In his book on the origins of German Romanticism and idealism ( Mystical Sources of German Romantic Philosophy (Pittsburgh Theological Monographs) ), Ernst Benz notes that, in contrast to France where philosophical terminology could be smoothly translated from Latin, German philosophy drew its first philosophical language from mysticism:

“The philosophical and theological language, the language of German schools and universities, was the same Latin as in France, since Latin was the European language of theologians and scholars.  No philosophical terminology existed outside Latin disputations, Latin lessons, and Latin scholastic books.  On the contrary, the German language of the High Middle Ages was essentially poetic.  German literature of the Middle Ages was the literature of the Minnesang, of the troubadours, and of the Hiedenlied, of epic songs such as the Nibelungenlied , which means that it was a language of images, allegories, parables, not a language of abstract concepts and philosophical and logical terms.  There was no philosophical terminology in the German language, and there were no German translations of Latin philosophical or theological treatises.”

That changed with “German Thomistic mysticism,” particularly with Eckhart.  In his preaching to nuns, he could not rely on Latin theological terms and treatises, and so he had either to “translate the abstract terms of theological language into poetic images” or “create a new terminology of abstractions improvised in German.”  If he translated theological terms into poetic images, “the translator was forced to form some very audacious and dangerous paradoxes, which were capable of being understood and considered as heresies” - and in Eckhart’s case were so understood.  But the alternative was to use “new concepts and unheard-of abstractions” that would make the sermon incomprehensible.

Eckhart is responsible for the development of a “new German philosophical and theological terminology” but one that had a strong poetic and mystical component.  Boehme continued the project, introducing all the basic vocabulary of German philosophy down to Heidegger and beyond.  Sein, Wesen, Wesenheit, das Seinende, das Nichts, Nichtigkeit, as well as Form, Gestalt, Anschauung, Erkenntnis, Erkennen, Vernunft, Verstand and Vertandnis, Bild and Abbild, Grund and Ungrund, Ich and Ichheit and Nicht-Ich - all of it came from “German mystical speculation.”

Perhaps this is as good a description of “Continental” philosophy as any: It’s not merely the philosophy of Kant’s Third Critique, but philosophy whose categories (including Kant’s!) came from German poetic mysticism.