Discovery of Language Linguistic Science in the Nineteenth Century

Excerpt from Discovery of Language: Linguistic Science in the Nineteenth Century For the most part this work is a translation of Professor Pedersen's Sprogvidenskaben i det Nittende Aarhundrede: Metoder og Resultater, Copenhagen, Gyldendalske Boghandel, 1924, which appeared as Volume XV of Det Nittende Aarhundrede, an imposing series edited by Aage Friis and designed to present the cultural history of the nineteenth century in all its aspects. The relatively unimportant deviations from the original have been made either by the author or with his advice and consent. Scholarly works which have appeared since 1924, and are of such a nature as to affect the conclusions expressed in the original text, have been mentioned by the author in the translation; other changes include occasional amplification of a statement or the use of different examples. Word-forms thoroughly familiar to the Scandinavian reader might not be illuminating to the reader of an English translation, and therefore more appropriate examples have been selected in place of those on page 272, the first paragraph of page 273, and most of the first paragraph of page 274 of the Danish text. The way of the translator is hard, as any one knows who has gone that way; especially hard when a work of a scholarly nature is involved, where extreme fidelity in translation is imperative. That way would not have been trod in the present instance if the translator had not thought he saw in the original certain cardinal virtues which would make the book a desirable addition to the English literature of linguistics. The problems, as well as the accomplishments, of the study of linguistics during this most important of centuries are faithfully and clearly recorded. Before each step in advance is described, the need for this step is pointed out, so that we have not merely a dry recital of events, but a story which gives us a series of living pictures of these pioneering intellects actually at work wrestling with problems the solution of which constitutes one chapter of the most stirring history we know, the history of the achievements of the human spirit in winning new knowledge. In spite of the tremendous advance in knowledge of the past century and a quarter, the results have not been incorporated in our general culture. The average cultivated person of today can be expected to know less than nothing of linguistics. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.