An unbelievable moment in "On the Way to Language:" Heidegger's footnote saying his quotations from Humboldt,derive from the anastatic reprint of von Humboldt's text, edited by E. Wasmuch. [Die folgenden Textstellen sind nach dem von E. Wasmuth herausgegebenen anastatischen Neudruck (Berlin 1955) angefuhrt.]
It is not insignificant that Heidegger quotes from a version that uses this method of printing, where the traces of the previous work are preserved on a zinc plate--and then these remnants or cinders used to print the new version. I'll quote the encyclopedia entry for a full definition of the process:
Anastatic printing is a mode of obtaining facsimile impressions of any printed page or engraving by transferring it to a plate of zinc, which, on being subjected to the action of an acid, is etched or eaten away with the exception of the parts covered with the ink, which parts, being thus protected from the action of the acid, are left in relief so that they can readily be printed from.
Not just a facimilie--but what survives after the remnants of the original are done away with in order to copy it. This, as the citational basis for Heidegger's nuanced and ambivalent (that is, careful) reading of Humboldt, which will condemn his reliance on Idealism's spirit, but also say that his formulations regarding the need for a transformation of language are exemplary. And all this having to do with Heidegger's position towards language, which says it involves (in his language) the tracing or outlining of the clearing of being in (the) saying... It isn't clear to me how exactly this all fits together, but it is certainly relevant somehow.
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