Frauen + (viel) Grammatik = (viel) Frauengrammatik ? Zur Verbreitung und Typologie spezieller Grammatiken im 18. Jahrhundert

ABSTRACT : While the number of grammars produced in German-speaking countries rather exploded in the XVIH^-century, there is only a small corpus of grammars addressed to women and only one by a female author. Foreign language grammars (mainly on French) predominate and most of them appeared after 1790 and are not written exclusively for women, but also for beginners, unlearned persons or those ignorant of Latin. Although problems arise from the fact that many grammars have been lost, the close study of seven « Frauengrammatiken » allows a preliminary classification into 3 groups : 1) perfect « drilling » grammars (mostly by dialogues) 2) restricted or « light » grammars (compensating for mental weakness) and 3) elaborated or « heavy » grammars (allowing for unlimited grammatical insight). Thus, the history of grammars for women could be seen to reflect, in very small part of course, the general history of women in the XVIIIth century.