Missionary Linguistics II / Lingüística misionera II

Missionary Linguistics II / Lingüística misionera II
Author: Otto Zwartjes
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 302
Release: 2005-12-08
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027285330

This is the second volume to be dedicated to the pioneering linguistic work produced by the religious missionaries who, within the scope of the European colonial enterprises along the period 1550–1850, described dozens of autochthonous languages, many of which are only known today thanks to their endeavours. The twelve papers joint in the present volume — which dedicated special attention to the orthographical and phonological dimension of their work — provide a comprehensive picture of the descriptive problems faced by these linguists avant la lettre, notably: the difficulties faced before the less familiar features of these languages, such as vowel quantity, accentuation, tonality, nasalization, glottalization, ‘gutturalization’; the building of (re)definitions and the creation of a new metalanguage, like ‘saltillo’, ‘guturaciones’, etc.; The book elucidates the creativity and innovations proposed by individual missionaries and the instructive and pedagogical dimension of their work.

History of Linguistics 2008

History of Linguistics 2008
Author: Gerda Hassler
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 485
Release: 2011
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027246068

This volume contains a selection of papers presented at the 11th International Conference on the History of the Language Sciences (Potsdam 2008) which are especially representative of the concerns of the conference and its thematic range. The reflection about language and the individual languages has characterized cultures since ancient times and has brought forth different traditions of the language sciences. The contributions cover the period from antiquity to contemporary history. In addition to terminological and social history approaches, they also include research results based on corpora or which reconstruct theoretical approaches. More than other scholars, linguists are turning to the history of their science for answers to current questions. This underscores the value of the history of language sciences for understanding the present state of linguistics and its development. Interdisciplinarity necessary for the research of many issues and manifestations of language makes historical reflections on the disciplines indispensable.

Missionary Linguistics in East Asia

Missionary Linguistics in East Asia
Author: Sandra Breitenbach
Publisher: Peter Lang
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2008
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 9783631504413

This book examines the language studies of Western missionaries in China and beyond. The goal of this study is to examine the purpose, methods, context, and influence of missionary language studies. The book reveals new insights into the hitherto less well-known and unstudied origins of language thinking. These publically unknown sources virtually form our «hidden history of language». Some key 17thcentury and pre-17thcentury descriptions of language not only pass on our Greco-Latin «grammatical» heritage internationally for about two millennia. They also reveal grammar, speaking, and language as an esoteric knowledge. Our modern life has been formed and influenced through both esoteric and common connotations in language. It is precisely the techniques, allusions, and intentions of language making revealed in rare, coded texts which have influenced our modern identities. These extraordinary and highly controversial interpretations of both language and Christianity reveal that our modern identities have been largely shaped in the absence of public knowledge and discussion.

The History of Lexicography

The History of Lexicography
Author: Reinhard Hartmann
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 278
Release: 1986-01-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027286345

Most dictionaries have forerunners, and all have imitators; an understanding of the historical foundations of dictionary-making is therefore one of the preconditions of further progress in academic lexicography. The papers in this volume, which were presented at the 1986 Exeter Seminar, survey most of the lexicographical traditions in the world, some tracing them right back to their beginnings. The programme was divided into eight sessions, with the following concentrations of topics: (1) three classical traditions, (2) the early history of European lexicography, (3) the beginnings of English lexicography, (4) further aspects of English lexicography, (5) the background of diverse national developments, (6) specific features of national developments, (7) pioneers of three genres, (8) recent trends in the English dictionary.

Arab Linguistics

Arab Linguistics
Author: Mu?ammad ibn A?mad Shirb?n?
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 501
Release: 1981-01-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027245061

This volume provides an analysis of a famous medieval Arabic grammatical text, al-Ājurrūmiya (c. 1300), as commented on by as-Shirbini (d. 1570). This edition includes the original text and a translation into English, as well as extensive comments and annotations, with the aim of making accessible both to Arabists and non-Arabists the main elements of indigenous Arabic linguistics, and thereby at least partially filling a large blank in the history of linguistics.

The Development of Morphophonemic Theory

The Development of Morphophonemic Theory
Author: James Kilbury
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 171
Release: 1976-01-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027286574

The aim of this book is to provide a concise historical survey of linguistic investigation relating to the notion of morphophonemics. The study is essentially historical and thus does not offer its own theory of morphophonemics. Since attention is focused on the development of morphophonemic theory, contemporary work in this area is not of central concern. But the study was undertaken in the hope that a better understanding of earlier work would help to clarify present-day issues.

Etymology and Grammatical Discourse in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages

Etymology and Grammatical Discourse in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
Author: Mark E. Amsler
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 298
Release: 1989-01-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027286035

This study focuses on the uses of the grammatical concept of etymologia in primarily Latin writings from the early Middle Ages. Etymologia is a fundamental procedure and discursive strategy in the philosophy and analysis of language in early medieval Latin grammar, as well as in Biblical exegesis, encyclopedic writing, theology, and philosophy. Read through the frame of poststructuralist analysis of discourse and the philosophy of science, the procedure of the ars grammatica are interpreted as overlapping genres (commentary, glossary, encyclopedia, exegesis) which use different verbal or extraverbal criteria to explain the origins and significations of words and which establish different epistemological frames within which an etymological account of language is situated. The study also includes many translations of heretofore untranslated passages from Latin grammatical and exegetical writings.

Declinatio

Declinatio
Author: Daniel J. Taylor
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 154
Release: 1974-01-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027286582

Marcus Terentius Varro (116–27 B.C.) was one of the most prolific writers in antiquity. However, of his De Lingua Latina only six of 25 books have survived, and these are neither complete nor free of textual corruption. This study is an attempt to provide an adequate, consistent, and comprehensive account of the linguistic theory with which Varro operated insofar as it can be recovered from the remains of De Lingua Latina.

“And he knew our language”

“And he knew our language”
Author: Marcus Tomalin
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2011-04-21
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027286833

This ambitious and ground-breaking book examines the linguistic studies produced by missionaries based on the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America (and particularly Haida Gwaii) during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Making extensive use of unpublished archival materials, the author demonstrates that the missionaries were responsible for introducing many innovative and insightful grammatical analyses. Rather than merely adopting Graeco-Roman models, they drew extensively upon studies of non-European languages, and a careful exploration of their scripture translations reveal the origins of the Haida sociolect that emerged as a result of the missionary activity. The complex interactions between the missionaries and anthropologists are also discussed, and it is shown that the former sometimes anticipated linguistic analyses that are now incorrectly attributed to the latter. Since this book draws upon recent work in theoretical linguistics, religious history, translation studies, and anthropology, it emphasises the unavoidably interdisciplinary nature of Missionary Linguistics research. As of January 2019, this e-book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched.

A History of the Study of the Indigenous Languages of North America

A History of the Study of the Indigenous Languages of North America
Author: Marcin Kilarski
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Total Pages: 459
Release: 2021-12-06
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 902725897X

The languages indigenous to North America are characterized by a remarkable genetic and typological diversity. Based on the premise that linguistic examples play a key role in the origin and transmission of ideas within linguistics and across disciplines, this book examines the history of approaches to these languages through the lens of some of their most prominent properties. These properties include consonant inventories and the near absence of labials in Iroquoian languages, gender in Algonquian languages, verbs for washing in the Iroquoian language Cherokee and terms for snow and related phenomena in Eskimo-Aleut languages. By tracing the interpretations of the four examples by European and American scholars, the author illustrates their role in both lay and professional contexts as a window onto unfamiliar languages and cultures, thus allowing a more holistic view of the history of language study in North America.