James McElvenny University of Sydney The public image of the Vienna Circle, a group of thinkers active in Vienna in the 1920s and 30s (see Haller 1993; Stadler 2001[1997]), was characterised by a near-fanatical faith in ‘scientific’ thinking. In their…
Blog Archives
Otto Neurath’s Isotype and his philosophy of language
Tagged with: Isotype, Otto Neurath, philosophy of language, physicalism, protocol sentence debate, Rudolf Carnap, Vienna Circle
Posted in 20th century, Article, History, Philosophy
Posted in 20th century, Article, History, Philosophy
Linguists choosing the wrong side: Jacob van Ginneken and other alleged Nazi collaborators
Toon Van Hal University of Leuven Unlike the other posts to this blog, the present post is not intended as a contribution to learning. Its sole ambition is to open a discussion on a rather sensitive topic (which is not…
Tagged with: 20th century, history, Jacob van Ginneken, linguistics, Nazi ideology
Posted in 20th century, Article, History, Linguistics
Posted in 20th century, Article, History, Linguistics
Rethinking the history of the Aryan paradigm
Christopher Hutton University of Hong Kong My involvement with this topic began when I observed that the notion of a superior âAryan raceâ, which functions in the English-speaking world as a near-universal shorthand for Nazi ideology, has no clear counterpart…
Tagged with: Aryan, Germany, history of linguistics, Nazi ideology, race, Volk
Posted in 19th century, 20th century, Article, Germany, History, Linguistics
Posted in 19th century, 20th century, Article, Germany, History, Linguistics
Early writing and printing in the Philippines
Rebeca FerndĂĄndez RodrĂguez Universidade de TrĂĄs-os-Montes e Alto Douro Printing and publishing began in the Philippines with the arrival of the Spanish in 1565. Encountering an enormous number of native languages, the Spaniards felt a pressing need to describe the…
Tagged with: 16th century, history, Philippines, printing, Spain, writing
Posted in 16th century, 17th century, 18th century, Article, History, Philippines
Posted in 16th century, 17th century, 18th century, Article, History, Philippines
The creation of âparts of speechâ for Chinese: âtranslingual practiceâ across Graeco-Roman and Sinitic traditions
Edward McDonald University of Sydney The English term âparts of speechâ is actually a mistranslation of long standing of the Latin partÄs oratiĆnis, itself a translation of the Greek merÄ logou, in which the term oratiĆ / logos takes not…
Tagged with: History of Chinese grammar, Ma Shi, Mashi Wentong
Posted in 19th century, 20th century, Article, China, History, Linguistics, Syntax
Posted in 19th century, 20th century, Article, China, History, Linguistics, Syntax
Analyses du fonctionnement sĂ©mantico-rĂ©fĂ©rentiel du nom propre dans lâInde ancienne
Ămilie Aussant Laboratoire dâhistoire des thĂ©ories linguistiques (CNRS) â UniversitĂ© Paris Diderot Introduction La question du « sens » des noms propres a suscitĂ©, aussi bien en Occident quâen Inde, de nombreuses rĂ©flexions. Si les dĂ©bats ont longtemps concernĂ©, en Occident, la…
Tagged with: history of grammar, history of semantics, India, Sanskrit, semantics
Posted in Article, History, India, Linguistics, Semantics
Posted in Article, History, India, Linguistics, Semantics
Otto Jespersen and progress in international language
James McElvenny University of Sydney When it comes to expressing the ideas of our own day, the deficiencies of classical Latin appear with ruthless clarity: telephones and motor-cars and wireless have no room in Ciceronian Latin, and it will be…
Tagged with: 19th century, 20th century, aesthetics, constructed languages, Couturat, Gabelentz, grammar, history, international language, Jespersen, linguistics, Ogden, Peano, philosophy, Sapir
Posted in 19th century, 20th century, Article, History, Linguistics
Posted in 19th century, 20th century, Article, History, Linguistics
Greetings from the Orient: H.W. Ludolf as a central figure in 17th-cent. language study
Han Lamers (Leiden) & Toon Van Hal (Leuven) Leiden University and University of Leuven This post takes the reader to Ottoman Smyrna (Izmir in present-day Turkey) and Constantinople (now Istanbul) about 1700 A.D. Almost 250 years before, the Eastern-Roman, or…
Tagged with: 17th century, Anatolia, Germany, history, Ludolf
Posted in 17th century, Anatolia, Article, Germany, History
Posted in 17th century, Anatolia, Article, Germany, History
On the history of the question of whether natural language is “illogical”
Barbara H Partee University of Massachusetts Amherst There have been centuries of study of logic and of language. Some philosophers and logicians have argued that natural language is logically deficient, or even that ânatural language has no logicâ. And before…
Tagged with: formal semantics, history of semantics, language and logic, Montague, natural language, semantics
Posted in 20th century, Article, History, Linguistics, Logical form, Semantics
Posted in 20th century, Article, History, Linguistics, Logical form, Semantics
Gabelentz — Grammatiker einer Sprache ohne Grammatik
Kennosuke Ezawa Ost-West-Gesellschaft fĂŒr Sprach- und Kulturforschung e. V., Berlin In der Wissenschaft gilt ein Modell von dem Gegegenstand, der erklĂ€rt werden soll, nur solange, bis es nicht mehr taugt. Bei der so genannten Chomskyschen Revolution in der Linguistik Mitte…
Tagged with: 19th century, Chinese, Gabelentz, Germany, grammar, history
Posted in 19th century, Article, Germany, History
Posted in 19th century, Article, Germany, History
History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences 