Johann-Mattis List Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena A large proportion of lexical data of the world’s languages is presented in the form of word lists in which a set of concepts was translated into the…
Blog Archives
Towards a history of concept list compilation in historical linguistics
Tagged with: concept list, historical linguistics, Morris Swadesh, Swadesh list
Posted in 18th century, 19th century, 20th century, Article, historical linguistics, Lexicography, Linguistics
Posted in 18th century, 19th century, 20th century, Article, historical linguistics, Lexicography, Linguistics
In the Shadow of the Standard – a workshop
Olivia Walsh University of Nottingham On Saturday 22 September 2018, I organized a workshop, ‘In the Shadow of the Standard’, at the University of Nottingham. The aim of the workshop was two-fold: firstly, to explore new perspectives on how attitudes…
Tagged with: French, language standardisation, Quebec
Posted in Article, Europe, History, Linguistics, Sociolinguistics
Posted in Article, Europe, History, Linguistics, Sociolinguistics
Typology – a new task of linguistics
James McElvenny University of Edinburgh In lieu of an introduction Below I offer an English translation of the last essay Georg von der Gabelentz (1840–1893) personally submitted for publication, “Hypologie [Typologie] der Sprachen, eine neue Aufgabe der Linguistik”. This essay…
Tagged with: Gabelentz, typology
Posted in 19th century, Article, Europe, History, Linguistics, Typology
Posted in 19th century, Article, Europe, History, Linguistics, Typology
Some reflections on the uses and abuses of theory in linguistic thought
Jon Orman My purpose in this piece is to offer a few brief thoughts on a series of questions with which I have become increasingly interested in recent months. Linguistics, it seems to me, is awash with theories and theoretical…
What Zarathustra said: The sixty-year controversy regarding Anquetil-Duperron’s Zend-Avesta
Floris Solleveld University of Amsterdam In 1771, a French scholarly adventurer by the name of Abraham-Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron shocked the Republic of Letters with his translation of Zend-Avesta, Ouvrage de Zoroastre. Published in three volumes with a long series of appendices…
Lawyers, Linguists and Truthiness
Douglas Kibbee University of Illinois Are lies information? This was the question before the Supreme Court of Michigan in a 2016 case (People v. Harris, based on a 2009 incident). A police officer was charged with pulling a motorist out…
“Except in the case of Andrade”: Manuel J. Andrade’s Quileute (1933) on the questions of “drift” and “function”
Perry Wong University of Chicago While currently nearly unknown, Manuel J. Andrade (1885-1941)[1] is one of the central figures in the history of linguistics in the United States. He was a student of Boas at Columbia and an early methodological…
Tagged with: American languages, American structuralism, Bloomfield, Edward Sapir, Leonard Bloomfield, Sapir
Posted in 20th century, America, Article, Field linguistics, History, Linguistics, Pragmatics, Structuralism
Posted in 20th century, America, Article, Field linguistics, History, Linguistics, Pragmatics, Structuralism
Discussing Disciplinary Development: The role of the First International Congress of Linguists (1928) in the formation of the discipline of general linguistics
Emma Mojet University of Amsterdam Why congresses? The organisation of an international congress of a discipline marks a noteworthy stage in the development of a discipline. Taking a broader perspective, the many first disciplinary congresses held around 1900 also mark…
‛Karte und Gebiet’. Die Spatialisierung von Sprache in der Dialektologie des Deutschen von 1918 bis 1955.
Jan David Braun Universität Wien & Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Bericht aus einer Akademie)[1] Vorbemerkung Der vorliegende Text ist ein Bericht aus den bisherigen Arbeiten und eine Erklärung einiger theoretischer Ansätze zu meiner wissenschaftshistorischen Dissertation, die folgenden Arbeitstitel trägt: “Die…
Tagged with: cartography, dialect geography, Dialectology
Posted in 19th century, 20th century, Article, Europe, History, Linguistics
Posted in 19th century, 20th century, Article, Europe, History, Linguistics
Wilhelm Wundt and the Lautgesetze Controversy
Lia Formigari Sapienza Università di Roma A long-dominant historiographical tradition, culminating in Hugo Schuchardt’s essay Über die Lautgesetze (1885), depicted the Neogrammarians as the irreducible upholders of the unconditioned validity of phonetic laws. It is my view that, if we…
Tagged with: Lautgesetze, Neogrammarians, sound laws, Wilhelm Wundt
Posted in 19th century, Article, History, Linguistics, Psycholinguistics
Posted in 19th century, Article, History, Linguistics, Psycholinguistics
