FIRST DANISH WORK OF COMPARATIVE LINGUISTICS

SYV, P.P. (PEDER PEDERSEN).

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Kiøbenh. (i.e. Copenhagen), 1663. 8vo. Contemporary full vellum with handwritten title to spine. Nice and tight with little wear. Einar Christiansen's book plate to inside of front board. (10), 200 pp. With the wonderful engraved illustrated title-page with 11 lovely illustrations allegorically depicting the different chapters.

WITH A DATED (1676) ORIGINAL SIGNATURE OF PEDER PEDERSEN SYV INSERTED TO FRONT FREE END-PAPER.

The very rare first edition of the first Danish work of comparative linguistics and the first Danish work on comparative history of literature. The work is of seminal importance to the development of the Danish language as the accepted official and written language of Denmark.

The seminal philological treatise constituted a programmatic defense of vernacular national languages and Syv is hereby responsible for introducing Danish in a wider spectrum of social domains and to establish a notion of Danish literature as accepted in its own right. Up until Syv, Latin and German were the learned languages of Denmark and the languages used for all matter of official business. But just as Dante had done with Italian, Peder Syv, with the present work, began the quest of making Danish a language also respected for written literature.

The Cimbrian language included Scandinavian, Gothic, Slavic, German, and partly English and Russian, and Syv regarded it as one of the oldest tongues in the world, coming from Hebrew and older than Greek and Latin. He refused to view it as originally German.

"Peder Syv is sometimes referred to as "the fist Danish grammarian." In this remarkable little book, with its curious illustrated title-page, Syv defends the use of the Danish language in literature. To demonstrate the strength of his native danish tongue, Syv cites the accomplishments of important authors writing in Danish... for example, Huitfeldt, Skonning, Arrebo, Bording, and Pontoppidan." (Reinhardt)

Nancy S. Reinhardt: "Danish Literature. An exhibition at the Houghton Library". The Harvard College Library, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1986, nr. 10.

Order-nr.: 54219