Tag: Patron Saint

Happy March dear followers!
As per tradition, it is time to present this month’s Patron Saint: Professor Noam Chomsky.
Professor Chomsky, who celebrated his 90th birthday in December, is an American linguist who has become somewhat of a legend in our field – he is often referred to as the “father of modern linguistics”. Furthermore, he is usually that one linguist that non-linguists know about (apart from possibly Tolkien, but then people don’t usually know that Tolkien was a linguist).

Chomsky’s fame outside of linguistics is usually due to his political and philosophical writings. His political views, which align with libertarian socialism and anarcho-syndicalism, have often been a subject of controversy, especially in his home country. However, today we want to tell you about what made him famous as a linguist; Chomsky developed the theories of generative grammar, Universal Grammar, and the Chomsky hierarchy. A facebook post does not hold enough space for us to tell you all about these, but the most significant part of Chomsky’s theories is this:

In the 60s, Chomsky departed from the then commonly held view that the brain was a blank slate and language was wholly learned from the surroundings, and instead suggested that we are all born with an innate knowledge of language, that this knowledge is the same for all humans, that the innate grammar holds the same rules for all, and that children only need to learn the small differences in settings of the rules which are specific to the language in the input – thus the concept of Universal Grammar was born. Since the 90s, Chomsky has been developing his ‘Minimalist Program’, which aims to formalise grammar using as few rules as possible, with a greater focus on how the brain makes decisions about the grammar it is given from the input.

Chomsky’s framework is heavily based in biology and cognitive sciences, placing the field of linguistics within these sciences for the first time, which is one reason why his work is considered to have revolutionised the way we perform linguistic research to this day. Chomsky’s theories are still praised and scrutinised, followed and discarded. His frameworks still divide linguists into two camps; are you for or against generative grammar? Regardless of sides, no one can argue the impact of Chomsky’s theories on the field of linguistics, both for the subsequent work that aimed to prove his theories, and the work that aimed to disprove them.

Welcome to the month of February, dear followers! This is the first weekend of a new month and you know what that means! Let us introduce you to another Patron Saint!

As you know, our Patron Saints are individuals that have contributed a lot to the field of historical linguistics and today is certainly no different! Let us introduce you to Otto Jespersen!

The famous Danish linguist is the author of the spectacular encyclopaedic work of 7 volumes called “Modern English Grammar” but that is far from everything that Jespersen accomplished during his career as a linguistic scholar.

Born in 1860, professor Jespersen was reportedly inspired by Rasmus Rask, another famous Danish linguist (we’ll get there, don’t worry!), and became a professor of English at Copenhagen in 1893 (he also had a masters in French and knew both Spanish and Icelandic).

Professor Jespersen not only focused his efforts on linguistic study, in the field of which he published extensively on language structure, linguistic evolution and phonetics, but also on how to properly teach it! During his years at Copenhagen, he led a movement for basing foreign-language teaching on the use of conversational speech rather than on textbook study of grammar and vocabulary. He published on theoretical considerations of language teaching in 1901, a little number called “How to Teach a Foreign Language” and wrote a good number of textbooks which were used both in Denmark and abroad.

On top of all this, he also devised his own language! Meant to work as an international language for speakers who did not share a native tongue, the vocabulary of the language itself, called Novial, is based on a mix of Romance and Germanic words and its grammar is influenced by English. Unfortunately, the language didn’t really catch on and in 1943, when professor Jespersen passed away, the language became dormant. Thanks to the internet though, some rediscovered it in the early 90s.

From revolutionising language teaching to devising your very own language, professor Jespersen did it all and his (still very influential) linguistic works means that we simply had to make him February’s Patron Saint!

Want to know more? Check out our source for this little piece as well as Omniglot’s post on Novial! Enjoy!

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Otto-Jespersen

https://www.omniglot.com/writing/novial.htm

Followers, friends!

It’s the first weekend of a new month! You know what that means: a new Patron Saint! Let us introduce you Dr. Samuel Johnson!

You probably know him from the “what-did-I-just-read-meme”, which is actually not all that far off from Dr. Johnson’s actual profession as a (among other things) literary critic, and one of the most famous ones at that!

Dr. Johnson was born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, on the 18th of September 1709. He attended Pembroke College, Oxford, for about a year until he had to drop out as his family could no longer afford the fees of attending the prestigious school. Dr. Johnson worked as a teacher for a while and then moved to London (supposedly reaching London by walking, which is roughly a two-day trip). In London, Dr. Johnson supported himself by writing for The Gentleman’s Magazine and wrote a number of poems and tales that are still hailed today as innovative and moving.

Now, you might know Dr. Johnson (aside from the meme) as the author of A dictionary of the English language, a massive work that took Dr. Johnson 8 years to complete (though, in all fairness, it took 40 French scholars 40 years to finish theirs, so Dr. Johnson work was fast (!)). The work, while neither the first of its kind or unique, became hugely popular and was the most commonly used and imitated dictionary until the completion of the Oxford English Dictionary was completed in 1928. Dr. Johnson’s work was, of course, extremely impressive and there is no doubt that it was made at a perfect time in history: many had expressed a dissatisfaction over the dictionaries available and that almost certainly is a part of the dictionary’s popularity.

Following the completion of his dictionary, Dr. Johnson, who was eventually given an honorary doctorate by both Trinity College and Oxford, continued to write quite a LOT, primarily articles in magazines and prefaces to other authors’ works, but also an annotated edition of William Shakespeare’s plays; an apologue about happiness called The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia; and a popular travel narrative called A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland; and a work called Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, which includes short biographies and critical appraisals of 52 poets (primarily from the 18th century).

Though the dictionary may be the crown jewel of Dr. Johnson’s long career, his marvellous contribution to the linguistic and literary fields, as well as his continued influence today, some 235 years after his passing, earns him the place as the HLC’s very first Patron Saint of 2019!

Mae govannen, dear followers, and happy September!
Yesterday, it was exactly 45 years since JRR Tolkien passed away. Thus, we found it appropriate to make him the linguistic patron saint of September!
(Also, the 22nd of September is the birthday of Bilbo and Frodo, so even more appropriate!)

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien is probably one of the most well-known authors of modern times, but did you know that he also devoted his career to linguistics and literature? He was a specialist in English philology and ancient languages and was mostly active at Oxford University during his long career in academia, although he spent some time at the University of Leeds (1920-1925). He also contributed significantly to the Oxford English Dictionary, mainly on words beginning with ‘w’. In Leeds, he produced a vocabulary of Middle English, as well as an edition of ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, which served as standard texts for decades.
After returning to Oxford in 1925, Tolkien held a lecture on the old Germanic poetic saga Beowulf, ‘Beowulf: The monsters and the critics’ (1936), which he had spent years translating. (He also adapted many of the themes and stories from Beowulf into his Middle-Earth books.) This lecture revolutionised the way this poem was interpreted for good, and remains influential for the field of Old English literature criticism even today. A favourite Tolkien-trivia fact of the HLC: when he gave series of lectures on Beowulf, he would begin the first one by entering the lecture hall loudly reciting Beowulf in Anglo-Saxon!
Tolkien was an expert on many other languages than English, in particular classic ones such as Latin, Old Norse and Icelandic, Gothic, Welsh, and some Finnish (particularly as read in the mythical work ‘Kalevala’). These influences are noticeable in his extensive conlanging (language construction). The Elvish languages in the Middle Earth stories, for example, are largely based on Finnic and Welsh language elements (the ‘well met’ phrase used in the beginning of this post is from one of Tolkien’s Elvish languages, Sindarin). Although he could read and write many modern languages fluently, such as Spanish and French, it always frustrated him that, when he was travelling the countries where these languages are spoken, he was not able to speak them.

We could write about Tolkien forever; the impact of his Middle-Earth series is undeniable and we’ve only scratched the very surface of his conlanging (which I know we could go into in great depth). It is said, however, that Tolkien never appreciated the fame he received from his non-academic work, but wished people would be more familiar with his role in academia.
So, today we thank JRR Tolkien for his great contributions to the field of historical linguistics, philology and literature criticism!
Hantanyel, namárië!

Hey guys! Today, we here at the HLC want to introduce you to a new little series: Patron Saint of the month!

We will introduce you to some of the great movers and shakers in the linguistic world, starting off with the great Angus McIntosh! You might recognise the name? Yeah, that’s because we here at the HLC have mentioned the Angus McIntosh Centre for Historical Linguistics a couple of times.

Now, you might be wondering, what did this Angus McIntosh do to get a whole centre named after him. And we’ll tell you!

Angus McIntosh was born near Sunderland in 1914. Being interested in the English language, he is said to have been a catalyst to JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings as Tolkien started sketching out ideas for the epic stories while convalescing from an ankle injury, which he incurred during a game of tennis with professor McIntosh.

In 1948, professor McIntosh became the first Forbes professor of English language and General linguistics at the University of Edinburgh, where he spent the rest of his academic career dedicated to the advancement of the field. Most famously, McIntosh, together with Michael Samuels and Michael Benskin, devised a method now known as the “Fit Technique”, a revolutionary method used in the study of historical dialects. The impressive result can be seen in A Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English (LALME), still considered an essential reference-work in the study of English historical linguistics.

McIntosh worked tirelessly on behalf of linguists everywhere, and, in 2013, the Institute of Historical Dialectology was renamed to Angus McIntosh Centre for Historical Linguistics, a wonderful place for researchers and students of historical linguistics alike. Being associated with the University of Edinburgh, the alma mater of all of us here at the HLC, it is only appropriate that the man whose work helped create this marvellous place is our first Patron Saint of the Month!

If you want to know more, check out our source for this piece, where you can find loads more on the life and work of this Patron Saint, here.