Prelude to Baltic Linguistics

Download or read book Prelude to Baltic Linguistics written by Pietro U. Dini and published by Rodopi. This book was released on 2014-02-01 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a study of the relatively unknown field of Baltic linguistic historiography associated with the 16th century. This has been the saeculum mirabile of Baltic philology, not only on account of the first books having appeared during that period, but also due to the diverse linguistic ideas about the Baltic languages which were circulating during Renaissance Palaeocomparativism: the Slavic and the closely connected Illyrian theory, the Latin theory (with its variants: the semi-Latin, the neo-Latin, and the Wallachian), also the Quadripartite theory. Minor but significant linguistic ideas are also discussed here, for example the emergence of a Hebrew theory and the Greek theory about Old Prussian. The synoptic juxtaposition of the different ideas shows very well the state of knowledge in Europe about the languages which later would be called ‘Baltic’ and the modernity of those ideas within European Renaissance linguistic debate leading to the rise of comparative linguistic genealogy. Pietro U. Dini is Associate Professor of Baltic Philology and General Linguistics at the University of Pisa. He has been an Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung W. Bessel-Forschungspreisträger at the University of Göttingen, Professor at Oslo University and Doctor h.c. of the University of Vilnius. He is a member of the Academy of Sciences of Latvia, of Lithuania, and of Göttingen. His book Le lingue baltiche (1997) has been translated into Lithuanian, Latvian, Russian and English.