History of Linguistics

Although the academic field of linguistics is a product of the 19th century, the form of enquiry into language which it designates is continuous with modes of analysis that date back to ancient times, as practised in various traditions in Asia and Europe (together with the African parts of the Alexandrian Empire). The history of linguistics has taken its scope as ranging over the whole of this ancient-to-modern continuum. Given that language and its analysis have played a part in every academic area, it is not obvious where the boundaries of the history of linguistics lie, and scholarly disputes over where to draw them are not uncommon. This set of volumes will focus on the prototypical areas of language analysis, whilst not excluding those areas which, if more peripheral, have nevertheless had a considerable impact on what linguists think and do. It thus attempts to strike a balance between the breadth that historians of linguistics value, and the need to avoid superficiality when it comes to the core of the discipline as currently practised. This is, after all, a set of volumes that will be aimed not just at people already working in the history of linguistics, but at practitioners and students of linguistics who are delving into its history for the first time.