The issue of the origins of the Germanic languages in the history of the study of language
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21165/el.v49i2.2738Keywords:
Germanic languages, grouping, linguistic historiography, periodisation.Abstract
The grouping of the Germanic languages is a subject that has occupied a number of scholars since the pre-scientific period that precedes the 19th century. Such practice has had diverse motivations, depending on the specific period of the history of the study of language. Its motivation may be to establish a subdivision of languages from a still pre-literary stage or to reconstruct proto-languages of these stages. The aim of this paper is to give an overview of the issue of the origins of the Germanic languages in the history of the study of language. First, we discuss four distinct periods of the history of the language sciences. We then try to demonstrate how the approaches to the problem adopted in the different periods reflect the “Discontinuity-vs.-Continuity Model” proposed by Koerner (1989b). Our study shows that the linguistic geography, among other traditions, also played a major role in the investigations, although other traditions were the dominant paradigms in the 19th and 20th centuries.Downloads
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