The plain-language article introduced the attitude that “every exception has a reason.” Here we read that claim in the original German.
A single declaration, in a footnote
These words sit not in the main text but in a footnote to the preface. In the middle of explaining his own approach to writing the book, Brugmann sets down this quiet but forceful statement.
Unser Aller Streben geht heute dahin, den Ausnahmen und Unregelmässigkeiten gegenüber nicht nur gelegentlich, sondern jedesmal und systematisch nach dem die Ausnahmestellung bedingenden Grunde zu suchen, und wir halten die Aufgabe der Wissenschaft so lange für unerledigt, bis die Antwort auf das Warum gefunden ist.
(What all of us strive for today is not merely, on occasion, but every single time and systematically, to seek out the reason underlying an exception or irregularity — and we hold the task of scholarship to be unfinished until the answer to the question “why” has been found.)
Notice the word “Unser Aller” — “of all of us.” Brugmann isn’t presenting this as his own personal creed; he frames it as a collective attitude shared by his entire generation of linguists. Immediately after this sentence, he adds: how many linguistic phenomena, once believed to be perfectly settled and worthy of confident, conclusive judgment, have this very pursuit turned back into unanswered problems!
Turning “settled” back into “unsettled”
This passage reveals a paradoxical kind of honesty. Scientific progress doesn’t necessarily shrink the number of mysteries. Sometimes it does the opposite — reopening a “common sense” that nobody had previously questioned, and thereby generating a new mystery. For Brugmann, this wasn’t a step backward but a step forward. Taking a phenomenon that had been dismissed with an easy “that’s just how it is” and handling it once more as a genuine question — that, for him, was the actual work of scholarship.
Where this sentence sits
This footnote is attached to a paragraph where Brugmann explains his approach to writing the book — which theories he adopts, and which controversies he chooses not to go into deeply. The very style of tucking a methodological manifesto into a footnote, rather than proclaiming it loudly in the main text, says a great deal about the “practical student textbook” character discussed in the overview article. Not a grand announcement, but an attitude practiced as a matter of course in the everyday work of description — that was the Neogrammarian way.
Summary
| Point | Detail |
|---|---|
| The quote | Seek a reason for every exception, systematically, every time — the task isn’t finished until “why” is answered |
| The word used | “Unser Aller” (“of all of us”) — a shared generational attitude, not a personal one |
| The paradoxical result | Phenomena once considered “settled” are pulled back into “unsettled” territory by this very pursuit |
In a nutshell — for Brugmann, progress in scholarship wasn’t about shrinking the number of mysteries. It was about reclaiming, as a genuine question, whatever had been too easily dismissed.