Making a genealogy of “American linguistics” with John Eliot’s Indian Grammar Begun (1666)
Summary In the history of linguistics John Pickering (1777–1846) and Stephen Du Ponceau’s (1760–1844) decision to reedit and republish John Eliot’s (ca. 1604–1690) The Indian Grammar Begun is an important but underrecognized event. Eliot’s grammar was first published in 1666 , but by the early 1800s...
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crjohnbenjaminsp:10.1075/hl.00050.ams 2023-05-15T13:16:05+02:00 Making a genealogy of “American linguistics” with John Eliot’s Indian Grammar Begun (1666) Amsler, Mark 2019 http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/hl.00050.ams http://www.jbe-platform.com/deliver/fulltext/hl.00050.ams.pdf en eng John Benjamins Publishing Company Historiographia Linguistica volume 46, issue 3, page 33-56 ISSN 0302-5160 1569-9781 Linguistics and Language History Language and Linguistics journal-article 2019 crjohnbenjaminsp https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.00050.ams 2022-12-20T10:15:05Z Summary In the history of linguistics John Pickering (1777–1846) and Stephen Du Ponceau’s (1760–1844) decision to reedit and republish John Eliot’s (ca. 1604–1690) The Indian Grammar Begun is an important but underrecognized event. Eliot’s grammar was first published in 1666 , but by the early 1800s had been mostly forgotten. Applying book history and critical discourse approaches, I argue the new 1822 edition assembled by Pickering and Du Ponceau was at the center of a newly emergent knowledge project aimed to establish an ‘American’ mode of comparative linguistics on the world intellectual stage. The grammatical analysis of Native American languages, especially Algonquin, and the critique of current European models and typologies of morphology and syntax, especially von Humboldt’s, were central to Pickering and Du Ponceau’s project. Du Ponceau may be “the father of American philology”, but he was not working alone nor did the concept of ‘Comparative Philology’ derive solely from Du Ponceau. Rather, Du Ponceau was the strategist for a more collaborative, organized approach based on the study of American Indian languages. The new edition of Eliot’s grammar reveals how Du Ponceau and Pickering were establishing an informal research network devoted to North American indigenous languages. The production and arrangement of their book depended on a broad, complex, and ultimately institutionally-supported network of scholars and amateur linguists. Their edition also shows how Du Ponceau and Pickering responded to the underlying ideological debate over “savage” languages with an emergent discourse grounded in Native American languages, ‘facts’, and ‘scientific’ linguistics. Article in Journal/Newspaper algonquin John Benjamins Publishing Company (via Crossref) Indian Historiographia Linguistica 46 3 33 56 |
institution |
Open Polar |
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John Benjamins Publishing Company (via Crossref) |
op_collection_id |
crjohnbenjaminsp |
language |
English |
topic |
Linguistics and Language History Language and Linguistics |
spellingShingle |
Linguistics and Language History Language and Linguistics Amsler, Mark Making a genealogy of “American linguistics” with John Eliot’s Indian Grammar Begun (1666) |
topic_facet |
Linguistics and Language History Language and Linguistics |
description |
Summary In the history of linguistics John Pickering (1777–1846) and Stephen Du Ponceau’s (1760–1844) decision to reedit and republish John Eliot’s (ca. 1604–1690) The Indian Grammar Begun is an important but underrecognized event. Eliot’s grammar was first published in 1666 , but by the early 1800s had been mostly forgotten. Applying book history and critical discourse approaches, I argue the new 1822 edition assembled by Pickering and Du Ponceau was at the center of a newly emergent knowledge project aimed to establish an ‘American’ mode of comparative linguistics on the world intellectual stage. The grammatical analysis of Native American languages, especially Algonquin, and the critique of current European models and typologies of morphology and syntax, especially von Humboldt’s, were central to Pickering and Du Ponceau’s project. Du Ponceau may be “the father of American philology”, but he was not working alone nor did the concept of ‘Comparative Philology’ derive solely from Du Ponceau. Rather, Du Ponceau was the strategist for a more collaborative, organized approach based on the study of American Indian languages. The new edition of Eliot’s grammar reveals how Du Ponceau and Pickering were establishing an informal research network devoted to North American indigenous languages. The production and arrangement of their book depended on a broad, complex, and ultimately institutionally-supported network of scholars and amateur linguists. Their edition also shows how Du Ponceau and Pickering responded to the underlying ideological debate over “savage” languages with an emergent discourse grounded in Native American languages, ‘facts’, and ‘scientific’ linguistics. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Amsler, Mark |
author_facet |
Amsler, Mark |
author_sort |
Amsler, Mark |
title |
Making a genealogy of “American linguistics” with John Eliot’s Indian Grammar Begun (1666) |
title_short |
Making a genealogy of “American linguistics” with John Eliot’s Indian Grammar Begun (1666) |
title_full |
Making a genealogy of “American linguistics” with John Eliot’s Indian Grammar Begun (1666) |
title_fullStr |
Making a genealogy of “American linguistics” with John Eliot’s Indian Grammar Begun (1666) |
title_full_unstemmed |
Making a genealogy of “American linguistics” with John Eliot’s Indian Grammar Begun (1666) |
title_sort |
making a genealogy of “american linguistics” with john eliot’s indian grammar begun (1666) |
publisher |
John Benjamins Publishing Company |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/hl.00050.ams http://www.jbe-platform.com/deliver/fulltext/hl.00050.ams.pdf |
geographic |
Indian |
geographic_facet |
Indian |
genre |
algonquin |
genre_facet |
algonquin |
op_source |
Historiographia Linguistica volume 46, issue 3, page 33-56 ISSN 0302-5160 1569-9781 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.00050.ams |
container_title |
Historiographia Linguistica |
container_volume |
46 |
container_issue |
3 |
container_start_page |
33 |
op_container_end_page |
56 |
_version_ |
1766272546712322048 |