„So weit gingen sie nicht“ Franz Bopp und August Wilhelm Schlegel über indische Grammatiker

In the 19th century, a long controversy (ca. 1820–90) took place between linguists and philologists concerning the relevance and authority of Indian grammatical texts. This paper deals with a specific part of the debate, namely the romantic attitude of August Wilhelm von Schlegel (1767–1845) and, on the other hand, the programme of an “independent critique of language”1 by Franz Bopp (1791–1867), as can be seen in their private letters. The correspondence shows that the authors took a closer look at PÙ৆ini’s grammar only in 1829, and that this grammar, however, was used as a sort of source for Vedic attestations and not as an analytical system as such.