The story of the study of linguistics from its earliest roots to today.
What is linguistics?
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. That doesn’t mean learning specific languages – it means studying language itself. Linguistics is the field that seeks to make sense of the structures, rules, and nuances of how we communicate with words.
The sounds we make, the patterns we follow, the way we use words to convey emotions, and our surroundings all have an impact on the way we communicate. All of these aspects are a part of linguistics, which is broken down into sub-fields like comparative linguistics, historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, and psycholinguistics.
Linguistics has real-world applications that can make a difference in people’s lives. Take speech recognition technology, for example. By leveraging the knowledge of linguistics, engineers are able to create systems that can transcribe spoken language into written text, opening up a world of possibilities for individuals with disabilities.
The study of language has also revealed incredible things about how we communicate, and the differences and similarities between cultures around the world.
Early roots: Language study in ancient civilizations
Linguistics has a long and rich history that dates back to ancient civilizations. Understanding that history is one of the best ways to introduce the core concepts that are important to the field.
One of the earliest known forms of language study can be traced back to ancient Sumer, where language was studied for its use in religious texts and hymns.
The Sumerians had a complex system of writing known as cuneiform, which was used to record their language and literature. In ancient Egypt, language was also studied for religious and literary purposes.
In ancient India, the grammar of the Sanskrit language was codified by the grammarian Pāṇini in the 4th century BCE. His work, “Aṣṭādhyāyī,” is considered one of the most important works in the history of linguistics and the first formal grammar in the world. It is a detailed analysis of the phonetics, morphology, and syntax of the Sanskrit language, and it remains an important reference for linguists today.
Medieval manuscripts: Linguistics in the Middle Ages
During the Middle Ages, the study of language and linguistics was closely tied to the study of manuscripts. These manuscripts were written by hand and were often used to preserve religious texts, classical literature, and works of history and science.
They were also used to transmit knowledge and preserve cultural heritage. One of the most important figures in the study of linguistics during the Middle Ages was the grammarian Donatus, author of the “Ars Grammatica,” a Latin grammar textbook that became the standard textbook for teaching Latin grammar in the Middle Ages.
His work had a significant influence on the development of linguistic thought during the Middle Ages. Another important figure in the study of linguistics during the Middle Ages was Priscian, a 6th-century grammarian who wrote “Institutiones Grammaticae,” an extensive work on Latin grammar.
His work focused on the structure of the Latin language, and it provided a systematic and detailed analysis of the phonetics, morphology, and syntax of Latin.
In the Islamic world, Arabic became the dominant language for scholarly works during this period. Sibawayh, a Persian grammarian who lived in the 8th century, wrote “Kitab al-Nahw,” a comprehensive grammar of the Arabic language that was widely read and influential for centuries.
The development of the comparative method
Historical linguistics, also known as diachronic linguistics, is the study of how languages change over time. The comparative method is a key tool in the field and it has played a central role in the reconstruction of the history and relationships of languages.
The basic principle of the comparative method is that by comparing the words and grammar of related languages, we can reconstruct their common ancestor and infer how they have changed over time.
The origins of the comparative method can be traced back to the 18th century, with the work of scholars such as William Jones. Jones observed similarities in vocabulary and grammar between a wide variety of languages, including Latin, Greek and Sanskrit, and argued that they were related in a genealogical way.
The comparative method was further developed in the 19th century. Linguists in this period systematically compared the words and grammar of related languages, such as the Germanic and Romance languages, to reconstruct their common ancestor and infer how they had changed over time.
This led to the discovery of the laws of sound change, such as Grimm’s Law, which describes the regular correspondences between certain consonants in Germanic languages and other Indo-European languages. The comparative method has allowed linguists to almost entirely reconstruct the Proto-Indo European language.
Structural linguistics: Language as a system
Structuralism is a theoretical framework and method in the study of language that emerged in the early 20th century. It argued that meaning is created in language through the arbitrary interrelation of words, rather than stemming from any underlying universal sense of meaning. Put simply, it’s the argument that words, and other symbols used by humans, only hold meaning due to their context.
One of the key figures in the development of structuralism is Ferdinand de Saussure, a Swiss linguist, and semiotician. Saussure’s ideas, laid out in his posthumously published work “Cours de Linguistique Générale” (Course in General Linguistics), provided the foundation for structural linguistics.
He argued that language is a system of signs, where the sign is made up of two parts: the signifier, which is the sound or written form of the word, and the signified, which is the concept or meaning it represents. He also emphasized the importance of studying language as a system, rather than focusing on individual words or sentences.
In the 1960s, the development of structuralism in linguistics was challenged by the emergence of other approaches such as transformational-generative grammar and sociolinguistics. However, structuralist ideas continue to be influential in literary and cultural studies.
The Prague school
The Prague School of linguistics was a group of linguists active in the early 20th century who expanded on the ideas of structuralism, particularly in the study of phonology and morphology. The group was led by scholars such as Roman Jakobson and Nikolai Trubetzkoy, and their work had a significant impact on the development of structuralism in linguistics.
One of the key contributions of the Prague School was the development of the theory of phoneme, which is the smallest unit of sound that can change the meaning of a word. Trubetzkoy proposed that phonemes can be analyzed in terms of their distinctive features, such as voicing or nasality, which are the properties that distinguish one phoneme from another.
This idea was further developed by Jakobson, who proposed that phonemes can be organized into a system of oppositions, where each phoneme is defined in relation to other phonemes in the system.
Descriptive linguistics
Descriptive linguistics is a branch of linguistics that focuses on describing and analyzing the structure of language. This is as opposed to the more theoretical approaches of comparative and historical linguistics.
One of the key figures in the development of descriptive linguistics was Leonard Bloomfield, an American linguist who is considered one of the founders of structural linguistics. In his 1933 book “Language,” Bloomfield argued that the study of language should be based on observable data, rather than on historical or comparative methods.
The study of Indigenous American languages played an important role in the development of descriptive linguistics, particularly in the United States. In the early 20th century, many linguists became interested in describing and analyzing the structures of Indigenous American languages, which were often understudied and endangered.
One notable example of descriptive linguistics is the work of Edward Sapir and his student Benjamin Lee Whorf, both of whom studied and described the structures of several Indigenous American languages. Their work was particularly influential in the development of the theory of linguistic relativity, which proposes that the structure of a language influences the way its speakers think and perceive the world.
Chomsky's revolution
The Chomskyan revolution in linguistics was a major shift in the study of language that took place in the mid-20th century. It was led by Noam Chomsky, an American linguist who is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the field.
At the core of his revolution was the concept of generative grammar, which proposes that the ability to produce and understand language is innate and that it is based on a set of rules and principles that are hard-wired into the human mind.
According to this view, children are not simply learning the words and structures of their native language through exposure and repetition, but are instead using their innate knowledge of language to actively construct and analyze the language they hear.
The central idea of generative grammar is that language is generated by a set of rules that are represented in the mind as a mental grammar. This mental grammar is responsible for producing and understanding linguistic expressions, and is seen as a product of human biology and evolution.
The Linguistic Wars
The Linguistic Wars were a series of debates and controversies that took place in the field of linguistics during the 1960s and 1970s. At the center of these debates was a fundamental disagreement about the nature of language and the proper methodology for studying it.
On one hand, Noam Chomsky advocated for a generative approach to linguistics. Chomsky believed that language is innate to the human mind, and that the rules of grammar are hardwired into our brains.
He proposed the idea of a “universal grammar” that all languages share, and argued that the goal of linguistics should be to uncover the underlying rules of this universal grammar.
On the other hand, a group of linguists took a more empiricist approach to the study of language. This group included Paul Postal, Haj Ross, George Lakoff, and James McCawley. Their approach came to be known as “generative semantics.” They argued that Chomsky’s approach was too abstract and failed to take into account the actual usage of language in real-world contexts. They emphasized the importance of studying the actual data of language.
Chomsky argued that semantics was secondary to syntax, and that the meaning of a sentence can be derived from its deep structure. His critics, on the other hand, argued that semantics was primary and that the syntax of a sentence was derived from its meaning. This debate continues to dominate linguistics in the 21st century.
Linguistics in the 21st century
Linguistics has come a long way since its inception as a discipline, and new directions and cutting-edge research continue to push the boundaries of our understanding of language.
One of the most exciting research areas today is the study of linguistic diversity and endangered languages. With the rise of globalization and the spread of dominant languages, many smaller and less widely spoken languages are at risk of extinction. Linguists are working to document and preserve these endangered languages.
Another area of research that is of great interest is the relationship between language and the brain. Advances in neuroimaging techniques have allowed researchers to study the brain’s response to language in real-time, and to understand the neural mechanisms that underlie language processing.
