The Formation of the Concept of Language Family from the Perspective of Comparative Language History in Europe

Daniel Petit

Volume 2 Issue 4

Mar. 2021

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Daniel Petit, . The Formation of the Concept of Language Family from the Perspective of Comparative Language History in Europe[J]. International Comparative Literature, 2019, 2(4): 614-632.

Citation:

Daniel Petit, . The Formation of the Concept of Language Family from the Perspective of Comparative Language History in Europe[J]. International Comparative Literature, 2019, 2(4): 614-632.

Daniel Petit, . The Formation of the Concept of Language Family from the Perspective of Comparative Language History in Europe[J]. International Comparative Literature, 2019, 2(4): 614-632.

Citation:

Daniel Petit, . The Formation of the Concept of Language Family from the Perspective of Comparative Language History in Europe[J]. International Comparative Literature, 2019, 2(4): 614-632.

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The Formation of the Concept of Language Family from the Perspective of Comparative Language History in Europe

Daniel Petit,

Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS)

Received Date: 2019-05-06
Publish Date: 2021-03-09

Abstract

Abstract

This article aims to provide a brief overview of the different milestones of language comparison in Europe from Antiquity to the present day. Whereas Ancient Greeks and Latins were relatively indifferent to language comparison and scholars of the Middle Ages stuck to a Biblical model treating Hebrew as the source of all the world’s languages, the European Renaissance saw the mushrooming of various new theories regarding the linguistic prehistory of Europe. Only in the nineteenth century were these theories elaborated in a rational framework, allowing linguistic families to be identified on a scientific basis. In the twentieth century, the notion of the linguistic family was accompanied, and sometimes superseded, by other approaches to linguistics, such as geographical, typological, or cognitive linguistics.
- linguistics,
- comparative grammar,
- Indo-European,
- language comparison,
- language family

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References(23)

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