Linguistics icon who we are 01

History of Linguistics

By Ozzyel
  • 500 BCE

    Rome

    Rome
    1st century BC to approx. 500 AD Varro (116-27 BC); Donatus (mid 4th century AD); Priscian (c.500 AD)
  • 400 BCE

    India

    India
    Panini composed his Sansrkit grammar known as the Astadhyayi ‘eight books’.
  • 18 BCE

    The Renaissance

    The Renaissance
    15th to 18th centuries Erasmus (1466-1535) [Holland]
    Petrus Ramus (c.1515-1572) [France]
    Joseph Justus Scaliger (1540-1609) [France]
    Franciscus Sanctius (1554-1628) [Spain]
    Francis Bacon (1561-1626) [England]
    John Locke (1632-1704) [Scotland]
    George Berkeley (1685-1753) [Ireland]
    David Hume (1711-1776) [Scotland]
    René Descartes (1591-1650) [France]
    Benedictus Spinoza (1632-1677) [Holland]
    Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) [Germany]
    Port Royal Grammar (1660) [France]
  • 14 BCE

    The Middle Ages

    The Middle Ages
    10th to 14th centuries Ælfric the Grammarian (955-1020) [England] The First Grammatical Treatise (12th century) [Iceland] Robert Grosseteste (c.1170-1253) [England] Roger Bacon (c.1214-1292) [England] Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) [Italy] Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) [Italy] Duns Scotus (c.1266-1308) Thomas of Erfurt (14th century) [Germany]
  • 8 BCE

    The Dark Ages

    The Dark Ages
    5th to 8th centuries Boethius (480-524) Isidore of Seville (St.Isidorus) (c.560-636) Sibawaih (8th century, Persian grammarian of Arabic)
  • 5 BCE

    Greece

    Greece
    Pre-Socratic philosophers and later Sophists
    Socrates (469-399 BC); Plato (c.427-348 BC); Aristotle (384-322 BC)
    The Stoics (4th century BC).
  • 19

    19th century: Indo-European studies

    19th century: Indo-European studies
    Main early figures

    Sir William Jones (1746-1794) [England] Franz Bopp (1791-1867) [Germany]
    August Schlegel (1767-1845) [Germany] Jakob Grimm (1785-1863) [Germany]
    Friedrich Schlegel (1772-1829) [Germany] August Pott (1802-1887) [Germany]
    Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835) [Germany] August Schleicher (1821-1868) [Germany]
    Rasmus Rask (1787-1832) [Denmark] Johannes Schmidt (1843-1901) [Germany]
    August Leskien (1840-1916) [Germany]
  • 20

    20th century

    20th century
    Structuralism Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) [Switzerland] Edward Sapir (1884-1939) [United States] Leonard Bloomfield (1887-1949) [United States] Nikolai Trubetzkoy (1890-1938) [Russia] Generative grammar Roman Jakobson (1896-1982) [Russia/United States] Halle, Morris [United States] Noam Chomsky (1928- ) [United States]