Polyglot Maps of the Continents
Author Gottfried Hensel (1687-1767) was a German scholar of linguistics working in Hirschberg in Lower Silesia (now southwestern Poland). The title of his work translates to something like Compendium of universal philology, in which the remarkable hidden harmony and unity-both obvious and recondite-of the languages of the entire world and of alphabets, syntax, and tongues is explicated.
Europa Polyglotta, Linguarum Genealogiam exhibens, una cum Literis, scribendique modis, omnium gentium
The earliest linguistic maps of the four continents. Where he can, Hensel translates the first few words of the Lord’s Prayer (Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name) into local languages. Elsewhere, as in America and Africa, he notes human migrations. In Brazil, for example, evidence suggests, he says, that the first humans there came from Africa. In the box at the bottom right of Africa, he states that the map colors mark areas settled by descendants of the three sons of Noah: Japhet (‘rubicundi,’ here pink), Shem (‘oriundos,’ here yellow-orange), and Ham (‘virides,’ here olive green). Along the sides and at the bottom of the four maps are alphabet tables that cover most known written languages.
One of the first thematic maps to address a subject other than natural history, Hensel’s maps, may be the first to use color to distinguish areas on a thematic map.
Asia Polyglotta, Linguarum Genealogiam cum Literis, scribundique Modis exhibens
Africa Polyglotta Scribendi Modos Gentium exhibens
America cum Supplementis Polyglottis
From Cornell University Library Digital Collections
