Comparativism in Linguistics

As far as we know, there were comparativists, especially in the 19^th century, who learned dead languages like Ancient Greek, Sanskrit and Latin just for pleasure! They started the movement of comparing similarities and understanding the structure, the regularity of the differences, and were concerned to find the origin of those languages. Many aspects in current Linguistics, though, depends on those contributions, since they instituted some pillars of the organization related to theorethical classifications of languages.

Sir William Jones, for example, learned many foreign languages in his youth and as an adult he went to different countries to study about their local tongues. At the age of twenty he became proficient in French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Latin and, indeed, English. He also learned about Arabic and Persian. With this knowledge, he contributed to the establishment of Indology, which refers essentially to the study of Indian languages and texts.

Sir Jones contributed to a group of researches and discovered that Germanic and Celtic had the possibility of having the same origin, fact that was proved later by scholars. He also invented the system of transliteration and translated the Laws of Manu (Manusmriti) into English, according to Dr. K. L. Kamat (2007)[1]. Transliteration is the description of a word or text (using an alphabet to represent the letters and sounds) from one system to another.

Other important comparativists were Rasmus Rask, Franz Bopp and Jacob Grimm. Jacob Grimm specified the regular sound correspondences among Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and the Germanic languages and observed some regular changes in the Germanic systems.

We just want to say that we need to look at the work provided by these thinkers, because their studies gave focus and added material to many current descriptions and arguments about languages. Besides, they contributed to other related areas such as History, Mythology, Sociology and Anthropology.


Introductory reading: http://books.google.com.br/books?id=0BhzqFratIAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=An+Introduction+to+language&hl=pt-BR&ei=FvCxTe2REuTw0gGaweiFBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=comparativists&f=false

By Liu Jun & Stéphane Dias

ITRANS / Jtrans Transliteration Map & Pronunciation Key for Sanskrit

VOWELS

A

Aa

E

I

u

U

?

@

;

=

O

Oð

Aað

Aaò

Aö

AH

a

aa/A

i

ii/I

u

uu/U

R^i

R^I

L^i

L^I

e

ai

o

au

aM

aH

ka varga - consonants
k	K:	g:	G:	{
ka	kha	ga	gha	~Na

cha varga - consonants
c:	C	j:	J:	W:
cha	chha	ja	jha	JNa/~na

Ta varga - consonants
X	Y	R	Z	N:
Ta	Tha	Da	Dha	Na

ta varga - consonants
t:	T:	d	D:	n:
ta	tha	da	dha	na

pa varga - consonants
p:	P	b:	B:	m:
pa	pha	ba	bha	ma

semi-vowels, sa.nyuktaakshara, other consonants
y:	r	l:	v:	S:	\:	s:	h	L	x:	w
ya	ra	la	va	sha	shha	sa	ha	lda/La	ksha/xa	GYa / j~na

                            Available at: http://members.tripod.com/sarasvati/devanagari/alphabet.html

About transliteration: http://support.discusware.com/center/resources/tips/translit.html

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[1] Available at: http://www.kamat.com/kalranga/people/pioneers/w-jones.htm.