History of Linguistics, Volume 1: The Eastern Traditions of Linguistics

Description

This comprehensive history of linguistics is part of a 5 volume set. Together, the volumes examine the social, cultural and religious functions of language, its place in education, the prestige attached to different varieties of language, and the presentation of lexical and grammatical descriptions. They explore the linguistic interests and assumptions of individual cultures in their own terms, without trying to transpose and reshape them into the context of contemporary ideas of what the scientific study of language ought to be. The authors of individual chapters are all specialists who have been able to analyse the primary sources, and so produce original syntheses which offer an authoritative view of the different traditions and periods. Volime One examines the developments of Chinese linguistics, Indian grammatical tradition, the linguistic interests of the Near East, the Hebrew tradition, and the Arabic grammatical system of the Middle Ages. Contents Introduction Acknowledgements Notes on the contributors 1 Chinese linguistics • Goran Malmqvist 2 Indian linguistics • George Cardona 3 Linguistics in the ancient Near East • Erica Reiner 4 Hebrew linguistics • Raphael Loewe 5 Arabic linguistics • Henri Fleisch Index