Başak Aray Université Paris I – Panthéon-Sorbonne, EXeCO (PHICO) Efforts to establish an international auxiliary language (IAL) have a long history. Projects to overcome ethnic languages flourished in the 17th century Britain. Creators of these “philosophical languages” (Descartes, Dalgarno, Wilkins,…
Blog Archives
Language and smell: traces of synesthesia in premodern learning
Raf Van Rooy PhD fellow of the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) University of Leuven It is well known that, in present-day English, the verb ‘smell’ can obtain a negative connotation when used intransitively; the adjective derived from it, ‘smelly’,…
Tagged with: Latin, premodern, semantics, smell, synesthaesia, synesthesia
Posted in Article, Europe, History, Linguistics, Semantics
Posted in Article, Europe, History, Linguistics, Semantics
New dating of the Iloko manuscript lexicography
Rebeca Fernández Rodríguez Centro de Estudos em Letras (CEL) Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro (UTAD) Missionary lexicography in the Philippines is extensive and exhaustive. Dozens of grammars and vocabularies have been written since the Spanish arrival in the Philippines…
Tagged with: Ilocano, lexicography, Philippine
Posted in 17th century, 18th century, Article, Europe, Field linguistics, Lexicography, Linguistics, Philippines
Posted in 17th century, 18th century, Article, Europe, Field linguistics, Lexicography, Linguistics, Philippines
El Sermonario de fray Bernardino de Sahagún y los fondos en lenguas indígenas de la Biblioteca Nacional de México
Pilar Máynez Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México Sobre el repositorio que resguarda la versión tardía del Sermonario de los Sanctos del año en lengua mexicana La Biblioteca Nacional de México fue oficialmente inaugurada el 2 de abril de 1884 en…
Tagged with: 15th-century, history, Mexico, Náhuatl, Spain
Posted in 15th century, 16th century, America, Article, Europe, History, Linguistics
Posted in 15th century, 16th century, America, Article, Europe, History, Linguistics
Teaching language to a boy born deaf in the seventeenth century: the Holder-Wallis debate
Jaap Maat University of Amsterdam 1. The Popham notebook In the summer of 2008, a leather-bound booklet attracted the attention of a member of staff of Warner Leisure Hotels in Littlecote House, near Hungerford, Wiltshire, UK. It looked old, and…
Tagged with: 17th century, Alexander Popham, deaf education, Holder, Wallis
Posted in 17th century, Article, Europe, History
Posted in 17th century, Article, Europe, History
Hendrik Pos and the epistemological foundations of structuralism
Patrick Flack Charles University, Prague The name of Dutch linguist and philosopher Hendrik Josephus Pos (1898-1955) is not one that rings many bells today, except perhaps in the Netherlands and the (growing) circles of Merleau-Ponty specialists. But to the keen…
From Inductivism to Structuralism: the ‘method of residues’ goes to the field
Michael Silverstein University of Chicago It should be clear to anyone who surveys the historical record that the “discovery” of the phoneme – that is, the codification of phonological theory and method – was key in linguists’ consciousness of a…
Tagged with: Bauduoin de Courtenay, Bloomfield, Daniel Jones, field linguistics, history of linguistics, Jerzy Kuryƚowicz, Neogrammarians, phoneme, phonology, Roman Jakobson, Sapir, Saussure, structuralism, Trubetskoy
Posted in 19th century, 20th century, America, Article, Europe, History, Linguistics, Structuralism
Posted in 19th century, 20th century, America, Article, Europe, History, Linguistics, Structuralism
Historical Chinese phonology as a meeting ground for the Indian, the Chinese, and the Western linguistic tradition
Lei Zhu Shanghai International Studies University The speech sound, being the most important medium between our physical body and linguistic mind, is one of human beings’ oldest objects of study. In different cultures, it has been understood in different ways,…
Tagged with: China, chinese phonology, chinese scholarship, Europe, fanqie, history of linguistics, India, phonology, rhyme study, Western
Posted in Article, China, Europe, History, India, Linguistics, Phonology
Posted in Article, China, Europe, History, India, Linguistics, Phonology
History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences 