History of Linguistics

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  • 5000 BCE

    Antiquity

    Antiquity
    The language of the sacred texts was being replaced and grammar rules were developed so that people could still understand the archaic language. Greeks paid attention to the origin of language, parts of speech and the relation between language and thought. Then the Romans put emphasis was on morphology.
  • 1000 BCE

    The Rise of Universal Grammar

    The Rise of Universal Grammar
    A group of Scholars called The Modistae tried to explain how the intellect had created a system of grammar and compiled lists of ways of signifying that were universal. Language was a tripartite system: modes of being, modes of understanding, and modes of signifying.
  • 1500

    The Comparative Method

    The Comparative Method
    Due to Voyages and colonization, European people became acquainted with a wide variety of languages. Etymology became important to establish language relationships. There were three main criteria for establishing family relationships: basic vocabulary, sound correspondence and grammatical agreement.

  • The Neogrammarians

    The Neogrammarians
    A group of young German scholars studied how sounds have changed through the history of a language. The father of Modern Linguistics arose from among the Neogrammarians.