This authoritative and wide-ranging book, first published in 2003, examines the history of western linguistics over a 2000-year timespan, from its origins in ancient Greece up to the crucial moment of change in the Renaissance that laid the foundations of modern linguistics. Some of today's burning questions about language date back a long way: in 1400 BC Plato was asking how words relate to reality. Other questions go back just a few generations, such as our interest in the mechanisms of language change, or in the social factors that shape the way we speak. Vivien Law explores how ideas about language over the centuries have changed to reflect changing modes of thinking. A survey chapter brings the coverage of the book up to the present day. Classified bibliographies and chapters on research resources and the qualities the historian of linguistics needs to develop, provide the reader with the tools to go further.

Open publicationThe Languages and Linguistics of Europe: A Comprehensive Guide is part of the multi-volume reference work on the languages and linguistics of the continents of the world. The book supplies profiles of the language families of Europe, including the sign languages. It also discusses the areal typology, paying attention to the Standard Average European, Balkan, Baltic and Mediterranean convergence areas. Separate chapters deal with the old and new minority languages and with non-standard varieties. A major focus is language politics and policies, including discussions of the special status of English, the relation between language and the church, language and the school, and standardization. The history of European linguistics is another focus as is the history of multilingual European 'empires' and their dissolution. The volume is especially geared towards a graduate and advanced undergraduate readership. It has been designed such that it can be used, as a whole or in parts, as a textbook, the first of its kind, for graduate programmes with a focus on the linguistic (and linguistics) landscape of Europe.

Open publication> The Languages and Linguistics ofEurope: A Comprehensive Guideis part of the multi-volume reference work on the languages and linguistics of the continents of the world. The book supplies profiles of the language families of Europe, including the sign languages. It also discusses the areal typology, paying attention to the Standard Average European, Balkan, Baltic and Mediterranean convergence areas. Separate chapters deal with the old and new minority languages and with non-standard varieties. A major focus is language politics and policies, including discussions of the special status of English, the relation between language and the church, language and the school, and standardization. The history of European linguistics is another focus as is the history of multilingual European 'empires' and their dissolution. The volume is especially geared towards a graduate and advanced undergraduatereadership. It has been designed such that it can be used, as a whole or in parts, as a textbook, the first of its kind, for graduate programmes with a focus on the linguistic (and linguistics) landscape of Europe.

This book presents the most comprehensive coverage of the field of Indo-European Linguistics in a century, focusing on the entire Indo-European family and treating each major branch and most minor languages. The collaborative work of 120 scholars from 22 countries, Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics combines the exhaustive coverage of an encyclopedia with the in-depth treatment of individual monographic studies.

This wide-ranging book presents the linguistic achievements of four major cultures to readers presumably conversant with modern theoretical linguistics. The chapter on India discusses in detail Pāṇini's (c. 400 B.C.) grammar Ast-adhy-ay-i as well as the work of his commentators Kātyāyana, Patanjali, and Bhartṛhari. In the Chinese tradition, the Confucian doctrine of the Rectification of Names' is singled out for treatment. Arabic linguistics is represented by Sibawaihi's (d. 793) grammar al-Kitāb, in particular its syntax, as well as the subsequent commentary tradition. The chapter on Europe, which is the most comprehensive of the four, covers the time span from antiquity to the 20th century; special attention is devoted to the contributions of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, Varro, Apollonius Dyscolus, and the Modistae. The achievements of the cultures in linguistics are treated throughout from a deliberately value-laden point of view. The achievements of Western antiquity and the Middle Ages are shown to be much more than the average linguist is inclined to believe. Even more importantly, it is shown that the Indian and the Arab traditions have been superior to the European tradition at least until the 20th century. The fact that a linguistic theory created some 2,400 years ago is fully as adequate as our best theories today must have far-reaching implications for the notion of 'scientific progress'. More precisely, it proves necessary to distinguish between 'progress in the human sciences' and 'progress in the natural sciences'. These issues, which pertain to the general philosophy of science, are treated in the final chapter of the book.

Leading scholars examine the history of linguistics from ancient origins to the present. They consider every aspect of the field from language origins to neurolinguistics, explore the linguistic traditions in different parts of the world, examine how work in linguistics has influenced other fields, and look at how it has been practically applied

Surveys of linguistics in the Middle Ages often begin with the twelfth century, dismissing the preceding six centuries as 'devoid of originality' or 'dependent upon Donatus and Priscian'. This collection of articles devoted to linguistics in the early Middle Ages attempts to redress the balance by presenting a variety of approaches to new and controversial questions. The volume opens with a study of the historiography of early medieval grammar, with a bibliography of primary and secondary literature. The history of linguistic doctrine is discussed in articles dealing with Virgilius Maro Grammaticus, with the Irish contribution to the analysis of Latin, and with the Carolingian grammarians. A paper discussing a grammar from late Anglo-Saxon England (Beatus quid est) offers new insights into pedagogical techniques and the integration of literary texts into grammar teaching. The attitudes towards varieties of Latin in late antique and early medieval grammars are discussed in a wider context of cultural history. Finally, the volume includes two articles on the transmission of the grammars of the later Roman Empire to the early Middle Ages (Priscian and Dynamius).