The Genius of Language
GA 299
26 December 1919, Stuttgart
Language from an Historical Standpoint
Some of our friends have asked me to speak about language while I am here in Stuttgart. At such short notice and with our limited time, this will have to be rather sketchy, certainly more so than with our scientific course. And you will have to have even more forbearance than you did for my remarks on “light,” because what I say about language will simply be improvised. All I can do is to give you a few useful suggestions for your teaching here in the Waldorf School and also for teaching in general.
Perhaps we can find what we're after by first looking at some elements of language from an historical standpoint. Whatever I can bring together somewhat loosely today will be an introduction to further discussion during the rest of the time.
We can see especially in German how the development of a people’s language expresses also the development of its soul life. We must keep clearly in mind, however, that the relationship of individuals to their own language varies from century to century. The further we go back in the history of a people, the more life we find in everything pertaining to language, within the forces of the human soul as well as in the pliant forces of the human body. I have often been aware of this; you will find as you go through my books a quite conscious attempt to use terms of Germanic derivation, even in philosophical matters.1In German, we find two words for many things, as in English: will and testament, send and transmit, etc., one Germanic (Anglo-Saxon), the other Greco-Latin. In academic writing, the latter is usually preferred. This is frowned upon by many of my detractors, who condemn exactly what has been done very consciously with languages in my books. It is extremely difficult nowadays to find in German the inner, living forces able to continue forming the language. It is particularly difficult to find semantic correspondences by picking up some little-used word or extending the forms of a common one, as for instance I tried to do with the word kraften [The German noun Kraft ‘force, strength’ has only its corresponding adjective kraftig ‘strong, robust’. Rudolf Steiner invented the corresponding verb kraften ‘to work actively, forcefully’ and the verbal noun das Kraften ‘actively working force or strength’.] I tried with this to put action into what is usually expressed more passively. Other words I have also attempted, but—only one century since Goethe—it is already difficult to coin the far-reaching new words that will express precisely what we are trying to incorporate into our age as a new kind of thinking. We can hardly remember that the word Bildung ‘education, training, formation’ goes back no further than the time of Goethe (1749–1832). Before that, there existed no educated (gebildete) people in Germany. That is, we did not speak of someone as ein gebildeter Mensch ‘a person of culture, well-educated’. Even in the second half of the eighteenth century the German language had still kept a strong, sculptural vitality, so that it was possible to form such words as Bildung or even Weltanschauung ‘world view’, a term that also appeared after Goethe’s time. One is indeed very fortunate to live in a language milieu that permits such new formations. This good fortune is evident when one’s books are translated into French, English, and other languages and one hears about the difficulties. Translators are working by the sweat of their brow as best they can, but always, when a person finishes something, another finds it horrible and no one else finds it any good. When you go into the matter more closely, it's clear that many things in my books simply can't be said in the same way in another language. I tell people: In German everything and anything is right; you can put the subject first or in the middle or at the end of the sentence—it will be more or less correct. The pedantic, dogmatic rule that something absolutely can't be said in a certain way does not yet exist in German as it does in the western languages. Imagine what we have come to when we're limited to stereotyped expressions! People cannot yet think as individuals but only in a sort of group spirit about the things they want to communicate to others. That is pre-eminently the case with the people of the western civilizations: They think in stereotyped phrases.
Actually, the German language in particular shows that what I would like to call the GENIUS OF LANGUAGE has gradually become rigid, and that German in our time is also approaching the state where we can't escape the stereotyped phrases. This was not so in Goethe’s time and even less so in earlier ages. It is part of the picture of the whole language development in Central Europe.
Not so long ago this Central Europe, stretching far to the East, was still inhabited by a primitive people with great spiritual gifts but with a relatively simple outward culture, one that evolved substantially from trade and the economic life. Then roundabout, by way of the East Germanic tribes at first, much of the spiritual culture of Greece was absorbed. Through this, a great many Greek words entered the Germanic languages of Central Europe that later became modern German. During the centuries when Christianity spread from the South to the North, its concepts, ideas, and images brought along an enormous quantity of vocabulary, because the Germanic tribes had no available expressions in their own languages for such things.
The word segnen ‘to bless’, for instance, is one of the words that came with Christianity. The specific concept of “blessing” did not exist in northern Germanic heathendom. There were indeed magic charms and they contained a magic power, but this was not of the same nature as a blessing. Segnen, the verb from the noun Segen, was taken into the language under the influence of Christianity; the word brought northward was signum, a ‘sign’. Do observe what the genius of language still possessed at that time: language-forming strength! Nowadays we are no longer able to reconstruct and rework an adopted word in such a way that signum could become Segen, a blessing. We would treat the adopted word as an unchanged import, because the force and vitality that once transformed and created from the innermost depths simply do not well up any more.
Many words we take as completely German are in fact intruders; they appeared with Christianity. Look at the word predigen ‘preach’. It is none other than the Latin praedicare, which also means ‘to preach’. It was still possible to reconstruct this word from inside out. We never had a genuinely German word for this Christian activity of preaching. You see, if we want to get to know the actual force in German that transforms the language, we must first pour it through a sieve to sift out everything that entered our Central European culture from other cultural streams. In many of our words you will hardly notice it. You speak about the Christmas festival, feeling a strong attachment to it. Weihnacht ‘Holy Night, Christmas’ is a genuine German word, but Fest festival’ is Roman, a Latin word that long ago became a German word. Fest goes back to the time when, along with Christianity, the most foreign elements found their way into the language, but at the same time were so transformed that we do not have at all the feeling today that they are imports. Who in the world remembers now that verdammen ‘condemn, damn’ is a Latin word that has become good German? We have to sift a great deal if we want to get to what is really the German language proper.
Many things came in with Christianity; others have entered because out of Christianity the whole system of education developed. The subject matter for educating was taken over in exactly the form it had in the South in the Greco-Latin culture. And there were no Germanic words for what had to be communicated. Along with the concepts, the vocabulary had to be imported. This happened first in the “Latin school” (high school), then it moved down into the lower school, and so today the basis of our education, the Schule ‘school’, itself is an imported word. Schule is no more a German word than scholasticism. Klasse ‘class’ is obviously a foreign word. Wherever you look: Tafel ‘blackboard’; cognate, table from tabula, schreiben ‘to write’; cognate, scribe are imports. Everything pertaining to school entered our language from outside; it came—with education itself—with Latin or the Romance languages from the South.
All this is one stratum that we have to sift off if we want to study the character of the German language proper. Almost all the specifically foreign words must be lifted off, because they do not express what comes out of the German folk soul but have been poured over its real being, forming a kind of varnish on its surface. We have to look for what lies underneath the surface. For instance, if we look beneath the varnish for things pertaining to education; we find relatively little, but that much is distinctive: Lehrer ‘teacher’, for one, a genuinely original German word, as is the word Buchstabe ‘letter of the alphabet'—Buch ‘book’ is derived from it. It takes us back to the staves or sticks thrown down in ancient times to form the letters or runes that made up the runic words. They were beechwood sticks (Buche = ‘beech’). From this then came the zusammenlesen ‘gathering together’, from which comes lesen ‘to pick up’, as well as ‘to read’ and then the Leser ‘reader’, which became Lehrer ‘teacher’. These are ancient Germanic formulations, but you see that they have a totally different character, leading us back everywhere to the soul life of that time in Central Europe. The old heathen ways and the Christian ways collided, and with them the two elements of language, the northern and the southern. You can imagine what a strong power of interpenetration must have existed within the German language during the first millennium after the Mystery of Golgotha, that it could accept Christianity as strongly as it did and be at the same time able to accept the words that expressed the most essential mysteries of Christianity.
With this import, however, only one layer has been described, leading us back into the very early times connected with the great Germanic migrations, when the first Romance language stratum worked its way into the German language. Later the Romance languages were again to exert their influence. We can observe a second stratum originating from the Romance languages through various occurrences but this time coming from the West. Beginning in the twelfth century and continuing into the eighteenth, French words were taken over continually, French words for which there existed concepts and feelings, but by means of which the concepts and feelings were also modified. I have jotted down a number of these words but cannot claim any sort of completeness, for these lectures are being improvised from memory. I have tried to take words that seem truly German: for instance, the word fein ‘fine’. You won't find this word before the twelfth century; it came by way of fin from the French. Here you can see how the language-forming power in the thirteenth century was still strong enough to transform a word so well that it is felt today to be a genuine German word. Even a word like Kumpan ‘fellow, companion’, which has become very popular, is only an adaptation of compagnon, and a word we often hear nowadays, Partei ‘political party’ also immigrated at that time, as well as Tanz ‘dance’. All these words have been in the German language only since the second invasion of the twelfth century, which I would like to call French: Schach ‘chess’, Matt ‘checkmate’, Karte ‘card’, Ass ‘ace’, kaputt ‘broken’, and so forth. It is quite remarkable how many words came into Germany from the West, from France, during the twelfth and through the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, all of them contributing to the language an element of lightness, of easiness, where the German had a more ponderous quality. Before this time what had been spoken in German areas had a fuller, more rounded character. In it one couldn't very well have expressed playfulness. It would have been quite easy to say, Du bist ein kühner Held “You are a bold hero'—the German language could have managed that—but not, Du bist ein feiner Kerl 'You're a fine fellow’. That could not have been said earlier, for one needed the word fein. Other things would have been just as impossible without the invasion of the French elements.
From Italy, remarkably little reached the more northern areas until, at the time of the Renaissance, some words relating to music came; that was all. However, a third kind of invasion, though not so pervasive, came later by way of a detour through southern Germany and Austria, bringing such words as bizarr ‘odd, eccentric’, lila ‘purple’, [obviously related to lilac] which had not existed earlier in German, Neger ‘negro’, Tomate ‘tomato’, all imported from Spain. Now the introduction of foreign elements enters a new phase; it is obvious that the genius of language is no longer as flexible as it had been. These later words are much more similar to their originals. And finally, when the Germans reached the stage of admitting English words, things had become most unfavorable; this was actually not until the late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. Words came into the language that related mostly to outer affairs, but they remained practically the same as in English. The German language genius had by then lost its capacity to adapt and completely absorb into itself something new.
I have tried to point out how in early times the ability to accept and transform language was extraordinarily strong, especially within the Germanic languages and early German. Take, for instance, (and I want to emphasize this in particular) a word that is so German that even a person very sensitive to dialects can really not doubt its authenticity: Riegelwand for Fachwerkwand ‘half-timbered wall’. Riegel ... truly German, as the tongue tastes and pronounces it! And yet this word was not part of the German language until the time when Latin-Italian trained architects used the kind of materials that could construct the Riegelwände. Who is aware today that this word Riegel, so typically German, is nothing other than Regel, regula Latin: ‘rule’. We would not be capable of such changes in our present language. We also think Keller ‘cellar’ is an original German word, but no! It is nothing but an adapted loan-word from the Latin cellarium. I can give you another totally German-looking word to show you how difficult it would have been if people had begun to weed out and eliminate all the foreign words, as certain movements some time ago wanted to do. If that had happened, Riegel would have fallen by the wayside, Keller would have fallen—but do you know what other word would have had to go? Schuster ‘shoemaker’! As a matter of fact, Schuster came into the German language because people from the South taught the Germans to sew their foot-coverings instead of tying them together. The Latin sutor (cf. English: suture) refers to the sewing of footwear and has been assimilated into Schuster; an all-out foreign word.
You can see from this that we really have to sift vigorously to arrive at words of true German origin. We can not just accept what is floating nowadays on the surface of language, for this follows totally different laws. When we want to go back to the true speech-creating forces out of the genius of language, we must first of all sift off what is extraneous. The forming of language takes its course in a peculiar sort of way. You can see this very well by observing how things can still be introduced into a language—I would like to call it, through a certain kind of tyranny, from the bottom up—even when the language-forming genius no longer possesses its full strength. Not so many years ago, for instance, the following took place in Central Europe. Close to Raab there is a small town called Kocsi [now Kocs in Hungary]. I believe it was in the sixteenth century that an inventive fellow in this small place near Raab got the idea of building practical wagons that became very popular for people to drive and ride in. They made the little town well known. And just as Frankfurt sausages are known as ‘frankfurters’, these wagons were called kocsi. Just think how much carrying force was alive in this word, which grew into Kutsche ‘coach’; it traveled to France and even reached the proud English! Yet this word is not especially old; it has moved in relatively recent times with a certain dynamic power in all directions from the wagonmaker in Kocs.
So let us understand this clearly: When we deal with a language already formed, we must remove many outer layers in order to reach the kernel proper. If we do reach this innermost part, we have to say: This kernel shows us without a doubt that it could develop with inner, language-forming strength only at the time when thoughts were much deeper and more substantive than they are, for instance, in German culture today. For this to happen, thoughts must be much more inherent in the whole human being. At the present time we can no longer feel that the force we perceive in our thoughts is also present in our words.
Sometimes we feel this force when we go back to the dialects that are to be found at a deeper, earlier stage of the language. At present, to express quickness we say Blitz ‘lightning’. In certain southern German dialects the word is still Himmlizer. When you say that, you have the whole Blitzform ‘shape of the lightning’ in it: [Himmel is ‘heaven’;—lizer reminds one of licht, ‘light’]. In this word there is a visualization of what takes on form in nature. In short, dialects still reach back to word-forms within which there is an echo of the happenings outside us in nature. This is always the case in the inmost kernel of a language, where the conceptual or ideational element is much closer to the element of sound. Through the history of the German language in particular we can observe how in earlier times, before language became abstract, it was still a matter of course that the meaning of words was imbedded in their sound. I would like to call it a penetration of sense into sound. A sensitive person can still feel it in such words as Tag 'day’; Anglo-Saxon, daeg, a truly original, ancient German word—can feel it in the /t/ and /a:/ (/ah/) sounds, especially through the help of eurythmy. Words that came later were formed out of abstract ideas. Look at the rather modern given name Leberecht ‘liveright’. Parents endow a child with such a name in order to guide him or her with certainty along a virtuous path in life. There’s also Traugott ‘trust-God’. When such words came about, a certain language-forming element still existed but it was abstract, did not arise from a genuine inner source.
I wanted to say all this today as a preparation, so that we can proceed toward more concrete concepts and examples of language.
Erster Vortrag
Einige der Freunde haben mich veranlaßt, zu Ihnen während dieses Aufenthaltes auch einiges über Sprachliches zu sprechen. Noch mehr als bei den naturwissenschaftlichen Kursen muß ich sagen, kann selbstverständlich bei einer so plötzlich auftretenden Absicht dasjenige, was in diesen paar Stunden zu Ihnen gesprochen werden kann, nur ganz episodisch sein. Noch mehr als die naturwissenschaftlichen Betrachtungen müssen diese Sprachbetrachtungen mit einer gewissen Nachsicht genommen werden, weil sie durchaus eine improvisierte Sache sind. Es kann sich also nur darum handeln, einige Hinweise zu geben, die besonders auch nützlich werden könnten für unseren Unterricht in der Waldorfschule, für den Unterricht überhaupt.
Vielleicht kann dasjenige, was ungefähr beabsichtigt worden ist, am besten erreicht werden, wenn wir das eine oder andere an eine Art geschichtlicher Betrachtung der Sprache angliedern. Daher bitte ich Sie, was ich heute sagen werde, als eine lose Zusammenfügung von allerlei Bemerkungen aufzufassen, die als Einleitung dienen sollen für dasjenige, was wir in diesen paar Stunden miteinander behandeln werden.
Es ist ja wohl gerade an der deutschen Sprache zu beobachten, wie sich in der Sprache eines Volkes durch die Entwickelung dieser Sprache auch die Entwickelung des Seelenlebens selber ausdrückt. Nur muß man sich klar darüber sein, daß nicht in jedem Zeitabschnitt der Mensch zu der Sprache im gleichen Verhältnis steht wie in einem anderen Zeitabschnitt. Je weiter wir zurückgehen in der Entwickelungsgeschichte eines Volkes, desto lebendiger finden wir in gewisser Beziehung alles das, was an Kräften der menschlichen Seele und auch an Biegsamkeitskräften des menschlichen Leibes mit der Sprache zusammenhängt. Ich habe das ja selbst des öfteren empfunden. Wenn Sie meine Bücher durchgehen, so werden Sie das ganz bewußte Bestreben finden, selbst bei philosophischen Themen möglichst in deutscher Sprache zu sprechen. Das wird mir ja gerade übelgenommen von manchen Gegnern, die dann nicht anders können als gegen das zu wettern, was in bewußter Art gerade in diesen Büchern für die Sprache angestrebt wird. Es ist heute schon im Deutschen außerordentlich schwierig, gewissermaßen noch innere lebendige Kräfte zu finden, welche die Sprache weitergestalten. Namentlich ist es schwierig, Sinnangliederungen zu finden, also einen gewissen Sinn in einer völlig adäquaten Weise dadurch auszudrücken, daß man versucht, irgendein Wort aufzunehmen, wie ich es zum Beispiel versucht habe mit dem Worte kraften, ein Wort, das sonst in der deutschen Sprache weniger gebraucht wird. Da versuchte ich, in Aktivität zu versetzen, was sonst nur mehr passiv ausgedrückt wird. Auch mit anderen Wörtern habe ich dergleichen versucht; aber trotzdem wir nur um ein Jahrhundert hinter Goethe liegen, wird es uns heute schon schwer, so weitgehende neue Wörter zu prägen, die prägnant Dinge ausdrücken, welche wir als neue Gedanken der Zeitentwickelung einzuverleiben versuchen. Wir denken nicht daran, daß zum Beispiel das Wort Bildung nicht älter ist als die GoetheZeit! Vor der Goethe-Zeit gab es in Deutschland noch keinen gebildeten Menschen, das heißt man sagte zu dem, was man da meinte, noch nicht ein gebildeter Mensch. Die deutsche Sprache hatte noch in der zweiten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts eine starke innere plastische Kraft, und so konnten solche Worte, wie Bildung oder gar Weltanschauung, das auch erst seit der Goethe-Zeit auftritt, noch gebildet werden. Es ist ein großes Glück, in einem Sprachzusammenhang zu leben, der solche innere Bildung noch zuläßt. Man merkt das ja insbesondere stark, wenn man zum Beispiel in der Lage ist, immerfort von der Übersetzung seiner Bücher ins Französische oder Englische oder in andere Sprachen einiges zu hören. Da übersetzen die Leute im Schweiße ihres Angesichts, so gut sie es können; aber immer, wenn einer etwas übersetzt hat, findet es der andere spottschlecht, keiner findet die Übersetzung gut. Und wenn man auf die Sachen eingeht, so kommt man darauf, daß vieles, wie es da in den Büchern steht, in der Übersetzung so nicht gesagt werden kann. Ich antworte dann den Leuten: Im Deutschen ist alles richtig; man kann das Subjekt an erster, an zweiter, an dritter Stelle setzen, da ist mehr oder weniger noch alles richtig. - Und die pedantische, philiströse Einrichtung, daß etwas nicht gesagt werden kann im Absoluten, ist im Deutschen noch nicht so vorhanden wie bei den westlichen Sprachen. Aber denken Sie, wohin man gekommen ist, wenn man an eine stereotype Ausdrucksweise gebunden ist! Man kann da noch nicht individuell denken, sondern eigentlich nur im Gruppengeist Dinge denken, die man den anderen Menschen mitteilen will. Das ist auch für die Bevölkerung der westlichen Zivilisationen in hohem Grade der Fall; sie denken in stereotypen Ausdrucksformen. Sehen Sie, gerade an der deutschen Sprache kann man Beobachtungen machen, wie dasjenige, was ich den Sprachgenius nennen möchte, allmählich versteift ist, wie man in unserer Zeit sich auch schon mit dem Deutschen dem Stadium nähert, wo man nicht mehr aus den stereotypen Formen herauskann. Das war in der Goethe-Zeit nicht so, und noch weniger so in noch früheren Zeiten. Und das hängt wohl zusammen mit der gesamten Sprachentwickelung Mitteleuropas.
In verhältnismäßig noch junger Zeit war Mitteleuropa bis weit nach dem Osten hin bewohnt von einer primitiven Bevölkerung, von einer Bevölkerung mit großen geistigen Anlagen, aber mit einer relativ primitiven äußeren Kultur, mit einer Kultur, welche mehr oder weniger streng aufging im Wirtschaftsleben und in alldem, was sich aus diesem entwickeln ließ. Und es wurde aufgenommen zunächst auf dem Umwege über die östlich-germanischen Volksstämme vieles von der geistigen Kultur der Griechen. Damit ist aber in das Germanische, das später das Deutsche geworden ist, vieles von dem Griechischen in die Sprache Mitteleuropas eingedrungen. Da ist durch die ganzen Jahrhunderte, in denen das Christentum sich ausbreitete von Süden nach Norden, mit den Begriffen, mit den Ideen, mit den Vorstellungen ungeheuer viel sprachliches Gut eingezogen. Die verschiedenen germanischen Stämme Mitteleuropas hatten für die wichtigsten Begriffe, die sie mit dem Christentum übermittelt erhalten sollten, wahrhaftig nicht die Möglichkeit, diese aus ihrer Sprache heraus auszudrücken. Selbst dasjenige, was uns überliefert ist, sagt uns da nicht immer das Wahre. So gehört zum Beispiel, was man das Segnen nennt, im wesentlichen zu dem, was sich mit dem Christentum ausgebreitet hat. Dieser spezifische Begriff des Segnens, der war im nordisch-germanischen Heidentum nicht vorhanden. Wir haben zwar da die Zaubersprüche, allein die hatten etwas Magisches, hatten eine magische Kraft in sich; das war nicht eigentliches Segnen. Dieses Segnen ist etwas, was im Grunde erst durch das Christentum eingezogen ist; und dieses Segnen hängt zusammen mit dem Substantiv der Segen. Das ist eine in alten Zeiten unter dem Einfluß des Christentums hereingenommene Wortbildung. Und diese Wortbildung ist signum = das Zeichen, so daß also mit dem Christentum das Wort signum eingezogen ist und daraus der Segen und auch das Segnen geworden ist. Nun bitte ich Sie zu beachten, welche sprachbildende Kraft dazumal noch der Sprachgenius gehabt hat! Wir würden heute nicht mehr imstande sein, ein Fremdwort so innerlich umzubilden und umzubiegen, daß aus signum Segen wird. Wir würden das Fremdwort vielmehr als Fremdwort behalten, weil nicht mehr aus den Tiefen heraufdringt die aus dem Inneren heraus schöpfende, sprachumbildende Kraft. Bei vielen Wörtern, die man heute schon als ganz gut deutsch empfindet, muß man sich klar sein, daß sie nichts anderes sind als Eindringlinge, die mit dem Christentum gekommen sind. Nehmen wir das Wort predigen. Predigen ist nichts anderes als praedicare. Man hatte noch die Möglichkeit, das praedicare innerlich umzubilden. Predigen ist gar kein deutsches Wort, sondern nur die Umbildung des Wortes praedicare, was ja auch predigen bedeutet; aber wir haben ein eigentlich deutsches Wort für diese christliche Tätigkeit des Predigens nicht.
So ist es notwendig, daß, wenn wir die eigentliche sprachbildende Kraft der deutschen Sprache kennenlernen wollen, wir erst unsere Sprache durch ein Sieb treiben müssen. Wir müssen gewissermaßen alles das absondern, was auf dem Umwege durch die Kulturströmungen, die in unsere mitteleuropäische Kultur sich ergossen haben, in die Sprache gekommen ist. Bei manchen Wörtern merken Sie es eigentlich wirklich nicht mehr. Sie sprechen vom Weihnachtsfest, empfinden das Fest. Weihnacht ist ein urdeutsches Wort, aber Fest ist ein romanisches, ein lateinisches Wort, welches in alter Zeit zu einem deutschen geworden ist. Fest, das führt in die Zeit zurück, wo auf der einen Seite, eben mit dem Eindringen des Christentums, wirklich Fremdestes eingedrungen ist, wo aber zu gleicher Zeit dieses so umgebildet worden ist, daß wir heute gar nicht mehr die Empfindung haben, daß es ein Fremdwort sei. Wer denkt heute in aller deutschen Welt daran, daß das Wort verdammen ein lateinisches Wort ist, das zu einem deutschen geworden ist von damnare. Also wir müssen sehr sieben, wenn wir auf dasjenige kommen wollen, was eigentlich nun wirklich deutsche Sprache ist; denn vieles ist eben mit dem Christentum eingetreten; vieles ist wiederum eingetreten dadurch, daß aus dem Christentum sich das Schulwesen herausgebildet hat. Den Lehrstoff in diesem Schulwesen nahm man so auf, wie man ihn im Süden, in der griechisch-lateinischen Kultur hatte. Und man fand keine Wörter vor für dasjenige, was man mitteilen sollte. Man mußte mit den Begriffen zu gleicher Zeit die Wörter bringen. Das geschah zuerst in den Lateinschulen, verpflanzte sich aber hinunter auch in die niederen Schulen; und so haben wir dasjenige, was heute die Grundlage für unsere Bildung macht, die Schule selbst, als ein Fremdwort. Denn Schule ist auch kein deutsches Wort, so wenig wie Scholastik ein deutsches Wort ist. Schola, althochdeutsch scola, die Schule, ist also ein fremdes Wort. Und Klasse ist erst recht ein fremdes Wort. Ja, man braucht nur hinzuschauen, wohin man will: Tafel ist ein fremdes Wort - tabula; schreiben ist ein fremdes Wort scribere. Also gerade alles das, was in die Schule eingedrungen ist, ist eigentlich damit, daß wir den Schulstoff vom Süden her erhalten haben, der romanisch ist, in unsere Sprache von außen hereingedrungen.
Damit haben wir gewissermaßen die eine Schicht dessen, was wir absieben müssen aus dem Deutschen, wenn wir den eigentlichen Charakter des deutschen Sprachwesens studieren wollen. Da müssen wir fast alle ausgesprochen fremden Wörter herausgesiebt haben. Denn die drücken nicht das aus, was aus der deutschen Volksseele kommt, sondern die sind hineinergossen in das Wesen der deutschen Volksseele; sie bilden gewissermaßen eine Art Firnis auf dem deutschen Wesen. Wir müssen das suchen, was unter diesem Firnis ist. Suchen wir zum Beispiel beim Schulwesen nach demjenigen, was unter dem Firnis ist, so bekommen wir verhältnismäßig wenig, aber sehr Charakteristisches. Zum Beispiel ein urdeutsches Wort ist das Wort Lehrer; ein urdeutsches Wort ist auch das Wort Buchstabe, wovon dann Buch kommt. Es ist von den hingeworfenen Stäben, welche die Worte gebildet haben, gekommen durch die alte Sitte, durch hingeworfene Buchenstäbe die Buchstaben auszudrücken, woraus dann das Zusammenlesen, also das Lesen gekommen ist, und der Leser, der zum Lehrer geworden ist. Das sind urdeutsche Bildungen. Aber Sie sehen, die tragen einen ganz anderen Charakter, die führen uns überall zurück auch auf das Seelenleben, das in Mitteleuropa geführt worden ist.
So stießen zusammen das alte heidnische Wesen und das christliche Wesen, und mit diesen beiden Wesen stießen eben auch die zwei Sprachelemente, das südliche und das mehr nordische, durchaus zusammen. Sie können sich vorstellen, welche starke umbildende Seelenkraft im 1. Jahrtausend nach dem Mysterium von Golgatha in der deutschen Sprache gewesen sein muß, daß sie so stark, wie sie das getan hat, das Christentum aufgenommen hat, und daß sie zu gleicher Zeit mit dem Christentum die Wörter aufnehmen konnte, die die wesentlichsten Geheimnisse des Christentums ausdrückten.
Nun haben wir aber damit nur eine Schicht gegeben. Wir kommen in sehr frühe Zeiten zurück, in die Zeiten, die noch mit der Völkerwanderungszeit etwas zusammenhängen, wenn wir diese eine Schicht des in das Deutsche eindringenden romanischen Sprachelementes aufsuchen. Aber auch später hat das romanische Wesen einen großen Einfluß auf das Deutsche ausgeübt. Und so sehen wir, wie durch die verschiedensten Ereignisse eine zweite Schicht mehr vom Westen, vom romanischen Spracheinfluß herüberkommt. Im 12. Jahrhundert beginnt es und dauert bis ins 18. Jahrhundert hinein, daß fortwährend französische Wörter aufgenommen werden, französische Wörter für Dinge, für die man zwar Begriff und Empfindung hat, aber durch die man gewisse Begriffe und Empfindungen modifiziert. Ich habe mir eine Anzahl von diesen Wörtern notiert; meine Notizen machen aber auf Vollständigkeit keinen Anspruch, weil sie gewissermaßen, da ja die ganzen Vorträge improvisiert sind, aus dem Gedächtnis hingeschrieben sind. Ich habe versucht, gerade urdeutsch scheinende Worte zu nehmen. Nehmen Sie zum Beispiel das Wort fein. Fein ist ein Wort, das Sie vor dem 12. Jahrhundert nicht finden. Es ist über fir aus dem Französischen herübergekommen. Sie sehen daraus, wie im 13. Jahrhundert die sprachbildende Kraft noch so groß gewesen ist, daß ein Wort umgebildet werden konnte so stark, daß man es heute als durchaus deutsches Wort empfindet. Selbst ein solches Wort wie Kumpan, das sehr populär geworden ist, es ist nur die Umbildung von compagnon; und ein Wort, das uns heute sehr häufig begegnet, Partei, gehört zu denjenigen Worten, die dazumal eingewandert sind. Tanz ist dazumal ins Deutsche hereingekommen. Das sind alles Wörter, die erst seit dem 12. Jahrhundert im Deutschen sind und die bei dieser zweiten Invasion, bei der, die ich speziell die französische nennen möchte, hereingekommen sind: Schach, matt, Karte, As, Treff, kaputt - alles Wörter, die dazumal in unsere Sprache eingedrungen sind. Etwas sehr Merkwürdiges ist dieses, daß wir unzählige, wenigstens sehr, sehr viele solcher Wörter haben, die vom 12. Jahrhundert an durch das 13., 14., 15., 16. Jahrhundert von Frankreich her, vom Westen her, in das Deutsche eingedrungen sind. Es sind durchaus Wörter, welche viel dazu beitrugen, daß innerhalb des Sprachlichen ein leichtes Element, ein legeres Element, das früher viel schwerere des deutschen Sprechens durchdrang. Die Sprache, die vorher in deutschen Gegenden gesprochen worden ist, hatte etwas vie] Volleres; und Sie werden sehen, wie man mit ihr solche Dinge nicht leicht hätte ausdrücken können. Man hätte leicht ausdrücken können: Du bist ein kühner Held. Das ließ sich in der alten deutschen Sprache leicht ausdrücken. Nicht aber: Du bist ein feiner Kerl -, das ließ sich in derselben Nuance nicht ausdrücken wie heute; dazu braucht man eben das Wort fein. Ebensowenig wären andere Dinge möglich geworden, wenn nicht diese Invasion durch das Französische gekommen wäre.
Merkwürdig wenig ist gerade in die nördlicheren Gegenden von Italien her gekommen. Zur Zeit der Renaissance manches, was Bezug hat auf Musikalisches, aber sonst eigentlich nichts. Dagegen kommt auf dem Umwege über Süddeutschland und Österreich später eine dritte Art von Invasion — wenn auch nicht so stark — von Worten wie bizarr. Damals ist sogar das Wort lila erst gekommen; das hat es früher nicht gegeben. Diese Worte kamen zu gleicher Zeit mit dem Worte Neger und dem Worte Tomate. Das ist alles aus Spanien bezogen. Damit aber haben wir zu gleicher Zeit eine Phase des Eindringens fremder Sprachelemente, bei der man schon sehen kann: Der Sprachgenius ist nicht mehr so biegsam. Diese Wörter sehen ihren ursprünglichen Wörtern viel ähnlicher. Und am ungünstigsten ist die Sache später geworden, als die Deutschen dazu gekommen sind, das Englische eindringen zu lassen, eigentlich erst im späten 18. Jahrhundert und dann im 19. Jahrhundert. Da sind vorzugsweise die Wörter für das äußere Leben eingedrungen; aber sie sind fast so geblieben, wie sie im Englischen sind. Da hatte schon der deutsche Sprachgenius die Möglichkeit des Umbildens, des innerlichen Aufnehmens verloren.
So habe ich versucht, Sie aufmerksam zu machen, wie, wenn man in alte Zeiten zurückgeht, die Fähigkeit des Aufnehmens, des Umbildens gerade beim germanisch-deutschen Elemente außerordentlich stark vorhanden ist. Nehmen Sie -— ich will Ihnen dies noch kräftig erhärten - zum Beispiel ein so deutsches Wort, daß man eigentlich, auch wenn man bewandert ist in dem Empfinden der Dialekte, gar nicht zweifeln kann an der Echtheit des betreffenden Wortes: Sie kennen vielleicht das Wort Riegelwand für Fachwerkwand. Riegel urdeutsch wird es auf die Zunge genommen und ausgesprochen. Und dennoch, dieses Wort ist in dem deutschen Sprachgebiet nicht länger als seit der Zeit, seit welcher italienisch-lateinisch gebildete Architekten mit solchem Material gebaut haben, das dann später Veranlassung gegeben hat, Riegelwände auszubilden. In sehr alten Zeiten wurde in anderer Weise gebaut, und diese Architekten hatten für die Art ihres Arbeitens das Wort regula, die Regel, eingeführt; und in dieser Zeit war der sprachbildende Geist noch so stark, das Wort regula in das Wort Riegel umzubilden. Wer aber weiß denn heute, daß dieses urdeutsch scheinende Wort Riegel nichts anderes ist als Regel, regula! Wir wären heute nicht mehr imstande, solche Umbildungen zu machen. Wir halten auch Keller, den Keller unten, für ein urdeutsches Wort, und doch ist es nichts anderes als die Umbildung von cellarium. Ich will Ihnen noch ein ganz urdeutsch aussehendes Wort anführen, damit Sie sehen, wie brenzlig es hätte werden können, wenn man begonnen hätte, nach gewissen Tendenzen, wie sie vor einiger Zeit vorhanden waren, alle Fremdwörter auszumerzen. Hätte man das getan, Riegel wäre gefallen, Keller wäre gefallen; aber wissen Sie, was auch hätte fallen müssen? Das Wort Schuster hätte fallen müssen! Schuster, dieses Wort ist nämlich in die deutsche Sprache dadurch gekommen, daß Leute aus dem Süden gekommen sind, die die Deutschen gelehrt haben, die Fußbekleidung anstatt wie früher bloß zusammenzubinden, nun zu nähen. Und mit dem Nähen der Fußbekleidung hängt das Wort sutor zusammen; dieses Wort umgebildet, ist das heutige deutsche Wort Schuster geworden. Also durchaus ein fremdes Wort ist das heutige Wort Schuster.
Sie sehen daraus, wie wir eigentlich stark sieben müssen, wenn wir zu ursprünglich deutschen Wörtern kommen wollen. Wir dürfen nicht einfach dasjenige nehmen, was heute an der Oberfläche der Sprache schwimmt, denn das folgt ganz anderen Gesetzen. Wenn wir zurückgehen wollen auf das, was aus dem Sprachgenius heraus sprachschöpferisch war, dann müssen wir eben zuerst sieben. In einer merkwürdigen Weise geht das sprachbildende Element vor. Und man sieht das am besten, wenn man darauf achtet, wie in die Sprache herein noch Dinge geführt werden können, ich möchte sagen, durch eine gewisse Tyrannis von unten Dinge hineingeführt werden können, auch in einer Zeit, wo der sprachbildende Genius nicht mehr seine volle Tragkraft hat. Da ist zum Beispiel vor verhältnismäßig noch gar nicht langer Zeit folgendes in Europa geschehen: Es gibt in der Nähe von Raab einen Ort, der heißt Kocs. Und - ich glaube, es war im 16. Jahrhundert — da ist ein erfinderischer Mensch aus diesem kleinen Orte bei Raab darauf gekommen, handliche Karren zu fertigen, mit denen sich leicht fahren läßt; diese haben sich ein bißchen ausgebreitet und haben den Ort Kocs populär gemacht. So wie die «Frankfurter Würste» bekannt sind, wie man eben gewisse Würste «Frankfurter Würste» nennt, so hat man solche Karren Kocsi genannt. Und sehen Sie, das hat eine solche Tragkraft gehabt, daß das Wort, das daraus entstanden ist, das Wort Kutsche, sogar bis nach Frankreich und zu den stolzen Engländern gegangen ist! Und doch ist dieses Wort noch gar nicht alt, sondern hat sich in verhältnismäßig sehr junger Zeit mit einer gewissen tyrannischen Gewalt von dem Karrenfahrer in Kocs her ausgebreitet.
Also seien wir uns darüber klar: Wenn wir eine fertige Sprache vor uns haben, dann müssen wir gerade an der Sprache, um zu dem innerlichen Kern vorzudringen, sehr viel Außenwerk wegnehmen. Dann aber müssen wir folgendes sagen, wenn wir zum Kern vordringen: dieser Kern zeigt uns allerdings, daß er mit innerlicher sprachbildender Kraft nur entstehen konnte in einer Zeit, in der die Gedanken noch viel tiefer saßen, als sie zum Beispiel heute innerhalb der deutschen Kultur sitzen. Die Gedanken müssen dazu noch viel näher dem ganzen Wesen des Menschen stehen. Wir fühlen heute nicht mehr die Kraft, die wir im Gedanken fühlen, auch noch im Worte drinnen. Wir fühlen sie manchmal, wenn wir zurückgehen zu den Dialekten, die wiederum um Stufen tiefer stehen. Wir sagen heute in der gebildeten Umgangssprache Blitz, um etwas Kurzes auszudrücken. In gewissen süddeutschen Dialekten sagt man noch Himlizzer. Wenn man das sagt, dann haben Sie die ganze Blitzform darinnen! Da ist noch Anschauung des in der Natur Geformten drinnen. Kurz, man kommt in den Dialekten noch zurück auf Wortformen, in denen man in der Wortform dasjenige nachfühlt, was draußen in der Natur vor sich geht. So ist es aber bei den Kernen der Sprachen durchaus der Fall. Da steht das begriffliche, das ideelle Moment viel näher noch dem lautlichen Element. Und gerade am Deutschen kann man an der Sprachgeschichte verfolgen, wie in älteren Zeiten das Hineinsenken des Sinnes in den Laut noch gang und gäbe war, und wie dann die Sache abstrakt geworden ist. Solchen Worten wie Tag, das ein urdeutsches Wort ist, fühlt derjenige, der \(T\) und \(A\) empfinden kann — Sie können es insbesondere aus der Eurythmie fühlen —, noch an, was ich nennen möchte: das Hineindringen des Sinnes in den Laut. Später traten dann Wörter auf, Ideen, deren abstrakter Sinn in das Wort hineingenommen wurde. Sehen wir den Eigennamen Leberecht an. Man nennt ein Kind Leberecht, um ihm als Geleite mitzugeben, daß es recht leben solle, daß es nicht abirren solle. Oder Traugott. Als solche Wörter gebildet wurden, war noch ein gewisses sprachbildendes Element da, aber abstrakt, nicht ursprünglich.
Das wollte ich Ihnen heute als Einleitung sagen, damit wir dann zu Konkreterem fortschreiten können.
First Lecture
Some of my friends have encouraged me to talk to you about language during my stay here. Even more so than with the science courses, I must say that, given the sudden nature of this undertaking, what I can tell you in these few hours can only be very episodic. Even more than the scientific considerations, these linguistic considerations must be taken with a certain degree of indulgence, because they are entirely improvised. So it can only be a matter of giving a few pointers that could be particularly useful for our teaching in the Waldorf school, for teaching in general.
Perhaps what has been intended can best be achieved if we attach one or two things to a kind of historical consideration of language. I therefore ask you to regard what I am going to say today as a loose collection of all kinds of remarks that are intended to serve as an introduction to what we will be discussing together in these few hours.
It is particularly evident in the German language how the development of a people's language also expresses the development of their spiritual life. However, it must be clearly understood that people do not have the same relationship to language in every period of time as they do in another period. The further back we go in the history of a people's development, the more vividly we find, in a certain sense, everything that is connected with the language in terms of the powers of the human soul and also the powers of flexibility of the human body. I have often felt this myself. If you look through my books, you will find a conscious effort to speak in German as much as possible, even when dealing with philosophical topics. This is precisely what is resented by some opponents, who then cannot help but rail against what is consciously sought in these books for the language. Today, it is already extremely difficult in German to find, as it were, inner living forces that continue to shape the language. In particular, it is difficult to find meaningful connections, that is, to express a certain meaning in a completely adequate way by trying to incorporate a particular word, as I have attempted to do, for example, with the word kraften, a word that is otherwise less commonly used in the German language. In doing so, I attempted to activate what is otherwise only expressed passively. I have tried the same with other words; but even though we are only a century behind Goethe, it is already difficult for us today to coin such far-reaching new words that concisely express things we are trying to incorporate as new ideas of the development of the times. We do not think about the fact that, for example, the word Bildung (education) is no older than the Goethe era! Before Goethe's time, there were no educated people in Germany; that is, what we mean by an educated person did not yet exist. In the second half of the 18th century, the German language still had a strong inner plasticity, and so words such as Bildung (education) or even Weltanschauung (worldview), which only appeared in Goethe's time, could still be formed. It is a great fortune to live in a linguistic context that still allows for such internal education. This is particularly noticeable when, for example, one is in a position to constantly hear about the translation of one's books into French or English or other languages. People translate as best they can, working up a sweat, but whenever someone has translated something, the others find it terrible, and no one likes the translation. And when you look into it, you realize that much of what is written in the books cannot be said in the translation. I then reply to people: Everything is correct in German; you can put the subject in first, second, or third place, and more or less everything is still correct. And the pedantic, philistine notion that something cannot be said in absolute terms is not as prevalent in German as it is in Western languages. But think about where you end up when you are bound to a stereotypical way of expressing yourself! You cannot think individually, but only in a group spirit, thinking about things you want to communicate to other people. This is also very much the case for the population of Western civilizations; they think in stereotypical forms of expression. You see, it is precisely in the German language that one can observe how what I would like to call the genius of language is gradually becoming rigid, how in our time even German is approaching the stage where it is no longer possible to escape from stereotypical forms. This was not the case in Goethe's time, and even less so in earlier times. And this is probably related to the overall linguistic development of Central Europe.
In relatively recent times, Central Europe was inhabited as far east as a primitive population, a population with great intellectual abilities, but with a relatively primitive external culture, a culture that was more or less strictly based on economic life and everything that could be developed from it. And much of the intellectual culture of the Greeks was initially absorbed via the Eastern Germanic tribes. As a result, much of the Greek language found its way into the Germanic languages, which later became German, and thus into the languages of Central Europe. Throughout the centuries in which Christianity spread from south to north, an enormous amount of linguistic wealth was introduced with the concepts, ideas, and mental images. The various Germanic tribes of Central Europe truly did not have the means to express the most important concepts that they were to receive through Christianity in their own language. Even what has been handed down to us does not always tell us the truth. For example, what we call blessing is essentially part of what spread with Christianity. This specific concept of blessing did not exist in Norse-Germanic paganism. We do have spells, but they had something magical about them, they had magical power; that was not actual blessing. This blessing is something that basically only came in with Christianity; and this blessing is related to the noun blessing. This is a word formation that was introduced in ancient times under the influence of Christianity. And this word formation is signum = the sign, so that with Christianity the word signum was introduced and from it came blessing and also blessing. Now I ask you to note what linguistic power the linguistic genius still had at that time! Today we would no longer be able to transform and bend a foreign word so internally that signum becomes blessing. Instead, we would retain the foreign word as a foreign word, because the language-forming power that springs from within no longer rises from the depths. With many words that are already considered to be quite good German today, it must be clear that they are nothing more than intruders that came with Christianity. Take the word predigen (to preach). Predigen is nothing other than praedicare. It was still possible to transform praedicare internally. Predigen is not a German word at all, but only a transformation of the word praedicare, which also means to preach; but we do not have an actual German word for this Christian activity of preaching.
So if we want to get to know the real language-forming power of the German language, we first have to sift through our language. We must, so to speak, separate out everything that has entered the language indirectly through the cultural currents that have poured into our Central European culture. With some words, you don't really notice it anymore. You talk about Christmas, you feel the holiday. Weihnacht is an ancient German word, but Fest is a Romance word, a Latin word that became German in ancient times. Fest takes us back to a time when, on the one hand, with the spread of Christianity, something truly foreign entered our culture, but at the same time it was transformed in such a way that today we no longer feel that it is a foreign word. Who in the German-speaking world today thinks about the fact that the word verdammen (to condemn) is a Latin word that became German from damnare? So we have to sift through a lot if we want to get to what is actually German language now, because a lot came in with Christianity, and a lot came in because the school system developed out of Christianity. The curriculum in this school system was adopted as it was in the south, in Greek-Latin culture. And there were no words for what needed to be communicated. The words had to be introduced at the same time as the concepts. This happened first in Latin schools, but then spread to lower schools as well; and so we have what today forms the basis of our education, the school itself, as a foreign word. For school is not a German word, any more than scholasticism is a German word. Schola, Old High German scola, the school, is therefore a foreign word. And Klasse (class) is even more of a foreign word. Yes, you only have to look wherever you want: Tafel (blackboard) is a foreign word – tabula; schreiben (to write) is a foreign word – scribere. So everything that has found its way into school has actually entered our language from outside, because we received our school material from the south, which is Romance.
This gives us, in a sense, one layer of what we must sift out of German if we want to study the actual character of the German language. We must sift out almost all of the distinctly foreign words. For they do not express what comes from the German folk-soul, but have been poured into the essence of the German folk-soul; they form, as it were, a kind of varnish on the German essence. We must search for what lies beneath this varnish. If, for example, we search for what lies beneath the varnish in the school system, we find relatively little, but it is very characteristic. For example, a truly German word is the word Lehrer (teacher); another truly German word is Buchstabe (letter), from which Buch (book) is derived. It comes from the sticks that were thrown down to form words, according to the old custom of expressing letters by throwing down beech sticks, from which reading, i.e., reading together, came about, and the reader who became the teacher. These are ancient German formations. But you see, they have a completely different character; they lead us back everywhere to the spiritual life that was led in Central Europe.
Thus, the old pagan essence and the Christian essence collided, and with these two essences, the two linguistic elements, the southern and the more northern, also collided. You can form a mental image of what a powerful transforming spiritual force must have been at work in the German language in the first millennium after the Mystery of Golgotha, that it was able to absorb Christianity so strongly, and that at the same time it was able to absorb the words that expressed the most essential mysteries of Christianity.
But we have only given one layer here. We go back to very early times, to the times that are still connected with the Migration Period, when we look for this one layer of the Romance language element penetrating into German. But even later, the Romance element exerted a great influence on German. And so we see how, through a variety of events, a second layer comes over from the West, from the Romance language influence. It begins in the 12th century and continues into the 18th century, with French words being constantly adopted, French words for things for which one has a concept and feeling, but through which certain concepts and feelings are modified. I have noted down a number of these words, but my notes do not claim to be complete because, since the entire lectures are improvised, they are written from memory, so to speak. I have tried to use words that seem to be purely German. Take, for example, the word fein. Fein is a word that you will not find before the 12th century. It came over from French via fir. You can see from this how, in the 13th century, the power of language formation was still so great that a word could be transformed so strongly that today we perceive it as a thoroughly German word. Even a word like Kumpan, which has become very popular, is just a transformation of compagnon; and a word that we encounter very frequently today, Partei, is one of those words that immigrated at that time. Tanz (dance) entered the German language at that time. These are all words that have only been in German since the 12th century and which entered the language during this second invasion, which I would specifically call the French invasion: Schach (chess), matt (checkmate), Karte (card), As (ace), Treff (treff), kaputt (broken) – all words that entered our language at that time. It is very strange that we have countless, at least very, very many such words that entered German from France, from the West, from the 12th century through the 13th, 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. These are words that contributed greatly to the introduction of a light, casual element into the language, which previously had been much more serious. The language that was spoken in German regions before had something fuller about it, and you will see how it would not have been easy to express such things with it. It would have been easy to say: You are a bold hero. That could be easily expressed in the old German language. But not: You are a fine fellow – that could not be expressed with the same nuance as today; for that, you need the word fine. Nor would other things have been possible if this invasion by French had not come about.
Strangely little has come from the northern regions of Italy. During the Renaissance, some things related to music, but otherwise nothing really. In contrast, a third type of invasion came later via southern Germany and Austria — albeit not as strong — with words such as bizarre. At that time, even the word purple first appeared; it did not exist before. These words arrived at the same time as the words “Negro” and “tomato.” All of these came from Spain. At the same time, however, we see a phase of foreign language elements entering the language, in which it is already apparent that the linguistic genius is no longer so flexible. These words are much more similar to their original words. And the situation became even more unfavorable later, when the Germans allowed English to penetrate, actually only in the late 18th century and then in the 19th century. The words that penetrated were mainly those relating to external life, but they remained almost the same as they are in English. By then, the German linguistic genius had already lost the ability to transform and assimilate internally.
So I have tried to draw your attention to how, when you go back to ancient times, the ability to assimilate and transform is extremely strong, especially in the Germanic-German elements. Take, for example—and I want to reinforce this point—a word that is so German that even those who are well versed in the nuances of dialects cannot doubt its authenticity: you may be familiar with the word Riegelwand for half-timbered wall. Riegel is pronounced in a very German way. And yet, this word has not been in use in the German-speaking world for longer than the time since Italian-Latin-educated architects built with such materials, which later gave rise to the development of Riegelwände. In very ancient times, buildings were constructed in a different way, and these architects introduced the word regula, meaning “rule,” for their type of work; and at that time, the language-forming spirit was still so strong that it transformed the word regula into the word Riegel. But who knows today that this seemingly ancient German word Riegel is nothing other than Regel, regula! We would no longer be capable of making such transformations today. We also consider Keller, the cellar below, to be a very old German word, and yet it is nothing more than a transformation of cellarium. I would like to give you another example of a word that looks very old German, so that you can see how precarious the situation could have become if, in accordance with certain tendencies that existed some time ago, people had begun to eradicate all foreign words. If they had done so, Riegel would have fallen, Keller would have fallen; but do you know what else would have had to go? The word Schuster would have had to go! Schuster, this word came into the German language when people came from the south and taught the Germans to sew their footwear instead of just tying it together as they had done before. And the word sutor is related to the sewing of footwear; this word was transformed and became the modern German word Schuster. So today's word Schuster is definitely a foreign word.
You can see from this how carefully we have to sift through things if we want to get to the original German words. We can't just take what floats on the surface of the language today, because that follows completely different laws. If we want to go back to what was linguistically creative in the genius of the language, then we have to sift through things first. In a strange way, the language-forming element takes precedence. And this can best be seen when one pays attention to how things can still be introduced into the language, I would say, through a certain tyranny from below, even in a time when the language-forming genius no longer has its full power. For example, the following happened in Europe not so long ago: there is a place near Raab called Kocs. And — I believe it was in the 16th century — an inventive person from this small town near Raab came up with the idea of making handy carts that were easy to drive; These became somewhat widespread and made the town of Kocs popular. Just as “Frankfurter sausages” are well known, as certain sausages are called “Frankfurter sausages,” so these carts were called Kocsi. And you see, this had such an impact that the word that came from it, the word Kutsche, even made its way to France and to the proud English! And yet this word is not old at all, but has spread in relatively recent times with a certain tyrannical force from the cart driver in Kocs.
So let us be clear about this: when we have a finished language in front of us, we must remove a great deal of the outer workings in order to penetrate to the inner core. But then, when we penetrate to the core, we must say the following: this core shows us that it could only have come into being with inner language-forming power at a time when thoughts were still much deeper than they are today, for example, within German culture. To this end, thoughts must be much closer to the whole essence of human beings. Today, we no longer feel the power that we feel in our thoughts in our words as well. We sometimes feel it when we go back to the dialects, which are again several levels deeper. Today, in educated colloquial language, we say “blitz” to express something brief. In certain southern German dialects, people still say “Himlizzer.” When you say that, you have the whole form of lightning in it! There is still a perception of what is formed in nature. In short, in dialects you can still go back to word forms in which you can feel what is going on outside in nature. But this is certainly the case with the core of languages. There, the conceptual, the ideal moment is much closer to the phonetic element. And in German in particular, one can trace in the history of the language how in earlier times the sinking of meaning into sound was still common practice, and how then the matter became abstract. Words such as Tag, which is an ancient German word, are still felt by those who can perceive \(T\) and \(A\) — you can feel this particularly in eurythmy — as what I would call the penetration of meaning into sound. Later, words appeared, ideas whose abstract meaning was incorporated into the word. Let us look at the proper name Leberecht. A child is given the name Leberecht to accompany it, so that it may live rightly and not stray. Or Traugott. When such words were formed, there was still a certain language-forming element present, but it was abstract, not original.
I wanted to say this to you today by way of introduction, so that we can then move on to more concrete matters.