Philological-Grammatical Tradition in Ancient Linguistics (original) (raw)

Classical Thoughts on Language: A Review of the Greek and Roman Linguistics

JOURNAL OF CREATIVE WRITING, 2022

In the early development of linguistic science in Europe, western philosophers paid much attention to the observation of differences between an individual’s speech and the neighboring people, looking at dialectical or language differences. According to Robins (1997), the initiation of European linguistics thoughts can be tracked from the Greeks. In his famous book entitled ‘A Short History of Linguistics’, Robins (1997) began his discussion by presuming that humans are biologically endowed with language faculty which enable them to acquire their first language. They then learn foreign languages and stimulate linguistic self-consciousness by contacts with the community and foreign speakers. Since then, the study of how language system develops is overlooked, since it is considered as humans’ natural linguistics ability. Robins used the term ‘linguistics science’ to approach the study of how language is diverse and changes with an influence of close interaction between language use and the speech community. He asserted that cultures influence the power of language. Folk linguistics is thus fostered and transmitted into linguistics science through the generation of communities along with cultural variations. Although Robins indicated that the study of linguistics is grounded by the significant exploration of the European frameworks, he insisted that the history of linguistics in Europe does not entail any European superiority in the linguistics field in comparison to the lack of knowledge we may have on the established Sanskrit work of the Indians. Hence, this paper aims to review the two main classical thoughts established in the development of language.

“Ancient Philosophers on Language” (in collaboration with P. Kotzia).

The Encyclopedia of Ancient Greek Language and Linguistics, eds. G. Giannakis, V. Bubenik, E. Crespo, Ch. Golston, A. Lianeri, S. Luraghi, St. Matthaios, vol. 1, pp. 124-133. Leiden & Boston: Brill., 2014

An outline of the history of linguistics

People everywhere talk about language: they have ideas about its nature, uses, origins, acquisition, structure, and so on. Some of these notions are enshrined in mythology (think for instance of the Tower of Babel story). In some sense the things people say and believe about language could qualify as linguistics: they represent a body of knowledge and beliefs about language. But, as we are using it, the term linguistics refers to a body of knowledge that is structured in ways that characterise it as a science rather than mythology or everyday beliefs (see pp. 2-3). Linguistics is thus a cultural phenomenon, an activity practised in some (certainly not all) cultures. Like all cultural phenomena it has a history, which partly shapes it, including the questions it addresses and the methods it employs. For this reason it is useful to know something about the development of the subject.

History of linguistics

The History of Linguistics, to be published in five volumes, aims to provide the reader with an authoritative and comprehensive account of the attitudes to language prevailing in different civilizations and in different periods by examining the very varied development of linguistic thought in the specific social, cultural and religious contexts involved. Issues discussed include the place of language in education, variation and prestige, and approaches to lexical and grammatical description. The authors of the individual chapters are specialists who have analysed the primary sources and produced original syntheses by exploring the linguistic interests and assumptions of particular the demonstration that languages such as Sanskrit , Latin and English are related and derive from a parent language which is not attested but can be reconstructed. This book discusses in detail the theories developed and the individual findings obtained. In contrast with earlier historiographical trends it denies that the new approach originated entirely from German Romanticism, and highlights a form of continuity with the eighteenth century, while stressing that a deliberate break took place round the 1830s. By the end of the century the results of comparative and historical linguistics had been generally accepted, but it soon became clear that a historical approach could not by itself solve all questions that it raised. At this point the new interest in description and theory which characterizes the twentieth century began to gain prominence.

Early Linguists

Early Linguists, 2024

This article was written to draw attention to some very remarkable linguistic documents: a set of five bilingual Sumerian-Akkadian paradigms dating to the early 2nd millennium BC, when Sumerian was dead or dying as a spoken language. These sophisticated texts, whose structure I shall here discuss in detail, are by far the earliest serious grammatical documents in existence. Regrettably, they are hardly known outside of Sumerological circles and deserve wider publicity. The relevance of this fascinating linguistic material to the history of science is comparable to, or even surpassing, that of the mathematical texts of the same period.