and had scarcely mentioned Whitney, nor had any of his other published pieces engaged significantly with Whitney’s work. Their one brief meeting had not led to sustained correspondence.

Moreover, Saussure did not consider Whitney a comparative philologist.23 Saussure had probably begun sketching out his paper before receiving the letter, leaving him in an awkward situation.24 He could start over and try to fulfil the brief, or he could pursue his original idea and explain as politely as possible to the American learned societies why, if they considered Whitney a comparative philologist, they did not really understand their greatest figure.

Saussure’s notes show that he attempted the latter—but time was short. His teaching included three courses rather than the usual two, and each was taking him in a new direction, requiring much preparation. He continued dividing his teaching between Sanskrit on the one hand and the classical languages on the other. Instead of elementary Sanskrit he was giving a more advanced course called Readings of Vedic Hymns, and he was putting Latin aside in favour of a course on Greek declension and another, quite new, on archaic Greek inscriptions.

Three year-long courses—for a grand total of three students. Tojetti was the only one to take all the courses Saussure offered in 1894–5. The decision to focus on Greek was determined by Tojetti’s particular interests. A German student joined him for archaic Greek inscriptions, and a Bulgarian for Sanskrit, possibly just for one of the two semesters. Tojetti alone was enrolled in the Greek declension course.

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