Language and Linguistics

In the nineteenth century, linguistics had not yet become the highly technical subject which it was to be in the following century. Debates on linguistic issues could still be followed by non-specialists and discussed in terms accessible to the educated public. This public in turn did not hesitate to make up its own mind about the questions put before it by linguists. Hence it is not surprising to find general periodicals devoting considerably more attention to language, particularly in the latter half of the period, than has probably ever been the case before or since.

Topics of particular importance included those bearing on religious beliefs and the new evolutionary views of Darwin: the origin of speech, the validity of the Biblical account of language, the identity and nature of the language Adam spoke, and the relation between language and thought.

As one would also expect in the period which saw the compilation of the monumental New English Dictionary, questions relating to the history and teaching of the English language were of considerable interest, especially since the educational reforms of the period led eventually to a situation in which English was a compulsory subject in every school in Britain.

Contributors represented here include Max Muller, W.D. Whitney, A.H. Sayce, E.B. Tylor, Thomas De Quincey, Charles Kingsley and William Hazlitt.