ABriefHistoryofLinguisticsbefore18thCentury.docVIP

ABriefHistoryofLinguisticsbefore18thCentury 　　Introduction 　　Linguistics can be simply defined as the scientific study of language.Therefore，a history of linguistics is closely related to the origin of human language.This paper，in a rough way，classifies history of linguistics into three periods：Linguistics in Ancient Times； Linguistics in the Middle Ages； and Linguistics in the Renaissance.The following section will discuss these periods in detail one by one. 　　1.Linguistics in Ancient Times 　　This part mainly discusses linguistics from the following three representative countries：China，India，and Greece. 　　Ancient Chinese linguistics enjoys a special fame on the origins of language.The earliest writing system，which was called Jiaguwen，appeared in the 14th century BC and Er Ya was the first work.In the Qin and Han dynasties，which mark a pioneer era in china’s language studies.During this period，the representative figures were Xu Shen，Yang Xiong，and Liu Xi etc. 　　As to Indian linguistics，it traced back to the study of Veda.Ancient Indians mainly studied Sanskrit grammar and their methods were primarily empirical and analytical .The Indian linguistic scholarship centered on three perspectives：phonetics and phonology，general linguistic theory and semantics，and grammatical description.In short，the achievements of ancient Indian linguistics are of great significance to world linguistics. 　　On Greek linguistics，as is known to all，ancient Greece，whose study on language started about the 5th century BC，is taken for the cradle of Western civilization.Ancient Greek linguistics，who studied language from philosophical point of view，were more interested in dealing with problems on the relationship between language and natural world，language and logical form，language and human thought etc..Socrates，Plato，and Aristotle，were famous philosophers in ancient Greece.Etymology，grammar and phonetics were three aspects of linguistic study among early Greek scholars. 　　2.Linguis