Editing History of linguistics (section)

==Modern linguistics==
{{further|Philology}}
Modern linguistics did not begin until the late 18th century, and the Romantic or animist theses of  [[Johann Gottfried Herder]] and [[Johann Christoph Adelung]] remained influential well into the 19th century.

In the history of American linguistics, there were hundreds of Indigenous languages that were never recorded. Many of the languages were spoken, not written, and so they are now inaccessible. Under these circumstances, linguists such as [[Franz Boas]] tried to prescribe sound methodical principles for the analysis of unfamiliar languages. Boas was an influential linguist and was followed by [[Edward Sapir]] and [[Leonard Bloomfield]].<ref>Britannica. (2021). Greek and Roman antiquity. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/science/linguistics/Greek-and-Roman-antiquity</ref>

===Historical linguistics<!--'Romantic linguistics' redirects here-->===
{{further|Historical linguistics|Indo-European studies}}
During the 18th century [[conjectural history]], based on a mix of [[linguistics]] and [[anthropology]], on the topic of both the origin and progress of language and society was fashionable. These thinkers contributed to the construction of academic paradigms in which some languages were labelled "primitive" relative to the [[English language]]. [[Hugh Blair]] wrote that for [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Native Americans]], certain motions and actions were found to convey meaning as much as what was said verbally.<ref name="quod.lib.umich.edu">Hugh Blair. (1783). Lectures on rhetoric and belles lettres. Retrieved from https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/ecco/004786433.0001.001/1:9?rgn=div1;view=fulltext</ref> Around the same time, [[James Burnett, Lord Monboddo|James Burnett]] authored a 6 volume treatise that delved more deeply into the matter of "savage languages". Other writers theorized that Native American languages were "nothing but the natural and instinctive cries of the animal" without grammatical structure. The thinkers within this paradigm connected themselves with the Greeks and Romans, viewed as the only civilized persons of the ancient world, a view articulated by Thomas Sheridan who compiled an important 18th century pronunciation dictionary: "It was to the care taken in the cultivation of their languages, that Greece and Rome, owed that splendor, which eclipsed all the other nations of the world".<ref>{{cite journal |title=The Creation of a Classical Language in the Eighteenth Century: Standardizing English, Cultural Imperialism, and the Future of the Literary Canon |journal=Texas Studies in Literature and Language |last=Beach |first=Adam R. |volume=43 |issue=2 |date=2001|pages=117–141 |doi=10.1353/tsl.2001.0007 |s2cid=161970745 }}</ref>

In the 18th century [[James Burnett, Lord Monboddo]] analyzed numerous languages and deduced logical elements of the evolution of human languages.  His thinking was interleaved with his precursive concepts of [[biological evolution]].  Some of his early concepts have been validated and are considered correct today. In his ''The Sanscrit Language'' (1786), [[William Jones (philologist)|Sir William Jones]] proposed that Sanskrit and [[Persian language|Persian]] had resemblances to [[Classical Greek]], [[Latin]], [[Gothic language|Gothic]], and [[Celtic languages]]. From this idea sprung the field of [[comparative linguistics]] and [[historical linguistics]]. Through the 19th century, European [[linguistics]] centered on the comparative history of the [[Indo-European language]]s, with a concern for finding their common roots and tracing their development.

In the 1820s, [[Wilhelm von Humboldt]] observed that human language was a rule-governed system, anticipating a theme that was to become central in the formal work on syntax and semantics of language in the 20th century. Of this observation he said that it allowed language to make "infinite use of finite means" (''Über den Dualis'', 1827). Humboldt's work is associated with the movement of '''Romantic linguistics'''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA-->,<ref>Philip A. Luelsdorff, Jarmila Panevová, Petr Sgall (eds.), ''Praguiana, 1945–1990'', John Benjamins Publishing, 1994, p. 150: "Humboldt himself (Humboldt was one of the leading spirits of romantic linguistics; he died in 1834) emphasized that speaking was permanent creation."</ref> which was inspired by ''[[Naturphilosophie]]'' and [[Romantic science]].<ref name="Esterhammer">Angela Esterhammer (ed.), ''Romantic Poetry'', Volume 7, John Benjamins Publishing, 2002, p. 491.</ref> Other notable representatives of the movement include [[Friedrich Schlegel]] and [[Franz Bopp]].<ref name="Esterhammer"/>

It was only in the late 19th century that the [[Neogrammarian]] approach of [[Karl Brugmann]] and others introduced a rigid notion of [[sound law]].

Historical linguistics also led to the emergence of the [[semantics]] and some forms of [[pragmatics]] (Nerlich, 1992; Nerlich and Clarke, 1996).

Historical linguistics continues today and linguistics have succeeded in grouping approximately 5000 languages of the world into a number of common ancestors.<ref name="linguisticsociety.org">[[Frederick Newmeyer|Newmeyer, F.]] (2014). The History of Modern Linguistics. Retrieved from https://www.linguisticsociety.org/resource/history-modern-linguistics</ref>

===Structuralism===
{{main|Structuralism}}
In Europe there was a development of structural linguistics, initiated by [[Ferdinand de Saussure]], a Swiss professor of Indo-European and general linguistics, whose lectures on general linguistics, published posthumously by his students, set the direction of European linguistic analysis from the 1920s on; his approach has been widely adopted in other fields under the broad term "[[Structuralism]]".

By the 20th century, the attention shifted from language change to the structure, which is governed by rules and principles. This structure turned more into grammar and by the 1920s structural linguistic, was developing into sophisticated methods of grammatical analysis.<ref name="linguisticsociety.org"/>

===Descriptive linguistics===
{{main|Descriptive linguistics}}
During the second World War, North American linguists [[Leonard Bloomfield]], William Mandeville Austin<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://www.academia.edu/6144987|title=History of Linguistics: William Mandeville AUSTIN|first=Pierre-François|last=Puech|website=academia.edu}}</ref> and several of his students and colleagues developed teaching materials for a variety of languages whose knowledge was needed for the war effort. This work led to an increasing prominence of the field of linguistics, which became a recognized discipline in most American universities only after the war.

In 1965, [[William Stokoe]], [[Carl G. Croneberg]], and [[Dorothy C. Casterline]] linguists from [[Gallaudet University]] published an analysis which proved that [[American Sign Language]] fits the criteria for a [[natural language]].<ref>[[William C. Stokoe]], [[Dorothy Casterline|Dorothy C. Casterline]], [[Carl Croneberg|Carl G. Croneberg]] (1965) ''A Dictionary of American Sign Language on Linguistic Principles.'' Washington, DC: Gallaudet College Press.</ref>

===Generative linguistics===
{{main|Generative linguistics}}
Generative linguistics focuses on modeling the subconscious rules governing language. It started with [[Noam Chomsky|Noam Chomsky’s]] Transformational Grammar and has evolved into various theories like Government and Binding and the [[Minimalist program|Minimalist Program]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Newmeyer|first=Frederick|year=1986|title=Linguistic Theory in America|publisher=Academic Press|pages=17–18|isbn=0-12-517152-8}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=generative grammar |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/generative-grammar |website=Britannica |access-date=August 22, 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Freidin |first1=Robert |title=The Minimalist Program Noam Chomsky |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/415885 |website=Jstor |access-date=August 22, 2024 |date=September 1997|jstor=415885 }}</ref> Core principles include the distinction between competence and performance, the role of innate grammar (Universal Grammar),<ref name ="WasowHandbookUniversality">{{cite encyclopedia |title=Generative Grammar |encyclopedia=The Handbook of Linguistics|year=2003|last=Wasow|first=Thomas|author-link=Tom Wasow|editor-last1=Aronoff|editor-first1=Mark|editor-last2=Ress-Miller|editor-first2=Janie|publisher= Blackwell|url=https://www.blackwellpublishing.com/content/BPL_Images/Content_store/WWW_Content/9780631204978/12.pdf|doi=10.1002/9780470756409.ch12|page=299|isbn=978-0-631-20497-8 }}</ref> and the use of explicit, formal models to describe linguistic knowledge.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=McCoy|first1=R. Thomas|last2=Frank|first2=Robert|last3=Linzen|first3=Tal|year=2018 |title=Revisiting the poverty of the stimulus: hierarchical generalization without a hierarchical bias in recurrent neural networks|journal=Proceedings of the 40th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society|pages=2093–2098|arxiv=1802.09091 |url=https://tallinzen.net/media/papers/mccoy_frank_linzen_2018_cogsci.pdf}}</ref>

===Other subfields===
{{further|Linguistic turn|Linguistics Wars}}
From roughly 1980 onwards, [[Pragmatics|pragmatic]], [[Systemic functional grammar|functional]], and [[Cognitive linguistics|cognitive]] approaches have steadily gained ground, both in the [[United States]] and in Europe.