Re: Is there a word for the Study of the History of Languages?

Peter T. Daniels:

> Joachim Pense wrote:
>>
>> Peter T. Daniels:
>>
>> >
>> > When scholars trained as philologists like Boas and Sapir and Kroeber
>> > and Bloomfield began studying unwritten languages, and found that they
>> > were not "primitive" or in any way "inferior" to European languages,
>> > they began to adopt the term "linguistics," and "historical
>> > linguistics" is thus sort of a retronym (a term devised to clarify a
>> > word that previously had no competition -- like "manual typewriter" or
>> > "rotary phone").
>>
>> Is your ommission of Saussure by intent? (I do not want to drop names or
>> bash you, I just want to know seriously)
>
> I'm not aware that Saussure did fieldwork on any unwritten languages (or
> on any languages at all, for that matter).

Nor am I, but I thought it was him who introduced the notion of synchronic
vs. diachronic studies and also the idea primality of spoken to written
language.

Joachim
.

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