 Before he died Humboldt bequeathed his entire collection of linguistic materials, including his own manuscripts, to the Royal Prussian Library in Berlin so that it would be accessible to the public for further research. Yet soon after his death in 1835 the integrity of the collection was violated, its contents were divided and dispersed and many items sent to different locations. Thus some of Humboldt’s books, with his marginal comments and annotations, could still be found in general circulation in libraries of the former East Germany. It was also wrongly believed until recently that the greater part of the collection, including Humboldt’s own manuscripts, was destroyed in Berlin or otherwise lost during the last months of World War 2. Throughout the nineteenth and most of the twentieth centuries with few exceptions, his papers did not attract the curiosity of professional linguists whose attention was focused mainly on Indo-European languages. Astonishingly, the extensive body of his posthumous works and papers was not ever systematically examined or properly catalogued, let alone studied in depth until recently. As a consequence, all existing editions have virtually excluded Humboldt’s empirical work, a situation that will be remedied with the appearance of the comprehensive critical edition of Humboldt’s linguistic works that is under way (Humboldt 1994–).