Discovery of Language: Linguistic Science in the Nineteenth Century

by Holger Pedersen

Leather Binding on Spine and Corners with Golden Leaf Printing on round Spine (extra customization on request like complete leather, Golden Screen printing in Front, Color Leather, Colored book etc.) Reprinted in 2018 with the help of original edition published long back [1899]. This book is printed in black & white, sewing binding for longer life, printed on high quality Paper, re-sized as per Current standards, professionally processed without changing its contents. As these are old books, we processed each page manually and make them readable but in some cases some pages which are blur or missing or black spots. If it is multi volume set, then it is only single volume, if you wish to order a specific or all the volumes you may contact us. We expect that you will understand our compulsion in these books. We found this book important for the readers who want to know more about our old treasure so we brought it back to the shelves. Hope you will like it and give your comments and suggestions. - Danish, Pages 72. EXTRA 10 DAYS APART FROM THE NORMAL SHIPPING PERIOD WILL BE REQUIRED FOR LEATHER BOUND BOOKS. COMPLETE LEATHER WILL COST YOU EXTRA US$ 25 APART FROM THE LEATHER BOUND BOOKS. {FOLIO EDITION IS ALSO AVAILABLE.} Complete Sprogvidenskaben. Af Holger Pedersen ... 1899 Pedersen, Holger, -.

Genres: Linguistics

377 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1931

Reviews

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

Now, simply 'old' .. but still good. (In my edition, I kept looking for the internal dates/years within the text, as it is a historical survey of comparative linguistics and the author is trying to keep us 'up to date' with the progress made in a summarizing and highly judgmental way; that most recent year is 1927 or so...).
You don't have to know a foreign language (in any great depth) to get something out of 19th century comparative linguistics; but as you are reading THIS book, it should be a given than you enjoy languages and the general topic, and probably know something of a few modern languages. But it's good to remember that the 19th century will harken back to the 'classical' age of study and education, and knowing a little about Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit -- coming in to the reading -- is going to help the reader somewhat. That notwithstanding...
The prime focus is on the Indo-European languages. Surprisingly even Hittite and Tokharian were included (correctly) here, so the 19th century research had come that far. Next in focus (or concentration by text-length) was the Semitic family, and following them, the Finno-Ugric. Everything else in the world got fairly short shrift, or no shrift at all... and this may be understandable since 19th century European linguists were not focused on them; more likely, that there was no great field of study in these languages, no accumulating bodies of knowledge in any of these....yet. ... A whole middle portion of the book goes a slightly unexpected direction, and concentrates on written remnants, or relics, of the ancient languages -- perhaps simply because they are extant. (This takes us to primarily to the Mediterranean and Mesopotamian areas of the globe, but there are still surprises uncovered -- if you didn't know there were Turkish and Hungarian equivalents of 'runic writings,' for example, you now will. ...)
It's nice to read a book which recalls and summarizes the short, halting steps of language research that passed through the hands (and brains) of more than a score of major linguists and comparative linguists for more than a century, sifting, winnowing, and refining their conclusions as they went so that we have much more of a 'science' to build on in the 20th century. (And fun to learn which one of those 19th-c. researchers first invented the use of the * symbol for the posited, but unverified (unverifiable: science at work) and ancient form of some word in long-defunct languages -- a symbol which is still used in the 21st century ...) .

[Hans Henrik · Rating 2 out of 5]

Linguistics