On the Slant: Jacob Grimm

Most of us know Jacob Grimm as one half of the Grimms, collectors of fairy tales, the editors of arguably the most famous collection of fairy tales ever, the ones that brought fairy tales to the masses, or at least returned them to the masses in print.

We often forget just how profound Jacob's work was, despite controversies over the brothers' collection methods and the creative license his brother Wilhelm later took when editing the tales.

I found this short homage to him in this week's Watered Down Etymologies by Anatoly Liberman, a column on language and etymology published online by Oxford University Press.

I will take the liberty to finish this post with a personal remark about Jacob Grimm. Linguistics, literature, and history are unlike mathematics, physics, or music. One should beware of calling a language historian a genius. Yet at least three language students deserve this appellation. One of them is Jacob Grimm. The public knows him only because of the fairytales, but he was the founder of comparative Germanic philology and of several other areas of study. More important is the fact how often, though armed only with his prodigious memory and unerring intuition, rather than our dictionaries, manuals, and computers, he offered correct solutions. Every time I have a bright idea about the origin of a word, an old custom, or belief, I look up the relevant passage in the volumes of Jacob Grimm’s works. In most cases, it turns out that he anticipated my guess by at least 150 years. So I think his view of the derivation of the word soul (saiwala) is right, and I find some confirmation of it in the Greeks’ treatment of the Ocean. No doubt, Grimm knew all of it long before I was born.

Makes you appreciate the Grimms all over again, doesn't it? Especially Jacob this time.


And if suddenly you have a greater interest in these men, I recommend The Brothers Grimm: From Enchanted Forests to the Modern World by Jack Zipes. Or for younger students, try The Brothers Grimm: Two Lives, One Legacy by Donald R. Hettinga.