Bøger i Cambridge Library Collection - Linguistics serien

Beitrage zur Ethnographie (1867) is the German scientist Carl von Martius' colourful and personal memoir of his early travels to Brazil in the years 1817-1820. He focuses on the indigenous peoples of America and in particular of Brazil, and addresses a wide range of ethnographic and linguistic topics.

Amassed over a forty-year career, first with the East India Company in Sumatra and later with the Admiralty as its First Secretary, William Marsden's library, as revealed in this catalogue of 1827, was an invaluable collection. An expert in Asian languages, Marsden (1754-1836) published his catalogue to provide a basis for study into comparative linguistics and oriental literature. This work provides an insight into both the practice of book-collecting in the period, and the variety of works published throughout the world. It lists texts on travel, medicine and linguistics, as well as works of literature and religion, including some extremely rare Bibles, and a possibly unique copy of the Book of Genesis in the Algonquin language. The library itself was donated to King's College, London, in 1835 and is now shared by King's College and the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.

This 1822 book was a landmark publication of early Indo-European comparative philology, compiled by Johann Severin Vater (1771-1826), professor at Halle. It includes a substantial contribution by Rasmus Rask, who first identified the relationship between Greek, Latin, Slavonic and Germanic, and chapters on Albanian, Gaelic, and (unrelated) Georgian.

This 1878 study of the indigenous Australians in the Victoria region brings together the observations of those who lived or worked closely with the Aboriginal population in the mid- to late nineteenth century. Illustrated throughout, the volume preserves much information about Aboriginal society that might otherwise have been lost.

Karl von den Steinen's classic work, first published in 1894, recounts his second expedition to the Xingu River in Northeastern Brazil in the years 1887-1888. It describes how he and his fellow scientists made significant discoveries in geography, cartography and ethnology, and includes a glossary of local languages.

Wilhelm von Humboldt's classic study of human language was published posthumously in 1836. It summarises the author's theoretical views of language, its universal structures and its relation to mind, education and culture. It influenced generations of linguists and is central for today's renewed scholarly interest in Humboldt and his thought.

The eight volumes of the Grammatici Latini, edited by Heinrich Keil (1822-1894) and published by Teubner between 1855 and 1880, are an outstanding monument of nineteenth-century German philology. The seventh volume contains writings on orthography by Terentius Scaurus and Bede among others.

The eight volumes of the Grammatici Latini, edited by Heinrich Keil (1822-1894) and published by Teubner between 1855 and 1880, are an outstanding monument of nineteenth-century German philology. The sixth volume contains works by Marius Victorinus and Maximus Victorinus together with other works on metre.

Rasmus Rask (1787-1832) was a Danish scholar who travelled to India to undertake linguistic research. This is the 1826 German edition of his phonological and morphological analysis of Avestan texts he acquired among the Parsis. Rask demonstrated that Avestan was a distinct ancient Indo-European language originating in Persia.

Johann Severin Vater (1771-1826) was an influential German philologist. This 1815 bibliography of grammars and dictionaries of all known languages reflects the scope of his research, which extended from Sanskrit to Native North American languages. His book is a fascinating snapshot of linguistic knowledge in early nineteenth-century Europe.

Bopp's Vergleichende Grammatik, begun in 1833, was a founding text of comparative philology and Indo-European linguistics. This translation (1845-50) of the first edition of Bopp's work gave English-speaking scholars access to his important findings. This volume covers pronouns and verbs.

In this 1925 work, philologist D. S. Blondheim (1884-1934) proves that from antiquity to the Middle Ages Jews translated the Greek Bible into Old Latin. He thereby sheds light on the influence of Jewish speech on the Vulgate, the English Bible and the Romance languages.

A. W. Howitt's classic two-volume study, first published in 1904, investigates the organisation, practices and customs of the indigenous peoples he encountered during his forty years exploring Australia.

This two-volume collection of lectures on syntax by Jacob Wackernagel (1853-1938) was an influential introduction to comparative grammar with examples from Greek, Latin and German, that was used by generations of students. Volume 2, first published in 1924, discusses gender, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, the article, prepositions and negation.

A respected folklorist and medievalist, Thomas Wright (1810-77) wrote prolifically on a wide range of subjects. This two-volume dictionary, published in 1857, aimed to help readers to navigate unfamiliar vocabulary in historical literature and gives definitions, etymologies and illustrative examples. Volume 1 covers letters A-F.

British-born biologist Sir Baldwin Spencer, and his fieldwork partner, F. J. Gillen, an advocate of Aboriginal rights, carried out innovative in-depth studies on the native tribes of Central Australia. Volume 1 describes the region's topography, and the customs and beliefs of the Arunta Aborigines.

Theodor Koch-Grunberg was a noted German ethnologist whose work on the indigenous peoples of Brazil and Venezuela is still consulted today. This volume contains the linguistic data collected on his 1911-1913 expedition. It covers nineteen languages and includes a grammar of Taulipang (Taurepan) with word lists and texts.

Volume 1 of the monumental comparative grammar of the Indo-European languages by Karl Brugmann (1849-1919) is devoted to phonology. It focuses in turn on each Proto-Indo-European sound and its reflexes in the earliest attested languages of each language family, and also discusses Ablaut and sound changes.

Theodor Koch-Grunberg (1872-1924) was director of Berlin's Ethnographical Museum. This two-volume work documents his expedition to North-West Brazil in 1903-1905. Though aimed at a lay readership, his account provides a wealth of information on the area and its indigenous tribes, their languages and customs.

Berthold Delbruck's three volumes on Indo-European syntax were written to complete Karl Brugmann's monumental comparative grammar. They were first published between 1893 and 1900, and remain the fullest treatment of the subject. This, the second volume, discusses the verb, providing thorough coverage of tense, mood, infinitives and participles.

A Slovenian citizen of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Franz Miklosich (1813-91) extended the comparative method of analysis across the whole Slavonic language family. This four-volume comparative grammar of the Slavonic languages (1852-74) ranks among his most influential works. Volume 4 is reissued in the 1868-74 edition.

This three-volume work by Hugo Schuchardt (1842-1927), first published between 1866 and 1868, explores the development of Vulgar Latin, the language of the general population, as opposed to the classical, literary variety. The work focuses on the distinctive vowel changes that took place in Romance vernaculars over many centuries.

First published in 1872, this three-volume comparative grammar of the Indo-Aryan languages was written by the British civil servant John Beames (1837-1902). Volume 1 focuses on phonetics and phonology, exploring the languages' vowel and consonant systems, and how their phonology has changed over time.

Hermann Osthoff (1847-1909) and Karl Brugmann (1849-1919) were prominent members of the Neogrammarian school of linguistics. This six-volume work, published between 1878 and 1910, develops the theory that European languages, together with certain languages of central and southern Asia, have a common origin in a prehistoric Indo-European language.

This monumental work by the German linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835), published posthumously in 1836-9, analyses the classical literary language of Java. Volume 1 includes Humboldt's 1836 essay on language and a preface by his brother Alexander, and discusses Sanskrit and Buddhist influences on Javan language and society.

The distinguished German philologist Hermann Hirt (1865-1936) wrote this seven-volume grammar soon after the discovery of Tocharian and the decipherment of Hittite. Volume 1 (1927) introduces the Indo-European language family, considers etymology and semantic shift, and provides a detailed analysis of the Indo-European consonant system.

Jacob Grimm's two-volume history of German was first published in 1848. It is noteworthy especially for the chapter on the major sound shift now known as Grimm's Law. It also contains a wealth of comparative material on phonology, vocabulary and grammar within Germanic and across the Indo-European spectrum.

The eight volumes of the Grammatici Latini, edited by Heinrich Keil (1822-1894) and published by Teubner between 1855 and 1880, are an outstanding monument of nineteenth-century German philology. The final volume contains the Anecdota Helvetica, a collection of writings on Latin grammar from the library of the Benedictine abbey at Einsiedeln in Switzerland.

The eight volumes of the Grammatici Latini, edited by Heinrich Keil (1822-1894) and published by Teubner between 1855 and 1880, are an outstanding monument of nineteenth-century German philology. The fourth volume contains the works of Probus, Donatus, Servius and Sergius.

The eight volumes of the Grammatici Latini, edited by Heinrich Keil (1822-1894) and published by Teubner between 1855 and 1880, are an outstanding monument of nineteenth-century German philology. The third volume contains the last six books of Priscian's Institutiones Grammaticae and Priscian's minor works.