Blog Archives

A Tale of Two Translators

Talenkaart van-Indonesie 1936

Floris SolleveldUniversity of Bristol Linguistic fieldwork in the Indonesian archipelago, throughout the 19th century, was largely the province of the Dutch Bible Society (NBG). Two Bible translators stand out for their contributions to linguistic scholarship: J.F.C. Gericke on Javanese in

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Language and the Missionary World Map

The Gospels in Amharic, tr. Abu Rumi, ed. Thomas Pell Platt, 1824

Floris SolleveldUniversity of Bristol Two unpublished histories of the British and Foreign Bible Society were written in the 1820s to 1830s (BFBS Archives, Cambridge University Library, GBR/0374/BFBS/BSA/E3/8/1 and E3/8/2). It is unclear to me why there were two, both by

Posted in 19th century, 20th century, Article, History, Missionary Linguistics

The 1940 BFBS Conference on African Languages

The African Languages conference at Bible House, 29 May 1940

Floris SolleveldUniversity of Bristol On 28 May 1940, a group of 33 people met at the British and Foreign Bible Society headquarters (‘Bible House’) in London for a conference on African languages. The evacuation at Dunkirk was under way; the

Posted in 20th century, Article, History, Missionary Linguistics

Review of: Cassiodorus. Institutiones humanarum litterarum. Textus Φ Î”.

Review of Morresi, Ilaria, ed. 2022. Cassiodorus. Institutiones humanarum litterarum. Textus Φ Δ. Turnhout: Brepols (Corpus Christianorum. Series Latina, 99A). 512 p. ISBN 978-2-503-59589-4.Publisher’s website Anne GrondeuxUniversité Paris Cité and Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, CNRS,Laboratoire d’histoire des théories linguistiques, F-75013 Paris,

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Intentionality in phenomenology and speech act theory

Els Elffers 1. Introduction Phenomenology covers a large area, and the same is true of speech act theory. Here I will focus on one point of contact between them, namely intentionality. Intentionality is a key concept in phenomenology and it

Posted in 19th century, 20th century, Article, Linguistics, Phenomenology, Philosophy, Pragmatics

Randy Harris’s second take on the Linguistics Wars

Review ofRandy Allen Harris: The Linguistics Wars: Chomsky, Lakoff, and the Battle over Deep Structure. Second edition. Oxford University Press. 2021. John GoldmithUniversity of Chicago Randy Harris has written an extremely engaging account of the rise of generative syntax and

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Raymond de Saussure’s Freudian appropriation of Antoine Meillet’s historical and general linguistics

Cover of Imago 1922

John JosephUniversity of Edinburgh One hundred years ago, Raymond de Saussure (1894-1971), the second son of Ferdinand and Marie de Saussure, published a review of a collection of papers by his father’s most famous and devoted student, Antoine Meillet (1866-1936).

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The Facts of Whorf’s Hopi Research

Benjamin Lee Whorf

In this talk, Penny Lee presents some preliminary results from her research into the personal diaries of Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897–1941).

Posted in 20th century, America, Article, History, Linguistics

A Danish Framing of Roman Jakobson’s American Years – Review of From the early years of Phonology

Book cover: From the Early Years of Phonology

Patrick Flack University of Fribourg Over the last decade or so, we have been treated to a steady succession of book-length publications dedicated to the intellectual legacy of Roman Jakobson. This near continuous stream started with the release of the

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The return of the human in the study of writing

Piers Kelly University of New England In recent years, there has been increasing interest in the study of writing systems. Much of the new impetus has come from linguists investigating the interactions between graphic structure and linguistic structure. Yet practitioners

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