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Historical Linguistics

Introduction

Of the many areas of anthropology that entice researchers to study, language is one that draws significant and sustained attention. As far back as 1500 BCE, individuals in India speculated about language development, derivations, and use. Similar speculation was done in Europe among Greek philosophers at the time of Socrates and his followers. Evidence from over 30,000 preserved cuneiform writings has consistently raised curiosity regarding the spoken language of the ancient Sumerians prior to 2000 BCE, as have discoveries regarding original language types from other indigenous peoples, such as the aborigines of Australia and New Guinea. (Richard, Brian, 120)

Discussion

The reasons and methods for trying to understand language have changed from one historic era to the next, making scholarly activity in the field known as linguistics as vibrant as each era. Knowledge of the changes in perspective about language development provides one key to unlocking the door to characterize the nature of human beings as well as unlocking the door to the evolution and growth of societies. For example, Franz Boas (1858-1942) used what became known as descriptive-structural linguistics in his studies of culture and anthropology in the early 20th century. His interpretation of language was, in the words of Michael Agar (1994), “just a 'part' of anthropological fieldwork and the point of fieldwork were to get to culture”. This sense of linguistics as a vehicle was shared by the students of Boas and became a primary interpretation for many years, especially through the influence of Leonard Bloomfield. One can only imagine the kinds and degrees of meaning that are lost to us about peoples of the world due to the formal methods used in the study of language in the early 20th century and the relegation of language, as a research tool, as it was by Boas and Bloomfield. However, for the time, descriptive-structural linguistics was a significant advancement, albeit more of a part of anthropology rather than a separate field in itself. That changed dramatically in the latter half of the 20th century, particularly with the dynamic referred to by Noam Chomsky (2005) as the second cognitive revolution when the number of new research fields increased (e.g., cognitive psychology, computer science, artificial intelligence). The first cognitive revolution is a cognomen for the period between the 17th and early 19th centuries when classical thoughts and theories about language were proposed, especially by philosophers such as René Descartes, Gottfried Leibnitz, and Immanuel Kant. (Roger, p. 82)

In the 21st century, the methods of language study and characterizations of linguistics hardly resemble those of Boas and anthropologists in his era. Current scholars cannot capture all the characteristics of language in just one definition or modality to designate linguistics as one singular field of study. Multiple views of language and linguistics support a richer perspective about the study of language and people than one that identifies linguistic methods only as tools to find out about culture.

Philology in the 1800s was the ancestor to general linguistics. Those who identified themselves as philologists were ...