Blog Archives

Colorless green ideas and the others

Martin Konvička (Freie Universität Berlin)* 1 Colorless green ideas In the opening pages of his Syntactic Structures (1957: 15)[1], Noam Chomsky demonstrates the independence of grammar (or syntax) from semantics by referring to the meaningless, yet grammatically well-formed – and

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Posted in 19th century, 20th century, History, Linguistics, Philosophy, Semantics, Syntax

John Goldsmith – Battle in the Mind Fields

John Goldsmith (University of Chicago) has made a series of 10 videos – one for each chapter – about the book Battle in the Mind Fields, which he wrote with Bernard Laks (University of Paris) and published in 2019. A

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

History of Linguistics in East and South-East Asia

Below are two talks originally presented at the meeting of the Society for the History of Linguistics in the Pacific, December 2020, on the history of the grammatical description of Vietnamese and Chinese. Quang Anh Le, Time-marking particles and the

Posted in 19th century, 20th century, China, Grammars, History

History of Linguistics in Australia

The following are a selection of three talks on the history of linguistics in Australia originally delivered at the meeting of the Society for the History of Linguistics in the Pacific, December 2020. Jane Simpson, Grammars for analysis, grammars for

Posted in Australia, History, Linguistics

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

Racialization, language science, and nineteenth century anthropometrics

Margaret Thomas Boston College Introduction In May 2019, the Executive Committee of the Linguistic Society of America approved of a ‘Statement on Race’ (https://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/lsa-statement-race), which puts on record the society’s opposition to racialization in the study of language, and in

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

Johann Christoph Adelung, a forerunner of modern bilingual lexicography

Jacques François University of Caen-Normandy http://www.interlingua.fr 1. A forgotten German Enlightenment philosopher Johann Christoph Adelung (1732–1806) was one of the main promoters of the Volksaufklärung (popular Enlightenment) in the vein of Christian Wolff, eager to synthetize what the broad cultivated

Posted in 18th century, 19th century, Article, History, Lexicography, Linguistics

Galant grammarians: Donneau de Visé’s Mercure galant

Doyle Calhoun Yale University (Department of French) What was the Mercure galant and why should it interest historians of linguistics? Founded in 1672 by Jean Donneau de Visé (1638–1710) — journalist and royal historiographer under Louis XIV — the bestselling

Posted in 17th century, 18th century, Article, Grammars

Podcast episode 4: Interview with Jürgen Trabant on Wilhelm von Humboldt

Jürgen Trabant

In this episode, we talk to Jürgen Trabant about Wilhelm von Humboldt.

Posted in 19th century, Europe, History, Linguistics, Philosophy, Podcast, Typology

What is Syriac and what is Aramaic according to Syriac grammarians (8th-16th cent.)

Margherita Farina Histoire des Théories Linguistiques (Paris) What is Aramaic? In modern linguistic terms, we can say that Aramaic is a linguistic group, composed by dialectal varieties defined on a geographical, chronological and socio-cultural basis. For example, we speak about

Posted in Article, Grammars, Syriac, Uncategorized

Upcoming events

28-30 June 2023
Faro, Portugal
International Inter-association (History of Language Teaching) Conference
Language teachers, methodologies and teacher training in historical perspective

4-6 September 2023
Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Portugal
2023 Annual Colloquium of the Henry Sweet Society
What counts as scientific in the History of Linguistics?

6-9 September 2023
Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Portugal
XXXII. International Colloquium of the “Studienkreis ‘Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft'” (SGdS)
Controversies in the history of linguistics