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The study of language
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Sir William Jones
An Englishman, Sir William Jones, read a paper to the Royal Asiatic Society in Calcutta pointing out that Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Celtic and Germanic all had striking structural similarities. -
Charles Darwin
In the mid-19th century, Darwin published his famous Origin of Species. It seemed natural to attempt to chart the evolution of language alongside the evolution of species. -
Ferdinand de Saussure
He is sometimes labelled ´the father of modern linguistics´. His students published his book under the title Course in General Linguistics. De Saussure´s crucial contribution was his explicit and reiterated statement that all language items are essentially interlinked. -
Leonard Bloomfield
He published Language in 1933. Bloomfield considered that linguistics should deal objectively and systematically with observable data. He concluded ´the weak point in language study, and will remain so until human knowledge advances very far beyond its present state´ -
Noam Chomsky
He published a book called Syntactic Structures. Chomsky not only initiated the era of generative grammars. He also redirected attention towards ´language universals´. He was the major linguistic influence for the second half of the 20th century.
