History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences

In this episode, we examine some of the major critiques directed against the Neogrammarians and see what they tell us about the state of linguistics around the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century. We focus in particular on … Read more ›

In this episode, we introduce the Neogrammarians, the dominant school of linguistics in the closing decades of the nineteenth century. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube References for Episode 9 Primary Sources Brugman, Karl (1876a), ‘Nasalis sonans in … Read more ›

In this episode, we look first at the critiques of Schleicher’s “physical” and Steinthal’s “psychological” theory of language put forward by the American linguist William Dwight Whitney. We then turn to Whitney’s own conception of language as a “human institution” … Read more ›

In this interview, we talk to Dr Clara Stockigt about missionary grammars in Australia and their links to the academic linguistic scholarship of the time. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube References for Episode 7 Primary Sources Bleek, … Read more ›

In this episode, we look first at August Schleicher’s proposal for a linguistic “morphology” and its intellectual background in nineteenth-century biology. We then compare Schleicher’s approach to the scheme of language classification developed by H. Steinthal within Völkerpsychologie, or “psychology … Read more ›

In this episode, we look at the expansion of comparative-historical linguistics around the middle of the nineteenth century. We focus in particular on the figure of August Schleicher, the great consolidator of the field, and his “materialist” philosophy of science. … Read more ›

In this episode, we talk to Jürgen Trabant about Wilhelm von Humboldt. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube References for Episode 4 Primary sources Humboldt, Wilhelm von (1836), ‘Über die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues’, Über die Kawi-Sprache auf … Read more ›

In this episode, we look at language classification in the first half of the nineteenth century and at some key ideas in the work of Wilhelm von Humboldt. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube References for Episode 3 … Read more ›

In this episode, we look at the emergence of comparative-historical grammar, focusing on the work of Franz Bopp and Jacob Grimm. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube References for Episode 2 Primary Sources Bopp, Franz (1816), Über das … Read more ›

The first series of the History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences Podcast looks at the history of modern linguistics. We begin in this episode by examining the pre-history of comparative-historical grammar. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube … Read more ›