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From the earliest surviving glossaries and translations to nineteenth-century academic philology and the growth of linguistics during the twentieth century, language has been the subject both of scholarly investigation and of practical handbooks produced for the upwardly mobile, as well as for travellers, traders, soldiers, missionaries and explorers. This collection will reissue a wide range of texts pertaining to language, including the work of Latin grammarians, groundbreaking early publications in Indo-European studies, accounts of indigenous languages, many of them now extinct, and texts by pioneering figures such as Jacob Grimm, Wilhelm von Humboldt and Ferdinand de Saussure.

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171 results in Cambridge Library Collection - Linguistics

Page 3 of 9

Language and the Study of Language
  • Twelve Lectures on the Principles of Linguistic Science
  • William Dwight Whitney
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    26 September 2013
  • William Dwight Whitney (1827–94) was the foremost American philologist and Sanskrit scholar of the nineteenth century. After studying in Germany, then at the forefront of linguistic scholarship, he assumed the chair of Sanskrit at Yale in 1854, with comparative philology added to his professorship in 1869. As well as teaching modern languages, Whitney published over 300 scholarly papers and books, acted as chief editor of the ten-volume Century Dictionary, and co-founded the American Philological Association. This 1867 work is an expanded version of lectures he had given at the Smithsonian Institution and in Boston, rewritten for a wider audience and emphasising the importance of recent German philological scholarship. The first five lectures concentrate mostly on the English language and the study of languages in general, including discussion of regional dialects and American English. The lectures then go on to look at the Indo-European language family as well as methods of linguistic research.

The Rudiments of English Grammar
  • Adapted to the Use of Schools; with Notes and Observations, for the Use of Those Who Have Made Some Proficiency in the Language
  • Joseph Priestley
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    19 September 2013
  • The English polymath Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) defined grammar as nothing more complicated than a system of rules for the correct use of language. This enlarged second edition of his influential 1761 textbook first appeared in 1769; it had by then established him as one of the major grammarians of his age. With little patience for the confusing and superfluous application of Latin rules to English, Priestley champions a simple style of grammatical explanation here, questioning even such fundamental concepts as an English future tense. The text follows a clear question-and-answer structure designed for students. Priestley's determination to modernise the teaching of English and to promote usage as the crucial linguistic standard remain relevant today. A companion work, A Course of Lectures on the Theory of Language and Universal Grammar (1762), is also reissued in this series, along with other works by Priestley ranging in coverage from oratory to oxygen.

A Handbook of Phonetics
  • Including a Popular Exposition of the Principles of Spelling Reform
  • Henry Sweet
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    26 September 2013
  • As a phonetician and comparative philologist, Henry Sweet (1845–1912) produced work that was regarded as seminal, particularly in Germany, where he received greater academic recognition than in England. His textbooks on Old English have long been considered standard works. As well as theoretical and historical studies, he also became involved in more practical aspects of linguistics, devising a new kind of shorthand, discussing spelling reform, and promoting the teaching and learning of modern languages. He played a role in the early history of the Oxford English Dictionary and edited several works for the Early English Text Society. Shaw's Professor Higgins in Pygmalion is believed to be based at least partly on Sweet. The present work, first published in 1877, inspired European interest in phonetic studies. Sweet presents a general theory of phonetics, illustrated by examples of transcription from various languages. He also formulates the distinction between phonemic and allophonic transcriptions.

A Course of Lectures on the Theory of Language, and Universal Grammar
  • Joseph Priestley
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    24 October 2013
    First published in:
    1762
  • The English polymath Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) wrote on a wide range of scientific, theological and pedagogical subjects. In 1761, he produced the influential textbook Rudiments of English Grammar (also reissued in this series). The following year, having taken up a teaching position at Warrington Academy, he released this outline of nineteen lectures on a variety of linguistic topics. Although it was not published, it was distributed to other dissenting academies. Intended to give teachers a starting point when discussing 'the art of language' in its diverse forms, the lectures range from articulation and the alphabet to comparative linguistics, syntax, metre and the evolution of language. Along with its companion work, it established Priestley as one of the leading grammarians and educators of his time. Modern readers will gain a deeper understanding of his drive to increase and share knowledge of how and why speech and writing served their purpose.

Morphologische Untersuchungen auf dem Gebiete der indogermanischen Sprachen
  • Volume 4
  • Hermann Osthoff, Karl Brugmann
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    06 February 2014
  • Hermann Osthoff (1847–1909) and Karl Brugmann (1849–1919) were central figures in the circle of German scholars who rejected a doctrinal approach to the study of linguistics. They came to be known as the Neogrammarian school. At the core of their work was the theory that European languages, together with a subset of languages found in central and southern Asia, have a common origin in a single prehistoric language. They called this ancestor Indo-Germanic (known today as Indo-European) and claimed that its descendants are all related to one another by varying degrees of closeness. This six-volume elaboration of this thesis was published between 1878 and 1910. Volume 4 (1881) is devoted entirely to Osthoff's study of vowel gradation in Indo-European languages. He makes it clear that his recent research on vowels has led him to revise his earlier views.

Morphologische Untersuchungen auf dem Gebiete der indogermanischen Sprachen
  • Volume 3
  • Hermann Osthoff, Karl Brugmann
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    06 February 2014
  • Hermann Osthoff (1847–1909) and Karl Brugmann (1849–1919) were central figures in the circle of German scholars who rejected a doctrinal approach to the study of linguistics. They came to be known as the Neogrammarian school. At the core of their work was the theory that European languages, together with a subset of languages found in central and southern Asia, have a common origin in a single prehistoric language. They called this ancestor Indo-Germanic (known today as Indo-European) and claimed that its descendants are all related to one another by varying degrees of closeness. This six-volume elaboration of this thesis was published between 1878 and 1910. In Volume 3 (1880), Brugmann explains the rules for conjugation and focuses particularly on how the aorist tense in Greek, Italian and Celtic is formed. He also gives an account of the vowels a, e and o.

The Life and Growth of Language
  • William Dwight Whitney
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    26 September 2013
  • William Dwight Whitney (1827–94) was the foremost American philologist and Sanskrit scholar of the nineteenth century. After studying in Germany, then at the forefront of linguistic scholarship, he assumed the chair of Sanskrit at Yale in 1854, with comparative philology added to his professorship in 1869. As well as teaching modern languages, Whitney published over 300 scholarly papers and books, acted as chief editor of the ten-volume Century Dictionary, and co-founded the American Philological Association. In this important 1875 work, the influence of evolutionary theory on other branches of nineteenth-century scholarship, not merely biology, is clear in the discussion of the development of language. Whitney's survey is wide-ranging, beginning with an examination of language acquisition and how language shapes or limits our thought processes. Stressing the scientific basis of historical linguistics, he further looks at how different languages have changed over time, in terms of grammatical form, pronunciation and meaning.

Morphologische Untersuchungen auf dem Gebiete der indogermanischen Sprachen
  • Volume 2
  • Hermann Osthoff, Karl Brugmann
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    06 February 2014
  • Hermann Osthoff (1847–1909) and Karl Brugmann (1849–1919) were central figures in the circle of German scholars who rejected a doctrinal approach to the study of linguistics. They came to be known as the Neogrammarian school. At the core of their work was the theory that European languages, together with a subset of languages found in central and southern Asia, have a common origin in a single prehistoric language. They called this ancestor Indo-Germanic (known today as Indo-European) and claimed that its descendants are all related to one another by varying degrees of closeness. This six-volume elaboration of this thesis was published between 1878 and 1910. In Volume 2 (1879) the authors focus on explaining very specific elements in the development of Indo-European languages. They account for the rules of declination and the use of suffixes in various combinations.

Handbook of American Indian Languages
  • Volume 1, Part 1
  • Edited by Franz Boas
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    29 August 2013
  • Edited by the eminent anthropologist and linguist Franz Boas (1858–1942), this work was first published in two huge volumes between 1911 and 1922. Comprising detailed studies of several Native American languages, Volume 1 has been split into two parts for this reissue. Part 1 contains chapters on the Athapascan (Hupa), Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian and Kwak'wala languages. Each chapter contains a discussion of the speakers of the language, its geographical distribution, the phonetic system, and an analysis of the grammar and vocabulary. The work built upon the foundations laid by J. W. Powell (1834–1902) in his Introduction to the Study of Indian Languages (1877). Boas, a pioneer in the field of cultural anthropology, used his introduction to the present work to promote his culturally relativist approach to ethnographic study. Overall, the project ranks as a landmark in entrenching scientific principles for the study of North America's indigenous peoples and languages.

Der Vokalismus des Vulgärlateins
  • Volume 1
  • Hugo Schuchardt
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    20 March 2014
  • The German linguist Hugo Schuchardt (1842–1927) made significant contributions to the study of the Basque and Romance languages, publishing also on pidgins and creoles. A critic of the Neogrammarian hypothesis of sound laws, he subscribed to the 'wave model' of language change. His Über die Lautgesetze: Gegen die Junggrammatiker (1885) has been reissued in this series in a volume with Die Verwantschaftsverhältnisse der indogermanischen Sprachen (1872) by Johannes Schmidt (1843–1901). Based on Schuchardt's doctoral dissertation and the painstaking study of extant sources, the present three-volume work appeared between 1866 and 1868. He explores here the development and characteristics of Vulgar Latin, the language of the general population, as opposed to the classical, literary variety. The work focuses on the distinctive vowel changes that took place in Romance vernaculars over many centuries. Opening with a thorough introduction and discussion of sources, Volume 1 (1866) examines qualitative vowel changes.

Morphologische Untersuchungen auf dem Gebiete der indogermanischen Sprachen
  • Volume 5
  • Hermann Osthoff, Karl Brugmann
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    06 February 2014
  • Hermann Osthoff (1847–1909) and Karl Brugmann (1849–1919) were central figures in the circle of German scholars who rejected a doctrinal approach to the study of linguistics. They came to be known as the Neogrammarian school. At the core of their work was the theory that European languages, together with a subset of languages found in central and southern Asia, have a common origin in a single prehistoric language. They called this ancestor Indo-Germanic (known today as Indo-European) and claimed that its descendants are all related to one another by varying degrees of closeness. This six-volume elaboration of this thesis was published between 1878 and 1910. Volume 5 (1890) comprises various essays, including an account of how the numbers 10 and 100 are formed within Indo-European languages and an excursus detailing the forming of the nominative and accusative cases.

Mélanges de mythologie et de linguistique
  • Michel Jules Alfred Bréal
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    26 September 2013
    First published in:
    1877
  • The eminent French philologist Michel Bréal (1832–1915) made significant contributions to the fields of comparative linguistics, pedagogy and etymology. He became a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in 1875 and a commander of the Légion d'honneur in 1890. This work, first published in 1877, gathers together articles that Bréal mostly wrote before 1869, when he was appointed secretary of the new and prestigious Société de Linguistique de Paris. He argues that language and mythology have a common origin, which accounts for why most abstract nouns are feminine, in remembrance of ancient deities. Bréal also exposes new ways to study languages and their impact in primary and secondary education. Lastly, he lays the foundations of modern semantics, a discipline he intended would reconcile historical linguistics with the philosophy of the Enlightenment.

Ramaseeana
  • Or a Vocabulary of the Peculiar Language Used by the Thugs
  • W. H. Sleeman
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    02 June 2011
    First published in:
    1836
  • Thugs, or thuggees, were members of secretive gangs that robbed and sometimes murdered travellers in India; they were also said to worship the Hindu goddess Kali. The British colonial administrator William Henry Sleeman (1788–1856) took a special interest in these gangs and mounted a campaign to eradicate them. Between 1826 and 1840 thousands of Thugs were imprisoned or hanged. The outcome of the operation was due in part to Sleeman's focus on gathering intelligence about the gangs' coded communications. This substantial vocabulary, published in 1836, was compiled from conversations with informers and interrogations of prisoners. It includes words such as adhoreea, which means an intended victim who escaped being murdered, or dhurohurkurna, which is the verb 'to strangle'. The book contains much fascinating data for linguists and historians, and includes an appendix of cases and depositions that constitutes a useful source on crime in colonial India.

Lectures on the Science of Language
  • Delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in 1863
  • Volume 2
  • F. Max Müller
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    31 October 2013
  • Born in Germany and trained in Greek, Latin and Sanskrit, Friedrich Max Müller (1823–1900) settled at Oxford, where he would become the university's first professor of comparative philology. Best known for his work on the Rig Veda, he brought the comparative study of language, mythology and religion to a wider audience in Victorian Britain. His lectures at the Royal Institution, published in two volumes between 1861 and 1864, were reprinted fifteen times before the end of the century. Volume 2 contains the twelve 1863 lectures, in which Max Müller argues for the inseparability of the science of language from the science of the mind. He explores 'the body or the outside of language, the sounds in which language is clothed' as well as 'the soul or the inside' and its relation to mythology. Hugely successful at the time - George Eliot was particularly enthused - the lectures remain instructive reading in the history of linguistics.

Handbook of American Indian Languages
  • Volume 2
  • Edited by Franz Boas
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    29 August 2013
  • Edited by the eminent anthropologist and linguist Franz Boas (1858–1942), this work was first published in two huge volumes between 1911 and 1922. Comprising detailed studies of four Native American languages, Volume 2 focuses on the Takelma, Coos, Siuslaw and Chukchi languages. Each chapter contains a discussion of the speakers of the language, its geographical distribution, the phonetic system, and an analysis of the grammar and vocabulary. The work built upon the foundations laid by J. W. Powell (1834–1902) in his Introduction to the Study of Indian Languages (1877). Boas, a pioneer in the field of cultural anthropology, intended the present work to promote his culturally relativist approach to ethnographic study. Overall, the project ranks as a landmark in entrenching scientific principles for the study of North America's indigenous peoples and languages.

English Grammar
  • Adapted to the Different Classes of Learners
  • Lindley Murray
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    02 January 2014
  • American-born lawyer and author Lindley Murray (1745–1826) was hailed by his admirers as the 'father of English grammar'. First published in 1795 and reissued here in its 1830 forty-fourth edition, English Grammar became the definitive textbook on the subject in the early nineteenth century. Murray divides the work into four sections: orthography, etymology, syntax and prosody. Treating his subject methodically, he reasons that sound instruction in grammar should begin with the form and sound of letters, continue to the different types of words, include guidelines on the construction of sentences, and provide advice on correct pronunciation. Accordingly, the book commences with the alphabet before moving on to more complex subjects, from verb conjugation through to versification. An appendix gives advice on writing more effectively. The work's huge success, in Britain and the United States, as well as in translation, testifies to its rigorous and unpretentious approach.

Initia Amharica

Les Parlers Judéo-Romans et la Vetus Latina
  • Étude sur les rapports entre les traductions bibliques en langue Romane des Juifs au Moyen Âge et les anciennes versions
  • D. S. Blondheim
  • Published online:
    05 March 2014
    Print publication:
    27 June 2013
    First published in:
    1925
  • The American philologist David Simon Blondheim (1884–1934) was endowed with vast Hebraic learning. In this book, first published in 1925, he makes connections between European Jewish speech in antiquity, the Old Latin versions of the Bible, and medieval Romance languages. He examines how Greek-speaking Jews transmitted their linguistic traditions both orally and in writing until the Middle Ages. Establishing that they used the Hebrew and Greek Bibles side by side and translated the Greek version into Old Latin, Blondheim concludes that their traditional translations extensively influenced the Vulgate, the English Bible, and the Romance languages. In 1926, Blondheim was the first American to be awarded the Volney Prize from the French Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres for this groundbreaking scholarly achievement. It will make invaluable reading for students of the Bible and the Romance languages.

Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft bei den Griechen und Römern
  • Mit besonderer Rücksicht auf die Logik
  • Heymann Steinthal
  • Published online:
    05 October 2013
    Print publication:
    18 April 2013
    First published in:
    1863
  • Heymann Steinthal (1823–99) was a German philologist and university professor who insisted that the development of linguistics could be properly understood only when viewed within a general cultural and philosophical framework. Initially an admirer of Wilhelm von Humboldt, he increasingly found more value in the works of fellow philologist August Böckh, to whom this 1863 work is dedicated. In this history of linguistics, Steinthal explores the concept of language in the Greek and Roman traditions, with special emphasis on the relationship to logic. The work is divided into two parts: in the first part, the author accounts for the nature of language in the philosophy of Plato, the Sophists and the Stoics; in the second part, he focuses on how grammar has developed since the Alexandrian school. Steinthal readily admits that Socratic irony and Aristotelian analytics are not simple concepts and warns against misrepresenting them by applying a contemporary interpretation.

Specimens of Languages of India
  • Including those of the Aboriginal Tribes of Bengal, the Central Provinces, and the Eastern Frontier
  • George Campbell
  • Published online:
    05 October 2013
    Print publication:
    24 May 2012
    First published in:
    1874
  • This 1874 work by Sir George Campbell, a British government official whose Scheme for the Government of India is also reissued in this series, presents a survey of the diverse languages of India, using material obtained usually by British army officers trained by Campbell to collect 'specimens' in the course of their normal work. The tabular material is presented with the English words or phrases in one column and their equivalent in the Indian language under discussion in another: most of the languages are represented by more than one dialect, such as the 'Punjabee of Lahore' and the 'Punjabee of Mooltan'. In his introduction to the work, Campbell emphasises that the survey is not scientific, and his main conclusion is that in addition to the broad division of Aryan and Dravidian language types, India contains a huge number of 'aboriginal' languages which will require further study.

Page 3 of 9