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Historiographia Linguistica
Vol. 3:1 (1976) ► pp.1–15

A 17th-Century Demonstration of Language Relationship

Meric Casaubon on English and Greek

| Charlottesville, Virginia

In 1650 Meric Casaubon (1599–1671) published a treatise in which he systematically presented rules for demonstrating language relationship; in his study he applied these rules to English and Greek. The explicitness of his theoretical formulations and the examples contained in his practical application of these rules offer a splendid opportunity for pinpointing the causes of the backwardness of historical linguistics in its so-called prescientific period. Careful observation of Casaubon’s presentation shows that it was his formulation of the rules of generally permissible phonetic changes, more than anything else, that prevented him from writing a really good study.

Published online: 21 January 2011
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.3.1.02ero
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Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Metcalf, George J.
1980. Theodor Bibliander (1504–1564) and the Languages of Japheth’s Progeny. Historiographia Linguistica 7:3 ► pp. 323 ff. DOI logo
Rhodes, Neil
2015. Pure and Common Greek in Early Tudor England. In The Culture of Translation in Early Modern England and France, 1500–1660, ► pp. 54 ff. DOI logo

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