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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 April 2010
This paper will examine how a group of theorists in the European tradition of language study was influenced by non-European and intra-European comparisons of language. These theorists were primarily based in Great Britain, although North American perspectives will also be considered. I shall trace this tradition of understanding from Francis Bacon to the American lexicographer Noah Webster. This way of considering language was initially a tool in the attempt to create a universal language that would enable Europeans to discuss and explain the new worlds then being explored. The context of Europe, however, proved significant in changing this outward looking view, resulting in an attempt to vernacularize the concept of a universal language and to make the English language an international language of discovery.
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8 A good consideration of universal languages in a broader context can be found in James Knowlson, Universal Language Schemes in France and England (Toronto 1975)Google Scholar.
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55 Webster, American Dictionary, preface.
56 Ibid., preface.