Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics
Developed in the nineteenth century as an independent linguistic discipline with the goal of reconstructing the origins, developmental history, and relationships of and between individual languages on the basis of comparative studies (
reconstruction). It can be stated that comparative linguistics was born in Germany during the ‘Romantic period,’ in which both the study of the history of the Europeans as well as of Sanskrit were pursued. This period is associated primarily with the names of F.V.Schlegel, F. Bopp, R.Rask, J.Grimm, and A.Schleicher, each of whom studied the genetic relationships between the Germanic languages and other Indo-European languages throughout their recorded history. Based on a thorough description of the most important Indo-European languages, as undertaken by Bopp and Grimm, Schleicher attempted to derive all such languages from a reconstructed Indo-European proto-language; the genetic relationships that were uncovered were represented in the form of a genetic ‘family tree’ ( genetic tree theory). Through the so-called Neogrammarians the historical view of language became the primary, indeed for a while almost exclusive, direction of linguistic studies (see Paul 1880, and the over-views in Bragmann and Delbrück 1886–1900; Hirt 1921–37; Meillet 1903; and others).
References
Anttila, R. 1989. Historical and comparative linguistics, 2nd rev. edn. Amsterdam and Philadelphia.
Baldi, P. (ed.) 1990. Linguistic change and reconstruction methodology. Berlin and New York.
Bopp, F. 1816. Über das Conjugationssystem der Sanskritsprache in Vergleichung mit jenem der griechischen, lateinischen, persischen und germanischen Sprache. Frankfurt.
Brugmann, K. and B.Delbrück. 1886–1900. driβ der vergleichenden Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen, 5 vols. Strassburg. (Unabr. repr. 1970.)
Durie, M. (ed.) 1996. The comparative method reviewed. Oxford.
Grimm, J. 1819–37. Deutsche Grammatik, 4 parts. Göttingen. (Facsimile edn of the 2nd edn of Berlin 1870–8. Hildesheim, 1967.)
Hirt, H.
1921–37. Indogermanische Grammatik. Heidelberg.
Hock, H.H. 1986. Principles of historical linguistics. (2nd edn, rev. and updated 1991.) Berlin and New York.
Katičić, R. 1970. A contribution to the general theory of comparative linguistics. The Hague.
Mauro, T. de et al. 1990. Leibniz, Humboldt and the origins of comparativism. Amsterdam.
Meillet, A. 1903. Introduction à l’étude comparative des langues indo-européenens. Paris.
Paul, H. 1880. Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte. Tübingen. (9th edn 1975.)
Rask, R. 1932. Ausgewählte Abhandlungen, ed. L.Hjelmslev. Copenhagen.
Schlegel, F. 1808. Die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier. (In Sämtliche Werke, vol. 7. Vienna, 1846.)
Schleicher, A. 1861–2. Compendium der vergleichended Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen. Weimar.
Von Humboldt, W. 1836. Über die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues. Berlin. (Repr. 1963.)
——1963. Schriften zur Sprachphilosophie. Darmstadt.
linguistics (history)
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