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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 4 of 9

A Dictionary of the Suahili Language
  • With Introduction Containing an Outline of a Suahili Grammar
  • Compiled by Johann Ludwig Krapf
  • Published online:
    05 October 2013
    Print publication:
    26 April 2012
    First published in:
    1882
  • Johan Ludwig Krapf (1810–81), a German-born member of the Church Missionary Society in East Africa, is regarded as the founder of Swahili studies in Europe. Having pursued an interest in Oriental culture from an early age, he first went to Abyssinia (Ethiopia) as a missionary. During his travels in Africa, he became the first European to see Mount Kenya; but he also considered the potential of Swahili as a lingua franca. Krapf published the first printed text in Swahili, and the first systematic Swahili grammar, as well as being the first to bring Swahili manuscripts to Europe. Another in a series of firsts is this lexicon, which was published posthumously in 1882. The Swahili dictionary, pioneering as it was in its day, is still of historical interest, especially because it contains notes on Swahili culture and customs, as well as an outline of the language's grammar.

Einleitung in das Sprachstudium
  • Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte und Methodik der vergleichenden Sprachforschung
  • Berthold Delbrück
  • Published online:
    05 June 2013
    Print publication:
    02 August 2012
    First published in:
    1880
  • In 1876 the Leipzig publisher Breitkopf und Härtel launched a series on Indo-European languages entitled 'Bibliothek Indogermanischer Grammatiken'. The first three volumes covered phonology, Greek and Sanskrit. This short introduction to the comparative method, published in 1880, was the fourth. It was highly successful, with six editions appearing between 1880 and 1919. Its author, Berthold Delbrück (1842–1922), Professor of Sanskrit at Jena, was a former student of the pioneering Indo-Europeanist Franz Bopp. Delbrück expanded the horizons of the field to cover syntax as well as phonology and morphology; his magisterial studies of Sanskrit and Indo-European syntax (also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection) appeared between 1886 and 1900. This book, designed as a guide for readers of the Breitkopf series, includes a fascinating history of Indo-European philology from its founding fathers Jones and Bopp through Humboldt, Schleicher and Curtius to Delbrück's own time, and outlines the most recent developments.

Bibliotheca marsdeniana philologica et orientalis
  • A Catalogue of Books and Manuscripts Collected with a View to the General Comparison of Languages, and to the Study of Oriental Literature
  • William Marsden
  • Published online:
    05 June 2013
    Print publication:
    09 August 2012
    First published in:
    1827
  • Amassed over a forty-year career, first with the East India Company in Sumatra and later with the Admiralty as its First Secretary, William Marsden's library, as revealed in this catalogue of 1827, was an invaluable collection. An expert in Asian languages, Marsden (1754–1836) published his catalogue to provide a basis for study into comparative linguistics and oriental literature. This work provides an insight into both the practice of book-collecting in the period, and the variety of works published throughout the world. It lists texts on travel, medicine and linguistics, as well as works of literature and religion, including some extremely rare Bibles, and a possibly unique copy of the Book of Genesis in the Algonquin language. The library itself was donated to King's College, London, in 1835 and is now shared by King's College and the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.

Elements of South-Indian Palaeography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century, AD
  • Being an Introduction to the Study of South-Indian Inscriptions and Mss
  • A. C. Burnell
  • Published online:
    05 May 2013
    Print publication:
    02 August 2012
    First published in:
    1874
  • Published in 1874, this groundbreaking monograph on the palaeography of southern India gained great scholarly acclaim. Arthur Coke Burnell (1840–82) served in the Indian Civil Service and as a judge, also building up a large collection of original or copied Sanskrit manuscripts. Originally intended as an introduction to his vast and pioneering Classified Index to the Sanskrit Manuscripts in the Palace at Tanjore (1880), this work won Burnell an honorary doctorate at the University of Strasbourg. Replete with documentary evidence, it contains copies and explanations of numerous texts, the decipherment of which threw new light upon an obscure chapter in the history of writing, offering new theories for dating the introduction of writing into India and the origin of southern Indian alphabets and numerals. Although Burnell's work has since been built on and sometimes superseded, this is still a much-cited resource in South Asian palaeography and epigraphy.

Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India
  • To Wit, Hindi, Panjabi, Sindhi, Gujarati, Marathi, Oriya, and Bangali
  • Volume 2, The Noun and the Pronoun
  • John Beames
  • Published online:
    05 May 2013
    Print publication:
    07 June 2012
    First published in:
    1875
  • The Indo-Aryan language family is a branch of the Indo-European phylum, and includes Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Punjabi, Kashmiri and Gujarati. First published in 1875, this three-volume comparative grammar of the family was written by the British civil servant John Beames (1837–1902). From 1866 he spent twelve years in India, during which he gathered data for what he intended to be the first comprehensive and accurate Indo-Aryan grammar. Volume 2 focuses on nouns and pronouns. It begins by looking at the stems and suffixes that form Indo-Aryan nouns, and compares their systems of inflection for gender, number, possession and case. It moves on to explore their pronoun systems, showing how they operate in terms of interrogatives, reciprocals, indefinites and demonstratives, and how person is expressed. Beames' findings remain central to the work of general linguists, grammarians and language typologists.

Zulu–English Dictionary
  • John William Colenso
  • Published online:
    05 May 2013
    Print publication:
    02 August 2012
    First published in:
    1861
  • John William Colenso (1814–83) was appointed the first Bishop of Natal in 1853 and settled there in 1855. He devoted great energy to developing the diocese, overseeing the completion of the cathedral in Pietermaritzburg, the building of churches in Durban and Richmond and the establishment of mission stations. He also learned Zulu and set up a printing press. He published a Zulu grammar in 1855, within months of his arrival, and translated the New Testament into Zulu. This substantial Zulu–English dictionary appeared in 1861, with financial support from the colonial legislature. It contains over 10,000 entries, many with examples of usage, and includes loan words from European languages. The Preface provides brief notes on phonology, and explains Colenso's orthographic principles, criteria for selection, and the structure of the entries. The dictionary remained a standard work even after Colenso's death, and a fourth revised edition was published in 1905.

A Handbook of the Cornish Language
  • Chiefly in its Latest Stages, with Some Account of its History and Literature
  • Henry Jenner
  • Published online:
    05 May 2013
    Print publication:
    02 August 2012
    First published in:
    1904
  • 'Why should Cornishmen learn Cornish?' asked Henry Jenner (1848–1934) in the preface to this 1904 publication, dating from the beginnings of the Cornish revival. Jenner admits that 'the reason ... is sentimental and not in the least practical'. Born in Cornwall, but raised in south-east England, Jenner worked at the British Museum from 1870 to 1909 and was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. He eventually retired to Cornwall where he became a leading figure in establishing the Old Cornwall Societies and the Gorseth Kernow. The Handbook begins by marshalling the evidence for the use of the Cornish language from the middle ages to the eighteenth century, and listing the manuscripts and books in which it is preserved. It describes the uncertainties surrounding spelling and pronunciation, and the complex system of initial consonant mutations, before explaining the parts of speech. It also includes a fascinating chapter on names.

Die Grundlagen der Griechischen Syntax
  • Berthold Delbrück
  • Published online:
    05 May 2013
    Print publication:
    24 May 2012
    First published in:
    1879
  • In this fourth part of his general work on syntax, published in 1879, Berthold Delbrück (1842–1922), the German scholar remembered for his contribution to the study of the syntax in Indo-European languages (his three-volume Vergleichende Syntax der indogermanischen Sprachen is also reissued in this series), concentrates on the syntax of ancient Greek. His focus is deliberately broad as he seeks to engage classicists who are interested in linguistics or in how the Greek language was actually used, rather than in highly specialised case studies. In twelve chapters, Delbrück guides the reader through the gender and case of nouns, and explains some features seen as peculiarities of Homeric Greek which in fact demonstrate its kinship as an Indo-European language with the Vedic language of the Hindu scriptures. He also covers the tenses and moods of verbs, prepositions, pronouns and particles, and word order.

A Catalogue of Dictionaries, Vocabularies, Grammars, and Alphabets
  • William Marsden
  • Published online:
    05 May 2013
    Print publication:
    28 June 2012
    First published in:
    1796
  • Born in Ireland, William Marsden (1754–1836) was a pioneer in the study of oriental languages, in particular those of modern-day Malaysia and Indonesia. At the age of seventeen he joined his elder brother to work for the East India Company in Sumatra, and began researching the languages of the East Indies. He moved to London in 1779 and became associated with its scientific and academic circles, attending meetings of the Royal Society and becoming a friend of Sir Joseph Banks. This gave him access to vocabularies compiled by naval officers, and these, combined with his own observations, allowed him to produce the pioneering works that made his reputation. (His History of Sumatra and Dictionary of the Malayan Language are also reissued in this series.) First published in 1796, this work helped to fuel the growing interest in languages and philology at the turn of the nineteenth century.

Grundfragen der Sprachforschung
  • Mit Rücksicht auf W. Wundts Sprachpsychologie erörtert
  • Berthold Delbrück
  • Published online:
    05 May 2013
    Print publication:
    24 May 2012
    First published in:
    1901
  • In this 1901 work, Berthold Delbrück (1842–1922), who is famous for his contribution to the study of the syntax in Indo-European languages, focuses on Wilhelm Wundt's understanding of speech. Wundt (1832–1920), often referred to as the 'father of experimental psychology', held that language was one of the most important aspects of mental processing. In order to account for Wundt's theories on the nature of the soul, and his belief that emotion and perception are acts of experience rather than objects, Delbrück compares Wundt's theories with those of psychologist and educationalist J. F. Herbart (1776–1841). Delbrück also pays attention to the explanation of such topics as the hand gestures used by actors (and the people of Naples), the sentence structure of the German language, and onomatopoeia, though he emphasises that he has not addressed those elements in Wundt's works which are founded in psychology rather than in grammar.

Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India
  • To Wit, Hindi, Panjabi, Sindhi, Gujarati, Marathi, Oriya, and Bangali
  • Volume 3, The Verb
  • John Beames
  • Published online:
    05 May 2013
    Print publication:
    07 June 2012
    First published in:
    1879
  • The Indo-Aryan language family is a branch of the Indo-European phylum, and includes Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Punjabi, Kashmiri and Gujarati. First published in 1875, this three-volume comparative grammar of the family was written by the British civil servant John Beames (1837–1902). From 1866 he spent twelve years in India, during which he gathered data for what he intended to be the first comprehensive and accurate Indo-Aryan grammar. Volume 3 focuses on verbs. It begins by describing the structure of Sanskrit verbs, showing them to be the origin of the analytical verb constructions found in Indo-Aryan languages. It then compares Indo-Aryan verbs in terms of tense and transitivity, and explores passive constructions, conditionals, and imperatives across the seven most widely spoken languages in the family. Beames' findings remain central to the work of general linguists, grammarians and language typologists.

Vorlesungen über Syntax: mit besonderer Berücksichtigung von Griechisch, Lateinisch und Deutsch
  • Volume 1
  • Jacob Wackernagel
  • Published online:
    05 May 2013
    Print publication:
    26 November 2009
    First published in:
    1920
  • In 1920–1924 Jacob Wackernagel (1853–1938), Professor of Comparative Philology at the University of Basel, published two volumes of lectures on Greek, Latin and German syntax based on his 1918–1919 courses for beginning undergraduates (who would already have studied all three languages at school). Wackernagel introduces the principles of grammatical functions and cross-linguistic work, and provides a foundation for the understanding of comparative syntax. The book remained in print for many decades thanks to its lively style and well-chosen examples from classical texts. The Sanskritist Louis Renou (1896–1966), writing on Wackernagel in 1938, asserted that 'no linguist could possibly afford to ignore this book', and it remains of interest to historical linguists and scholars of classical languages today. In this, the first volume, Wackernagel outlines the history of syntactic theory from ancient times to the present, and provides a detailed treatment of the verb.

Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India
  • To Wit, Hindi, Panjabi, Sindhi, Gujarati, Marathi, Oriya, and Bangali
  • Volume 1, On Sounds
  • John Beames
  • Published online:
    05 May 2013
    Print publication:
    07 June 2012
    First published in:
    1872
  • The Indo-Aryan language family is a branch of the Indo-European phylum, and includes Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Punjabi, Kashmiri and Gujarati. First published in 1872, this three-volume comparative grammar of the family was written by the British civil servant John Beames (1837–1902). From 1866 he spent twelve years in India, during which he gathered data for what he intended to be the first comprehensive and accurate Indo-Aryan grammar. Volume 1 focuses on phonetics and phonology. Drawing on evidence from Indo-Aryan sound systems, it shows Sanskrit to be the languages' parent, while exploring some non-Sanskritic exceptions. It also gives a detailed historical background to the languages, provides careful descriptions of their vowel and consonant systems, and explores how Indo-Aryan phonology has changed over time. Beames' findings remain central to the work of general linguists, phonologists and language typologists.

Dictionary of the Hausa Language
  • Volume 2, English-Hausa
  • Charles Henry Robinson
  • Published online:
    05 April 2013
    Print publication:
    31 October 2010
    First published in:
    1925
  • Hausa is an African language originating in Niger and northern Nigeria and spoken widely in West and Central Africa as a lingua franca. Charles Henry Robinson (1861–1925) was the first student of the short-lived Hausa Association, formed in 1891 to promote the study of the Hausa Language and people. The Association sponsored Robinson to stay in northern Nigeria from 1894 to 1895 to gain more experience in the language. On his return Robinson published an anthology of Hausa texts in 1896 and a Hausa grammar in 1897 as well as this two-volume dictionary in 1899. His efforts contributed greatly to Western knowledge of the language despite criticisms of his relatively short experience of Hausa-speaking communities. Volume 2 is an English–Hausa dictionary, intended for those who wished to speak colloquial Hausa. The version reissued here is the 1925 fourth edition.

Hausa Grammar
  • With Exercises, Readings and Vocabulary
  • Charles Henry Robinson
  • Published online:
    05 October 2012
    Print publication:
    17 November 2011
    First published in:
    1897
  • Charles Henry Robinson (1861–1925) was a Cambridge scholar who, during the 1890s, published several books on the language, literature and culture of the Hausa people. Hausa is an African language originating in Niger and northern Nigeria and spoken widely in West and Central Africa as a lingua franca. Published in 1897, Robinson's Grammar was written to serve the needs of missionaries, colonial staff and army officers who wished to communicate with the local people, but made no claim to be definitive or comprehensive. Until the twentieth century Hausa was written in an Arabic script, examples of which are given, while the exercise sections of the grammar are transliterated for students unfamiliar with Arabic. The vocabulary, mainly relating to agriculture, trade and domestic life, was chosen to suit the practical needs of Robinson's intended audience, and reveals much about colonial life in West Africa as well as providing linguistic information.

The Languages of Australia
  • R. M. W. Dixon
  • Published online:
    05 August 2012
    Print publication:
    20 January 2011
    First published in:
    1980
  • Described by Ken Hale as 'nothing less than a masterpiece' and by P. H. Matthews as 'absolutely clear, astonishingly complete, factually fascinating', The Languages of Australia (first published in 1980 and now reissued) was a landmark in Australian linguistics. This pioneering work of synthesis covered more than two hundred Aboriginal languages, and stimulated the next generation of scholarship in the field. The author's subsequent search for an overarching theoretical model to explain the unusual properties of Australian languages finally led him to adopt a 'punctuated equilibrium' model of language development. Dixon proposed this in The Rise and Fall of Languages (1997), which provided the framework for his major work Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development (2002). The Languages of Australia is still sought after, however, as a benchmark in the discipline and because its first four chapters provide a valuable non-technical introduction that does not appear in the 2002 volume.

Initia Amharica
  • An Introduction to Spoken Amharic
  • Volume 2, English-Amharic Vocabulary with Phrases
  • C. H. Armbruster
  • Published online:
    05 April 2012
    Print publication:
    31 October 2010
    First published in:
    1910
  • C. H. Armbruster (1874–1957) was a civil servant in the Anglo-Sudan government and a linguist specialising in African languages. After visiting Ethiopia on diplomatic missions in 1906 and 1907 Armbruster published this three-volume reference work on colloquial, spoken Amharic between 1908 and 1920. Armbruster's study of Amharic was one of the first to be written in English, and exemplifies the shift among linguists away from the formal, classics-based style of earlier reference grammars towards a focus on colloquial speech and communication. The examples are drawn from direct knowledge of the contemporary language, unlike similar works of the period which were often based on centuries-old Ethiopian Orthodox biblical texts. Volume 2, published in 1910, is an English–Amharic vocabulary, with guidance on pronunciation and idiomatic Amharic translations of English phrases and sentences.

The Stanford Dictionary of Anglicised Words and Phrases
  • Edited by C. A. M. Fennell
  • Published online:
    05 April 2012
    Print publication:
    31 October 2010
    First published in:
    1892
  • In 1882 the University of Cambridge accepted a bequest of £5,000 from the writer John Frederick Stanford (1815–1880) for the purpose of creating a dictionary of loan words found in English. This volume, first published in 1892, was the result. Charles Augustus Fennell (1843–1916), a classicist and Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge was responsible for selecting the words for inclusion. Following criteria based on Stanford's own notes, the definition of 'anglicised words' is very broad, including words loaned from European languages which entered common use in English after 1470 as well as loans from further afield. Each entry includes the meaning of the word in its original language and historical examples of usage, showing how the meanings of anglicised words have changed subtly over time. The book reveals the dramatic expansion of English vocabulary that resulted from the adoption of these words.

Coptic Etymological Dictionary
  • Jaroslav Černý
  • Published online:
    05 April 2012
    Print publication:
    31 October 2010
    First published in:
    1976
  • Coptic was the language spoken in Egypt from late ancient times to the seventeenth century, when it was overtaken by Arabic as the national language. Derived from ancient Egyptian, the language of the hieroglyphs, it was written in an adapted form of Greek script. This dictionary lists about 2,000 Coptic words whose etymology has been established from ancient Egyptian and Greek sources, covering two-thirds of the known Coptic vocabulary and complementing W. E. Crum's 1939 Coptic Dictionary, still the standard in the field. The Egyptian forms are quoted in hieroglyphic and/or demotic forms. An appendix lists the etymologies of Coptic place-names. The final work of Czech Egyptologist Jaroslav Černý (1898–1970), Professor of Egyptology at Oxford, the Dictionary was brought through to publication by colleagues after his death.

Durch Central-Brasilien
  • Expedition zur Erforschung des Schingú im Jahre 1884
  • Karl von den Steinen
  • Published online:
    05 April 2012
    Print publication:
    08 April 2010
    First published in:
    1886
  • Karl von den Steinen (1855–1929) was a German physician, explorer and ethnologist who did pioneering work on the anthropology of Brazil's indigenous peoples. This book, published in 1886, describes the first of his two expeditions to the previously uncharted Xingu River. It begins with observations of colonial society in the coastal cities, an economic overview, and a summary of European exploration in the region. The main part of the book mixes sustained narrative and descriptive passages recounting the party's experiences with day by day journal notes on topography, geology, flora, fauna and population, incorporating weather records, river depth, arrival and departure times, and other brief but telling details (Viele Moskitos.). It includes substantial ethnographic descriptions, consideration of the local languages and their typology, and five glossaries, the most substantial being of Bakairi, for which a grammar sketch is also included. The book is generously illustrated with engravings and three maps.

Page 4 of 9