| This study is a sub-topic of "Reconstruction of Western Modern Linguistics History".European scholars have been constantly proud of their Comparative Linguistics,although its history was not received a comprehensive and systematical study yet.Since 1950s,foreign scholars have made a number of pioneering research on its development until the late 18th century.What is being discussed in China still remains on the stage of "limited research" given by prior Western scholars.New achievements have not been absorbed in China yet.Academic history research requires a lot of literature.Many blind spots and errors inevitably exist,and sometimes the history was even distorted in hardcopy era.Take the example of creation of Indo-European language family and establishment of comparative methodology,confined to temporal knowledge,they were driven by "German nationalism" as well as "Anglo-American nationalism",and received very serious misunderstandings.Cannon(1958,1990),Hockett(1964),Robins(1967,1987)and so on did not recognize this point.Only after looking up the main works of language comparison prior to William Jones(1786),and having a general knowledge of its formation and development,can we position appropriately "similar-homologous speech" in Jones' Discourse.This study sorts out and analyzes prior historians' ideas on comparative linguistics history first.Secondly,based on literature investigation and achieved results,we explore a general linguistic history comparison map before Jones,that is,before the end of the 18th century,focusing on the process of establishment of comparative linguistics methods and the value of comparative linguistics theories founded by Dutch school represented by Boxhorn.Finally,we assert that it is not true to regard Jones as"the founder of comparative linguistics" based on the contents of his Discourse delivered between1784 and 1794.Main conclusions of this study are as follows:1.The first scholar establishing Indo-European language family hypothesis(Scythian hypothesis,including Sanskrit)and comparative methodology is Dutch scholar Boxhorn(1647);The first proposing Germanic law is Dutch scholar Kate(1723).The earliest working on Altai language and the Finnish-Ugar family is Dutch scholar Witsen(1692),Swedish scholar Stellenberg(1730),and Hungarian scholar Sajnovics(1770).The earliest putting forward Semitic Language prototype is German scholar Leibniz(1710);The earliest proposing "oriental language" family tree model is Dutch scholar Schultens(1738).The earliest speculating the homology of Madagascar,the East Indians and other languages is Dutch scholar Reeland(1708).It is French Proyart(1776),Italian Gilij(1782),and American Edwards(1787)that opened the comparative study of African languages,South American languages and North American languages respectively.2.The Third Anniversary Discourse(1786)is an orientalist's speech on Asian races and ethnics,and language is only one of research tools.In section 10(5 sentences),Jones mentioned language's"similarity-homology",which appeared in other Discourses,too.Jones neither advertised it as initiative,nor did any historical comparative study.Its contents were based on the achievements having obtained from previous language comparison and Sanskrit research.We can see by literature review that in Jones'Annual Discourses(11 times),whatever was right(e.g.:Indo-European language,Finnish-Ugar language)was the studies having proposed by his predecessors;while whatever was wrong(e.g:the relations of Tibetan and Chinese)was his assumption,that is the studies not having been fully done by predecessors yet.It is safely to assert that:(1)no matter Jones' ideas were wrong or right,his claim must have been referenced by his predecessors' thoughts although he did not list them as reference;(2)Jones had no specific research practice on language comparison,except offering his subjective understanding about literature,including misunderstanding and misinterpretation sometimes;(3)Jones did not make any original contributions to language comparison theory and methodology.3 In a panorama view,the pioneers of language comparison are Wales Cambrensis(1194),Spanish Rodericus(1243),Italian Dantis(Dante 1305)and Dutch Agricola(1479).Followed this early exploration,the second stage of etymology of harmony theory began,via which the third stage appeared.The representative is Czech scholar Gelenius(1537)in the second one.The third stage was a mature one represented by ontology,methodology and sound law.In this stage,Dutch school was formed,in particular Boxhorn(1647,1654)established comparative linguistics theories and methods,and Kate(1723)discovered Germanic law of sound history.German school in the 19th century represented the fourth stage.It did not have major originality but extended the study and refined its process.4.The rise of language comparison mainly lies in national consciousness and awakening of seeking a root in Germanic(Celtic)and other races.After discovering the works of Tacitus(55-120)and Paterculus(about BC 19-AD 31),they more and more respected their ancestors and love their native language when first reading the deeds of their great leader Arminius(BC18-21AD).They wanted to know where their ancestors had came from.According to language evidence,with reference to history and archeology,they presumed that their ancestors had been from the black sea of Scythia.The maturity of comparative linguistics was not,as usually imagined,based on the discovery of the language in the uncharted water era,and the compile of various vocabulary collections or the discovery of Sanskrit in the late 18th century,but from the inner trend during European academic development,that is,the rise of humanism before and after the Renaissance,and a re-discovery of ancient European national culture(Germanic/Celtic).5.Because Jones positioned language relations within the framework of Bible,his theory was in line with beliefs of some scholars(preconceptions).In the mid-nineteenth century,three British scholars(Muller 1851;Anonymity 1866;Farrar 1869)advocated Jones' achievements in order to be against German scholar's monopoly of historical comparison(the testimony of three men creates a tiger).In addition,the scholar of German linguistics history,Benfey(1869),did self-boast(halo effect)and defamed Dutch scholar(distortion effect).All of these resulted in some scholars in the twentieth century regarded Jones' statements as authority,and exaggerated them repeatedly(butterfly effect),thus hiding the great achievements of Dutch school,and distorted the development process of western comparative linguistics therefore(set effect).However,academic history is academic history!Each vagueness must be clarified.Each confusion of right and wrong must be traced to its original source.The key to conduct a study on academic history is to overcome subjective belief(blindly following old sayings,rejecting new thoughts),to adhere to objective facts based on facts(amend old sayings according to newly discovered data).The theoretical value of this study is for the first time to comprehensively and systematically analyze the academic history of European comparative linguistics before the end of 18th century,revealing its formation,development and maturation process,elaborating Dutch school(Boxhorn),and laying a foundation for rebuilding western modern language history.The application value of this study is to promote linguistics history study,teaching and research work of linguistic theory. |
PDF Full Text Request