Language and Earth: Elective affinities between the emerging sciences of linguistics and geology(66 Studies in the History of the Language Sciences)

In former times, the study of language was rarely pursued in isolation, and many of the other intellectual concerns that used to be intertwined with language study have long been on the record of historians of linguistics. The present volume is the first to probe into an association of linguistics that has so far been neglected: that with the study of the earth. The relations between linguistics and geology were intimate and manifold as both sciences were emerging in the 18th and 19th century. Highlighted in the contributions to this volume are biographical and institutional contacts, the joint interest in origins and very early developments and in the proper methods of acquiring knowledge about these, common structural and evolutionary concepts, and analogous problems in the classification of domains as fuzzy as languages and rocks.

Table of Contents:
1. List of Contributors; 2. Foreword (by Hooykaas, Reijer); 3. Preface (by Naumann, Bernd); 4. Sprachauffassung und Lebensmetaphorik im Umkreis von Friedrich Schlegel, Jacob Grimm und Alexander von Humboldt: Eine Kontaktzone von Naturphilosophie, Geowissenschaften und Linguistik (by Schmidt, Hartmut); 5. The History of the Earth and the Origin of Language: The Case for Catastrophism (by Naumann, Bernd); 6. Geowissenschaftliche Methoden und Metaphern bei einigen Sprachpsychologen des 19. Jahrhunderts (by Knobloch, Clemens); 7. Geology and the Science of Language: Metaphors and Models (by Christy, T. Craig); 8. Zur Wissenschaftskonzeption Georg Forsters und dessen biographischen Bezugen zu den Brudern Humboldt: Eine Vorstudie zum Verhaltnis von 'allgemeiner Naturgeschichte', 'physischer Weltbeschreibung' und 'allgemeiner Sprachkunde' (by Schmitter, Peter); 9. The Chemistry of Concepts (by Picardi, Eva); 10. Natur und Poesie in der Sprachwissenschaft Jacob Grimms (by Wyss, Ulrich); 11. Die Namen der Steine: Zur Sprache in deutschen geowissenschaftlichen Texten des ausgehenden 18. und beginnenden 19. Jahrhunderts (by Engelhardt, Wolf von); 12. Tradition und Modernitat in der Sprachwissenschaft des 18. Jahrhunderts: Die Herausforderung der Natur- und Geowissenschaften. Am Beispiel der neugegrundeten Universitat Gottingen (by Cherubim, Dieter); 13. Language and Earth as Recycling Machines (by Plank, Frans); 14. William Dwight Whitney and the Influence of Geology on Linguistic Theory in the 19th Century (by Koerner, E.F.K.); 15. Ein fast vergessener Aktualist: Georg Christian Fuchsel zu Ursprung und Entwicklung der Erde und der Sprache (by Rahden, Wolfert); 16. Charles Lyell und Charles Darwin: Aktualismus und Evolution in der Geschichte der Sprachen (by Gessinger, Joachim); 17. Bernhard von Cotta's "Law of Development of the Earth" (by Wagenbreth, Otfried); 18. Abraham Gottlob Werners Sprach- und Erkenntnistheorie und ihre Umbildung durch Karl von Raumer (by Hofbauer, Gottfried); 19. James Hutton's Geological Vocabulary (by Craig, Gordon Y.); 20. Sprachliches im Werk des Tubinger Geologen und Palaontologen Friedrich August Quenstedt als Beispiel 'volksnaher' Wissenschaftsvermittlung im 19. Jahrhundert (by Holder, Helmut); 21. Name Index; 22. Subject Index