Lecture The emergence of comparative-historical linguistics in the XIX century

Lecture 5. The emergence of comparative-historical linguistics in the XIX century

Plan

• Comparative-historical linguistics.
• Periods of comparative studies.
• W. von Humboldt's historical philosophical concept.

The 18th & 19th centuries are characterised by an increasing interest in the origins and especially evolution of human language. Contrary to the universalist ideas of the Port Royal grammarians about the primacy of thought, Herder for instance stressed the interdependence and mutual evolvement of language and thought. Along with this, however, we can also observe the development of ‘synchronic studies’ of individual national languages, partly in connection with the growth of nationalism.

• The 18th & 19th centuries are characterised by an increasing interest in the origins and especially evolution of human language. Contrary to the universalist ideas of the Port Royal grammarians about the primacy of thought, Herder for instance stressed the interdependence and mutual evolvement of language and thought. Along with this, however, we can also observe the development of ‘synchronic studies’ of individual national languages, partly in connection with the growth of nationalism.
• In 1786, Sir William Jones establishes a clear connection between the ancient Indian language of Sanskrit and many of the modern (Indo-)Germanic languages and thereby becomes responsible for the development of comparative-historical linguistics.

W. v. Humboldt stresses the differences between individual languages as expressions of the experiences of individual speakers of these languages and therefore in a sense is one of the earliest proponents of the theory of linguistic relativism, although he does assume that all languages by necessity have similar things they need to to be able to express. According to him, language is a source of great creativity, and even the best descriptions provided by grammarians will never manage to capture all the relevant ideas underlying it. He is also known as the inventor of a classification scheme for linguistic typology, distinguishing between isolating, inflecting, agglutinating and incorporating languages.