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442
IV. EDUCATION AND MENTAL CULTURE IN SWEDEN.
Swedish philology. He led the work of research on to a broader foundation by
consulting Gothic as well as other ancient Teutonic languages in his study of the
Scandinavian ones. The best known of his numerous works is »Glossarium
Svio-gothicum», which still holds a prominent place among etymological glossaries. Also
our native dialects received his attention. Foremost among dialectologists is to be
mentioned S. Hof (1703/86), who, among other things, wrote an excellent work on
the West-Gothia dialect. A diligent and influential grammarian and lexicographer
is found in A. Sahlstedt (1716/76). Among Runologists 0. Celsius (1670/1756)
stands forth as a worthy contemporary of Ihre and Hof as regards sound scientific
criticism and keen observation. To the following period belongs partly the
runo-logist J. G. Liljegren (1789/1837).
Able orientalists were C. Aurivillius (1717/86), the above-mentioned 0.
Celsius, J. J. Björnståhl (1731/79), M. Norberg (1747/1826), A. F. Sturtzenbecker
(1757/84), K. M. Agrell (1764/1840), J. Berggren (1790/1868), and J. D.
Åkerblad (1763/1819), a man of genius, who, from his important contribution
to the interpretation of the Rosetta stone, has been called »the first egyptologist».
In the middle of the 19th century, the historical and comparative study of
languages — the science of Rask, Grimm, and Bopp — pushes its way into
Swedish philology. Excellent material had, even before this, been provided in
the splendid edition, by K. J. Schlyter (1795/1888), of the old laws of Sweden,
containing most excellent glossaries and vocabulary, as also in the publications of
the early Swedish Text Society, instituted in 1843, in which publications G. E.
Klemming (1823/93) displayed special activity. The one who introduced the
method of historical research into Sweden was J. E. Rydqvist (1800/77) by his
great work »The Laws of the Swedish Language», which is »the first and largest,
strictly scientific work on the history of our native tongue». J. E. Rietz
(1815/68) published an extensive Glossary of Swedish Dialects. C. Säve (1812/76)
was the first professor of Northern languages at the University of Uppsala.
The advance philology has made in our country during the last generation is
very considerable. As a characteristic of the researches during this period, it is
noticeable that the biological point of view — the study of the living language —
has begun to receive more due attention. Phonetics, which previously had a
prominent advocate in the zoologist K. J. Sundevall (1801/75), broke through, and
made a stir in orthography and pedagogics, thanks especially to the energetic
work, partly of the zoologist I. A. Lyttkens (born 1844) and the romanologist
F. A. Wulff (born 1845) — an extensive work on Swedish phonetics and a
Swedish Pronouncing Dictionary, are a result of their joint labour — partly also of
Professor J. A. Lundell (born 1851). The latter, editor of a journal on Swedish
dialects and peasant life, was also one of the leaders of that movement, during the
seventies and eighties, which gave new life to the study of country dialects and
peasant life, and which, directly or indirectly, became the cause of a great
number of good works in this direction. This movement — which was kept up by
a certain ideal, rurally national enthusiasm, the country people being looked upon
as the very core of the nation, their dialectic tongue as a purer and more
regular development of Old Swedish than the speech of the cultured — abated towards
the end of the eighties. To make up for this, and on the initiative of the Saxonist,
Professor A. Erdmann (born 1843), one has, of låte, proceeded to organize
Committees to arrange about systematic and paid investigations into country dialects.
The founding, by students, of a journal on country dialects is an outcome
significant of the democratic and natural scientific direction of the seventies and
eighties. On the other hand, the inclination towards the psychological and esthetical,
which, in philology, are distinguishing features of the very latest times, and have
tended towards getting the main consideration of import removed from phonetics
and morphology to sematology, syntax, and style — from the more natural dialectic
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