Historical Timeline of Noteworthy Linguists

1. Historical Timeline
of Noteworthy
Linguists
GANAN
MAGPUSAO
MICAH MARIE
LYNDALE

2. Summerians (4000 years before the present)
• The earliest writen texts written in
cuneiform on clay tablets.
• The linguistic texts from the earliest
part of the tradition were list of
nouns in Sumerian

3. Hindu Tradition (400 BC)
• The grammar of the Sanskrit
language was codified by the
grammarian Pāṇini in the 4th
century BCE. His work, “Aṣṭādhyāyī,”
is considered one of the most
important works in the history of
linguistics and the first formal
grammar in the world.

4. Pāṇini wrote a grammar of Sanskrit
called Aṣṭādhyāyī (literally 'eight
books"). It is a detailed analysis of
the phonetics, morphology, and
syntax of the Sanskrit language,
and it remains an important
reference for linguists today.
Hindu Tradition (400 BC)

5. Bhartrhari wrote Väkyapadiya
which states that sentences should
be interpreted as a single unit,
conveying meaning quickly, similar
to how a picture is initially
perceived as a unity.
Hindu Tradition (400 BC)

6. The Greeks (5th Century BC Onwards)
• The Greek tradition of linguistics
emerged later than the Hindu
tradition, focusing on the origin of
language, parts-of-speech systems,
and the relationship between
language and thought.

7. The Greeks (5th Century BC Onwards)
• The Greek tradition explored
philosophical and theoretical
questions about language, with
Plato and Aristotle arguing for
natural connections and
convention.

8. The Greeks (5th Century BC Onwards)
• Plato's Cratylus (427-347 BC)
represents Socrates (469-399 BC)
arguing for original natural
connections that were
subsequently obscured by
convention.

9. The Greeks (5th Century BC Onwards)
• Aristotle (384-322 BC) by contrast,
favoured convention over nature.
• Greek Syntax was first described by
Apollonius Dyscolus (110-175 AD).

10. The Romans (1 Century BC to
aprroximately 500 AD)
• Roman linguistics, influenced by
changes in spoken language,
focused on morphology, parts-of-
speech, and forms of nouns and
verbs, while neglecting syntax.

11. The Romans (1 Century BC to
aprroximately 500 AD)
• Varro (116-27 BC) produced a multi-
volume grammar of Latin, of which
only about a quarter has survived.
• Grammars of Donatus (4th Century
AD) and Priscan (6 Century AD) were
highly influential in the Middle Ages.

12. The Medieval Period (5th-14th Centuries)
• During the Middle Ages, the study of
language and linguistics was closely
linked to manuscripts, which
preserved religious texts, classical
literature, and cultural heritage.

13. The Medieval Period (5th-14th Centuries)
• Isidore of Seville did etymology
and lexicography during the 7th
century.
• St. Jerome translated Bible into
Latin and suggested a sense for
sense translation instead of word
for word.

14. The Medieval Period (5th-14th Centuries)
• Aelfric the Grammarian wrote an
introduction to Old English
grammar. He noticed marked
differences between Latin and Old
English grammar properties

15. The Medieval Period (5th-14th Centuries)
• The Middle Ages, from around 1100
to the end of the period, was a
significant period in linguistic
science, marked by scholastic
philosophy, linguistic studies, Gothic
architecture, literature, and the
founding of early European
universities.

16. The Medieval Period (5th-14th Centuries)
• The First Grammarian, an Icelandic
scholar, wrote the first grammatical
treatise on phonology, defining
speech sounds similar to the
modern concept of the phoneme.

17. The Medieval Period (5th-14th Centuries)
• Thomas of Erfurt: described the
difference in nominative case
marking for nouns versus
adjectives.

18. The Renaissance (15th-17th Centuries)
• During this period, grammatical
descriptions were written for several
European languages. The Bible was
also translated into many different
languages during the Renaissance.

19. The Renaissance (15th-17th Centuries)
• Manuel Chrysoloras produced the
first grammar book of Greek in
Western Europe.
• Sibawaih wrote a grammar of
classical Arabic. He also wrote a
phonetic description of the Arabic
writing system.

20. The Renaissance (15th-17th Centuries)
• School of Basra was heavily
influenced by the writings of
Aristotle. They believed that
language is strongly regular and
systematic (similar ideas to modern
Formalism).

21. The Renaissance (15th-17th Centuries)
• Dante wrote De vulgari eloquentia,
which experimented with combining
certain aspects of several Italian
dialects into a new, highly
regularized philosophical language.

22. The Renaissance (15th-17th Centuries)
• Pierre Ramée, a grammarian,
challenged Aristotelian language
approaches and advocated for the
appreciation of all languages in
their own right, rejecting modern
European and American
Structuralism concepts.

23. The Renaissance (15th-17th Centuries)
• Grammars for American-Indian
languages were published during
this period.
• British Royal Society (1660) did a
of work with linguistics during the
early life of the society.

24. The Renaissance (15th-17th Centuries)
• Port Royal Grammarians took a
Rationalist approach to language,
They believed in language
universals as evidenced by a
common thought structure in
people throughout the civilized
world

25. The 18th Century Europe
• J.G. Horder believed that language
and thought are inseparable. His
studies language and thought, known
as generative grammar, emphasized
the interconnectedness of language
and thought.

26. The 18th Century Europe
• James Harris held an Aristotelian
view of grammar (ie, he believed in
language universals), he was also
aware of the differences between
the world's languages.

27. The 18th Century Europe
• James Burnett (Monboddo) looked
for evidence of a proto-language
by studying the languages of
'primitive' peoples.

28. • William Jones, a British Royal Court
judge, wrote a paper in 1786 to the
Royal Asiatic Society, discussing the
historical connection between
Sanskrit and Western European
languages.
The 18th Century Europe

29. The 19th Century-Philology
• Wilhelm von Humboldt wrote The
variety of human language
structure, which was later hailed by
Leonard Bloomfield as the first
great book on general linguistics.

30. The 19th Century-Philology
• Friedrich von Schlegel (1772-1829)
"comparison grammar" was coined
by him to describe the process of
comparing morphology in Sanskrit
and other Indo-European
languages to determine genetic
relationships.

31. • Dane R. Rask (1787-1832) pioneer
in historical comparative
linguistics. He worked out a
methodology for historical
comparative linguistics.
The 19th Century-Philology

32. • Jacob Grimm (1785-1863) Grimm's
law suggests a basic relationship
between two languages if there is
agreement in indispensable words,
allowing for letter changes for
passing between them.
The 19th Century-Philology

33. • Franz Bopp (1791-1867) worked
further on classification of genetic
relations among the Germanic
languages.
The 19th Century-Philology

34. • August F. Pott (1802-1887)
pioneered Indo-European historical
linguistics and etymological
studies. He was a professor of
linguistics at the University of Halle.
The 19th Century-Philology

35. • August Schleicher (1821-1868)
suggested that modern languages
have evolved from simpler
Ursprachen to natural
development-based descendent
languages.
The 19th Century-Philology

36. 20th Century
STRUCTURALISM
• Ferdinand de Saussure
(1857-1913)
 Ferdinand de Saussure proposed
that language can be seen as a
chess game, where past moves
are irrelevant.

37. 20th Century
STRUCTURALISM
• Ferdinand de Saussure
(1857-1913)
 He suggested that synonyms like
arrogant and presumptuous could
extend their uses if the word
high-handed is dropped.

38. 20th Century
STRUCTURALISM
• Ferdinand de Saussure
(1857-1913)
 Language is a totality of linguistic
possibilities, with the "move" of
each word dependent on others.

39. 20th Century
STRUCTURALISM
• Ferdinand de Saussure
(1857-1913)
 Saussure's theory of meaning
viewed language as a series of
contiguous subdivisions on
indefinite planes of ideas and
sounds.

40. STRUCTURALISM
• Roman Jakobson (1896-1982)
Saussure's ideas spread first to
Russia, being brought there and
developed by Roman Jakobson.
20th Century

41. STRUCTURALISM
• Roman Jakobson
A prominent American linguist,
focused on formalism, studying how
literary language distinguishes itself.
20th Century

42. STRUCTURALISM
• Roman Jakobson
He developed structural
anthropology ideas, arguing that
societies are governed by deep rules
and understandings.
20th Century

43. STRUCTURALISM
• Roman Jakobson
Jakobson proposed a simple, orderly, and
universal psychological system for the world's
three to eight thousand languages, based on
binary structures and 12 levels of precedence.
20th Century

44. SAPIR-WHORF HYPOTHESIS
• Edward Sapir (1884-1934) and
Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897-1941),
argued that man's language shapes
reality perception, while Hopi
Indians of Arizona use animate
clouds, spatial metaphors, and no
past tense.
20th Century

45. GENERATIVE GRAMMAR (FORMALISM)
• Avram Noam Chomsky (1928)
A prominent figure in linguistics,
introduced the school of deep or
generative grammar in 1972.
20th Century

46. GENERATIVE GRAMMAR (FORMALISM)
• Avram Noam Chomsky (1928)
Chomsky emphasized the importance of the
brain's input in linguistic output and the speed at
which children acquire language and the ability
to create grammatically correct sentences.
20th Century

47. GENERATIVE GRAMMAR (FORMALISM)
• George Lakoff
A cognitive linguistics pioneer,
fought Noam Chomsky, and
emphasized the importance of using
appropriate metaphors in political
debates.
20th Century

48. THANK
YOU
REFERENCES:
https://home.csulb.e
du/~cwallis/382/rea
dings/482/text/histo
ry_outline.pdf
https://kinnu.xyz/kin
nuverse/culture/ling
uistics/history-of-
linguistics/
https://www.slidesha
re.net/jassimin/a-
timeline-of-the-
history-of-linguistics