John Stoddart
Published: 2015-09-27
Total Pages: 416
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Excerpt from Glossology of the Historical Relations of Languages 1. The term Glossology, though in some measure new to English literature, will be employed in the following pages to signify that applied Science which investigates the various languages spoken or written by mankind, with reference, on the one hand, to the pure science of Universal Grammar, as the source of principles in which they necessarily agree, and, on the other hand, to the historical facts which constitute or cause their differences. Every pure science emanates from an Idea in the human mind, which is permanently and universally true; and every applied science combines with that idea the effect of circumstances, which, being partial and subject to change, necessarily fall within the domain of history. The applied science of Language, if confined to the speech of a single country or district, forms the particular Grammar of the language there spoken; but if it embrace many languages, testing their formation, construction, and powers, by the common standard of Universal Grammar, it is termed by different authors Comparative Grammar, Comparative Philology, Sprachlehre, Linguistique, Glottology, or Glossology. I have adopted the last of these terms, because it is analogous to many English words derived from the Greek, such as Glossography, Geology, &c.; and because its derivation from yXwo-co, a tongue or language, and Aoyoc, reason, sufficiently indicates that its office is to open forth the reasons and causes of diversity in the numberless modes by which men, in different parts of the world, give utterance to their thoughts and feelings in speech. 2. I have elsewhere fully explained what I mean by the word Idea, as a basis of pure science. 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.