Materiales vascos del legado de Wilhelm von Humboldt (III): Pablo Pedro de Astarloa y Aguirre: Plan de lenguas o Gramatica bascongada en el dialecto bizcaíno (fragmento)

Abstract

The existence of the Plan de Lenguas has been a widely discussed mystery in the history of Basque. We have mostly indirect knowledge about it from contemporaries and from the first curator of Astarloa's legacy (J. B. Erro), as well as from various letters and notes. Some scholars started doubting the existence of the Plan as a separate manuscript altogether. Humboldt did mention and comment on it amply in all his descriptions of the Hülfsmittel (materials) at his disposal. In the mid-thirties of the 20th century J. Gárate published the only comprehensive record of this manuscript, which Humboldt wrote while he had the possibility to read and excerpt the Plan de Lenguas during his stay in Durango in the spring of 1801. Some ten years later Humbdoldt had received a copy of some parts of the Plan, but we cannot trace back the origin. For reasons not entirely clear to me, this fragment of the manuscript (a bit more than 70 pages) remained unnoticed among the papers of the Humboldt legacy until we first published it in 2002 as part of the Humboldt edition project at the University of Graz. The reason for overlooking the identity of the manuscript 'including bascologists like Azkue must have had it in his hands' was probably the classification as "von spanischer Hand" by Humboldt's secretary Buschmann in the index of Coll. Ling. Fol. 74.