Dr. Toon Van Hal

1. Zur Person

2. Aufsätze und Bücher (Selektion)

Van Hal, Toon. 2004-2005. ‘Language Comparison in Paulinus a Sancto Bartholomaeo (1748-1806): Aims, Methodological Principles’, Bulletin d’Études Indiennes 22-23, 323-336.

Van Hal, Toon. 2005. ‘From Jones to Pictet. Some Notes on the Early History of Celtic Linguistics’, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft 15, 219-243.

Van Hal, Toon. 2006. ‘Een geurtje rond de Wachtendonckse Psalmen? Een omstreden bijdrage van Justus Lipsius tot de Germaanse filologie’, De Gulden Passer 84, 27-44.

Deneire, Tom – Van Hal, Toon. 2006. Lipsius tegen Becanus. Over het Nederlands als oertaal. Editie, vertaling en interpretatie van zijn brief aan Hendrik Schotti (19 december 1598). Amersfoort: Florivallis (198 pp.).

Van Hal, Toon. 2007. ‘Towards Meta-Neo-Latin Studies? Impetus to Debate on the Field of Neo-Latin Studies and its Methodology’, Humanistica Lovaniensia 55, 349-365.

Van Hal, Toon. 2007. ‘Joseph Scaliger, puzzled by the similarities of Persian and Dutch?’, Omslag. Bulletin van de Universiteitsbibliotheek Leiden en het Scaliger Instituut (2007-1), 1-3.

Van Hal, Toon. 2007. ‘De belangstelling voor taalwetenschap in de Lage Landen’, in Stijn Van Rossem (ed.),Portret van een woordenaar. Cornelis Kiliaan en het woordenboek in de Nederlanden, november 2007-januari 2008. Antwerpen: Provincie Antwerpen. Departement cultuur, pp. 47-58.

Van Hal, Toon. 2008. 'Moedertalen en taalmoeders'. Methodologie, epistemologie en ideologie van het taalvergelijkend onderzoek in de renaissance, met bijzondere aandacht voor de bijdrage van de humanisten uit de Lage Landen. Phd-Dissertation Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (549 pp.).

Van Hal, Toon. [2009]. Aan de drempel van de vergelijkende taalwetenschap: Paulinus a Sancto Bartholomaeo (1748-1806). Vertaling met inleiding van ‘Verhandeling over de ouderdom en de verwantschap van het Zend, Sanskriet en het Duits’ (1799) en ‘Verhandeling over de herkomst van de Latijnse taal en haar band met de Oosterse talen’ (1802). Leuven/Parijs: Peeters. Forthcoming.

Van Hal, Toon. [2009]. Recension of Lo van Driel & Theo Janssen (ed.), Ontheven aan de tijd: Linguïstisch-historische studies voor Jan Noordegraaf bij zijn zestigste verjaardag. 2008. Brussel: Amsterdam & Münster, in Historiographia Linguistica 36. In print.

Van Hal, Toon– Isebaert, Lambert – Swiggers, Pierre: de tuin der talen / le jardin des langues / the garden of languages [online-publication as a WIKI; <http://tuin-der-talen.wik.is>].

3. Zusammenfassung des Forschungsprojekts (auf Englisch)

Leibniz and his Circle: ‘Pre’comparative Linguistics in Germany (1670-1750)
The historical and comparative study of languages was institutionalised as an academic discipline during the first half of the nineteenth century. Its roots, however, can be traced back to the Renaissance. Our doctoral research focused on the epistemological and methodological contribution of the humanists in the Low Countries (ca. 1550-1650). The project presented here follows up, chronologically and thematically, on this, although the overall scope and main emphasis differ. The project aims at delineating the historical-comparative linguistic views on language formulated by German scholars during the Late Humanism and Early Enlightenment (ca. 1670-1750). Most prominently, authors from Germany and Scandinavia (with Wittenberg and Uppsala as important intellectual centres) carried further and renewed the comparative work achieved by previous generations. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716), whose conceptual and documentary contribution substantially catalysed the development of linguistics, is considered the most important key figure. Leibniz was eagerly interested in a broad range of linguistic problems and has rightly been credited with having fruitfully combined theoretical reflections on language history and language comparison, on the one hand, with practical linguistic fieldwork, on the other. His epistolary correspondence testifies to an unremitting attention paid to linguistic issues. His correspondents were encouraged to participate in the linguistic debate.
The period we will focus on is characterised by (1) the scholarly integration of languages largely neglected until then (such as Chinese, Japanese, Finnish and Ethiopian); (2) the continuing discussion on the status of Hebrew as the ‘primeval language’; (3) the historicisation of the kinship relations posited; (4) the further methodological refinement and gradual emancipation of the linguistic argumentation. The writings of this generation of scholars constituted a significant heuristic basis for the last ‘precomparatists’ (such as William Jones, Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, Paulinus a Sancto Bartholomaeo and Rasmus Christian Rask), who immediately preceded the institutionalisation of the discipline.
Apart from Leibniz’s writings on (historical) linguistics, works of lesser known contemporaries will be studied as well. Among others, Hiob Ludolf (1624-1704), Hermann von der Hardt (1660-1746) and Johann Georg von Eckhart (1664-1730) belong to his correspondents. Other important authors in the framework of this project are, among others, Johann Augustin Egenolff, Johann Nicolaus Funck, Henricus Kippingus, Daniel Georg Morhof, Henricus Muhlius, Justus Georg Schottelius, Gisli Thorlaksson, Kaspar von Stieler and Johann Georg Wachter.