The Invisible Hand (Fitch 2007)

[Guest guest]

Thanks to J. Sanchis for the citation.

 

Fitch 2007 Invisible Hand.pdf in the files section.

 

" In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, linguistics was considered a

thoroughly historical science, focusing on how languages such as English or

Sanskrit changed through time. By uncovering rules governing phonological

changes, historical linguists reconstructed dead protolanguages such as

Indo-European—an ancestral dialect spoken some 10,000 years ago that diverged

into a wide variety of modern languages, including Hindi, Russian, Spanish,

English, and Gaelic. The crowning achievement of these early linguists was a

family tree of languages that became an inspiration for Charles Darwin as he

pondered biological evolution (Fig. 1). Unfortunately, many historical

linguists entertained quasi-mystical ideas: August Schleicher, the German

author of the first great comparative grammar of Indo-European languages,

believed that languages are living things, and Jacob Grimm posited a

Sprachgeist—an internal spirit of language driving it to change along certain

lines.

 

Twentieth-century linguists rejected such fanciful notions, and emphasized the

capacity of individuals to produce and understand utterances. Noam Chomsky

famously characterized this as a conceptual shift from a historical

preoccupation with " E-language " ( a set of externalized utterances) to an

emphasis on " I-language " (principles internalized by the language learner),

(Fitch 2007, p. 665). "

 

Fitch, W. T. (2007). " An invisible hand. " Nature. Volume 449 (October 11), pp.

665-667.

 

M. Kelkar

[Guest guest]

Dear Kelkarji,

 

Namaste,

 

The scholars occupied with the linguistic studies, in the epriod you are referring to, wrongly arrived at the AIT and having done that they tried to reiforce their linguistic ideas through AIT. This is deplorable. As it is said that ambrosia mixed with poison is a poison so also their possible good intention and studies ended in an undesirable mesh.

 

Regards,

 

Sunil K. Bhattacharjya--- On Fri, 3/6/09, mkelkar2003 <mayureshkelkar wrote:

mkelkar2003 <mayureshkelkar The Invisible Hand (Fitch 2007) Date: Friday, March 6, 2009, 10:10 AM

 

 

Thanks to J. Sanchis for the citation. Fitch 2007 Invisible Hand.pdf in the files section. "In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, linguistics was considered a thoroughly historical science, focusing on how languages such as English or Sanskrit changed through time. By uncovering rules governing phonological changes, historical linguists reconstructed dead protolanguages such as Indo-European— an ancestral dialect spoken some 10,000 years ago that diverged into a wide variety of modern languages, including Hindi, Russian, Spanish, English, and Gaelic. The crowning achievement of these early linguists was a family tree of languages that became an inspiration for Charles Darwin as he pondered biological evolution (Fig. 1). Unfortunately, many historical linguists entertained quasi-mystical ideas: August Schleicher, the German author of the first great comparative grammar of Indo-European languages, believed that languages are

living things, and Jacob Grimm posited a Sprachgeist—an internal spirit of language driving it to change along certain lines. Twentieth-century linguists rejected such fanciful notions, and emphasized the capacity of individuals to produce and understand utterances. Noam Chomsky famously characterized this as a conceptual shift from a historical preoccupation with "E-language" ( a set of externalized utterances) to an emphasis on "I-language" (principles internalized by the language learner), (Fitch 2007, p. 665)."Fitch, W. T. (2007). "An invisible hand." Nature. Volume 449 (October 11), pp. 665-667.M. Kelkar