Condillac, Mandeville, and the Origin of Language

1978 ◽  
Vol 5 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 15-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rüdiger Schreyer
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
International Debate ◽  
Origin Of Language ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of Linguistics ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Mind

Summary The study of 18th-century theories on the origin of language offers interesting insights into history of linguistics. These theories are intimately linked with 17th-century inquiries into the social and intellectual nature of man, and particularly with the views of Hobbes, Locke, and the Cartesians. 18th-century thinkers analyse these problems from a genetic viewpoint. Condillac in his Essai sur Vorigine des connoissances humaines (1746) tries to solve them by advancing a theory of the progress of the operations of the mind, a theory in which a central role is attributed to language. This theory has recently attracted the attention of historians of linguistics, since it is considered the main source of an international debate on the origin of language culminating in Herder. It can be shown, however, that a large number of Condillac’s ideas were anticipated in Bernard Mandeville’s Fable of the Bees (1729). The present study suggests that Condillac was very likely familiar with the theses of the Fable and that he made use of them in his Essai. This suggestion is supported by an anlysis of the arguments and of certain fundamental concepts common to both works and by an account of the influence of Mandeville’s theses in France during the first decades of the 18th century. But, as Condillac mentions neither Mandeville nor his Fable, his indebtedness to his precursor cannot be proved once for all. Nevertheless, the evidence presented makes it very plausible that Condillac profited from the original and innovative ideas of Mandeville.

Lucretius on the Origin of Language

1979 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tore Janson
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
Fundamental Importance ◽  
Roman Poet ◽  
Human Speech ◽  
Origin Of Language ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of Linguistics ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Creation

Summary The Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius (c. 99–55 B.C.) deserves a place in the history of linguistics because of his views on the origin of language. He was the first one to draw the parallel between the sounds of animals and the beginnings of human speech, and the first one to clearly envisage the creation of language as a fact of fundamental importance for the social organization of man. His ideas are related to modern research in the area in an interesting way.

scholarly journals Stolen wealth, perpetrators and punishments in Moldova (17th century – early 18th century)

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 105-129
Author(s):  
Cătălina Chelcu
Keyword(s):  
Justice System ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Documentary Sources ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Blood Money ◽  
Early 18Th Century

For the historical period we refer to, no proper inventories have been made containing the unjustly appropriated goods. They are just mentioned as such or listed, if that was the case, according to the size of the damage. There are also documentary sources in which the object of the theft is less represented, the justice system focusing in those cases rather on the wrongdoers, than on the wrong actions. That is why, the blood money “paid for some reason”, with no other specific details, is quite frequently cited. Rare or frequent, these documents are complaints addressed by the victim to the Prince and his officials, documents in which the perpetrators admitted their fault, or deeds issued by the judicial authority subsequent to the investigation of the criminal act. In discussing the theft of/from the wealth, i.e. from the whole amount of the available goods, we are interested in clarifying some aspects pertaining to a reality that the historian should reconstruct, with all the complexity of its evolution: the motivations of the theft and its circumstances, the types of theft, the social categories involved, the time and space of the misdemeanour, the perpetrators’ punishment. Briefly, the study is about starting to write a history of the reprehensible acts liable to punishments for theft and robbery in 17th and early 18th century Moldavia.

scholarly journals Habit, the Criminal Body and the Body Politic in England, c. 1700–1800

2013 ◽  
Vol 19 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 83-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis Martin Dodsworth
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Social Circumstance

This article explores the role that ‘habit’ played in discourses on crime in the 18th century, a subject which forms an important part of the history of ‘the social’. It seeks to bridge the division between ‘liberal’ positions which see crime as a product of social circumstance, and the conservative position which stresses the role of will and individual responsibility, by drawing attention to the role habit played in uniting these conceptions in the 18th century. It argues that the Lockean idea that the mind was a tabula rasa, and that the character was thereby formed through impression and habit, was used as a device to explain the ways in which certain individuals rather than others happened to fall into a life of crime, a temptation to which all were susceptible. This allowed commentators to define individuals as responsible for their actions, while accepting the significance of environmental factors in their transgressions. Further, the notion that the character was formed through habit enabled reformers to promote the idea that crime could be combated through mechanisms of prevention and reformation, which both targeted the individual criminal and sought more generally to reduce the likelihood of crime.

scholarly journals ARCHAEOLOGY ABOUT THE 17th CENTURY PALACE IN KOLOMENSKOYE: OVERVIEW OF DATA SOURCES

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Л.А. Беляев ◽  
С.И. Баранова
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Subsequent Period ◽  
The Future ◽  
Archaeological Materials ◽  
History Of ◽  
Future Task ◽  
Clear Idea

Задача статьи – понять, где, сколько и каких сохранилось археологических материалов по истории наиболее известного из гражданских дворцовых соо­ружений, срубленных из дерева, – дворца в Коломенском. Дворец использовался как летняя государственная резиденция в основном царем Алексеем Михайловичем и его сыновьями, Федором и Петром I (в юности), а позже эпизодически правительницами России XVIII в. После разборки в 1760-х гг. от него сохранились описания, обмеры и даже модели. За столетие (с 1920-х гг.) остатки усадьбы не раз исследовались археологически, материалы фиксации отложились в ряде архивов и музеев, в основном московских. На будущее ставится задача свести эти материалы воедино и заново проанализировать их вместе с другими видами источников. The paper is aimed at shaping a clear idea on what, where, and how much of archaeological materials on the history of the Kolomenskoye Palace, which is the most famous civil palace construction made from logs, has been preserved. The palace was used as a summer state residence, mostly, by tsar Aleksey Mikhailovich and his sons – Fyodor and Peter I (in his childhood), and in the subsequent period in the 18th century from time to time by female rulers of Russia. In the 1760s the palace was dismantled; its descriptions, measurements and even models were preserved. Over a hundred years (since the 1920s), the remains of this estate have been repeatedly excavated, and the records have been stored in a number of archives and museums, mostly, in Moscow. The future task is to consolidate these materials and analyze them along with other types of sources.

scholarly journals The “Slavic-Russian Nation” in the Historical Literature of Ukraine and Russia from the 1600s to the mid-1700s

Slovene ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 417-447
Author(s):  
Petr S. Stefanovich
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Russian History ◽  
Slavonic Language ◽  
Imperial Identity ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Church ◽  
Century Literature

The article analyzes the history of the concept of a “Slavic-Russian nation”. The concept was first used by Zacharia Kopystenskij in 1624, but its wide occurrence starts in 1674, when Synopsis, the first printed history of Russia, was published in Kiev. In the book, “Slavic-Russian nation” refers to an ancient Slavic people, which preceded the “Russian nation” (“rossiyskiy narod”) of the time in which the book was written. Uniting “Slavs” and “Russians” (“rossy”) into one “Slavic-Russian nation”, the author of Synopsis followed the idea which was proposed but not specifically defined by M. Stryjkovskij in his Chronicle (1582) and, later, by the Kievan intellectuals of the 1620s–30s. The construction of Synopsis was to prove that “Russians” (“rossy”) were united by both the common Slavic origin and the Church Slavonic language used by the Orthodox Slavic peoples. According to Synopsis, they were also supposed to be united by the Muscovite tsar’s authority and the Orthodox religion. The whole conception made Synopsis very popular in Russia in the late 17th century and later. Earlier in the 17th-century literature of the Muscovite State, some authors also proposed ethno-genetic constructions based on Stryjkovskij’s Chronicle and other Renaissance historiography. Independently from the Kievan literature, the word “Slavic-Russian” was invented (first appearance in the Legend about Sloven and Rus, 1630s). Both the Kievan and Muscovite constructions of a mythical “Slavic-Russian nation” aimed at making an “imagined” ethno-cultural nation. They contributed to forming a new Russian imperial identity in the Petrine epoch. However, the concept of a “Slavic-Russian nation” was not in demand in the political discourse of the Petrine Empire. It was sporadically used in the historical works of the 18th century (largely due to the influence of Synopsis), but played no significant role in the proposed interpretations of Russian history.

scholarly journals Siberian Tatars of Knyazevs: historical and genealogical essay

2020 ◽  
pp. 149-158
Author(s):  
S.N. Korusenko
Keyword(s):  
Social Status ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Right ◽  
In The Beginning ◽  
The Village

This paper aims at reconstructing the genealogy of Siberian Tatars of Knyazevs (Western Siberia), identifying the origins of their surname, which is not characteristic of the Tatars, and at analysis of the influence of socio-political and socio-economical processes in Russia in the 18th through 20th centuries on the social transformation of the family. The sources were represented by the materials of the Inventory Revision Book of Tarsky District of 1701 and census surveys of the end of 18th through 19th centuries, which allowed tracing the Knyazev family through the genealogical succession and identifying social status of its members. In this work, recordkeeping ma-terials of the 18th–20th centuries and contemporary genealogical and historical traditions of the Tatars have been utilized. In the research, the method of genealogical reconstructions by archival materials and their correlation with genealogies of modern population has been used. The history of the Knyazev family is inextricably linked to the history of modern village of Bernyazhka — one of the earliest settlements of the Ayalintsy (a group of the Si-berian Tatars) in the territory of the Tarsky Irtysh land which became the home to the Knyazevs for more than three centuries. The 1701Inventory Revision Book cites Itkuchuk Buchkakov as a local power broker of the Aya-lynsky Tatars in the village. During the 18th century, this position was inherited by his descendants who eventually lost this status in the beginning of the 19th century in the course of the managerial reforms by the Russian gov-ernment. Nevertheless, the social status of the members of the gens remained high. In the mid. 19th century, the village moved — the villagers resettled from the right bank of the River Irtysh onto the left one. As the result, the village was situated nearby the main road connecting the cities of Omsk and Tara. At the same time, the village became the center of the Ayalynskay region. That led to the strengthening of the social status and property en-richment of the descendants of Itkuchuk Buchkakov. The Knyzevs’ surname first appeared in the materials of the First All-Russia Census Survey of 1897. Some of the descendants signed up under this surname later in the Soviet period. During the Soviet years, members of the Knyzev’s gens had different destinies: some worked in the local government, whereas the others were subjected to political repressions and executed. Knyazevs took part in the Great Patriotic War and seven of them perished. Presently there are no descendants of the Knyazevs in Bernyazhka as they spread over the villages of the Omskaya Region, some living in Omsk and other towns of Russia and abroad.

The first Russian dictionaries

2021 ◽  
pp. 36-43
Author(s):  
Н.Е. Касьяненко
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
Alphabetical Order ◽  
14Th Century ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

Статья посвящена истории развития словарного дела на Руси и появлению первых словарей. Затрагиваются первые, несловарные формы описания лексики в письменных памятниках XI–XVII вв. (глоссы), из которых черпался материал для собственно словарей. Анализируются основные лексикографические жанры этого времени и сложение на их основе азбуковников. В статье уделено внимание таким конкретным лексикографическим произведениям, как ономастикону «Рѣчь жидовскаго «зыка» (XVIII в.), словарям-символикам «Толк о неразумнех словесех» (XV в.) и «Се же приточне речеся», произвольнику, объясняющему славянские слова, «Тлъкование нεоудобь познаваεмомъ въ писаныхъ рѣчемь» (XIV в.), разговорнику «Рѣчь тонкословія греческаго» (ХV в.). Характеризуется словарь Максима Грека «Толкованіе именамъ по алфавиту» (XVI в.). Предметом более подробного освещения стал «Лексис…» Л. Зизания – первый печатный словарь на Руси. На примерах дается анализ его реестровой и переводной частей. Рассматривается известнейший труд П. Берынды «Лексикон славеноросский и имен толкование», а также рукописный «Лексикон латинский…» Е. Славинецкого, являющий собой образец переводного словаря XVII в. The article is dedicated to the history of the development of vocabulary in Russia and the emergence of the first dictionaries. The first, non-verbar forms of description of vocabulary in written monuments of the 11th and 17th centuries (glosses), from which material for the dictionaries themselves were drawn, are affected. The main lexicographical genres of this time are analyzed and the addition of alphabets on their basis. The article focuses on specific lexicographical works such as the «Zhidovskago» (18th century) the dictionaries-symbols of «The Talk of Unreasonable Words» (the 15th century). and «The Same Speech», an arbitrary explanation of slavic words, «The tlution of the cognition in the written», (the 14th century), the phrasebook «Ry subtle Greek» (the 15th century). Maxim Greck's dictionary «Tolkien names in alphabetical order» (16th century) is characterized. The subject of more detailed coverage was «Lexis...» L. Sizania is the first printed dictionary in Russia. Examples give analysis of its registry and translation parts. The famous work of P. Berynda «Lexicon of Slavic and Names of Interpretation» and the handwritten «Lexicon Latin...» are considered. E. Slavinecki, which is a model of the 17th century translated dictionary.

A New Handwritten Dictionary of the Komi-Zyryan Language in the History of Komi Lexicography

2021 ◽  
pp. 87-104
Author(s):  
Galina V. Fedyuneva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Historical Interpretation ◽  
Old Russian ◽  
History Of ◽  
Lexical Composition ◽  
Russian Dictionary

The article presents an analysis of the lexical composition of the newly discovered Zyryan-Russian dictionary of the 17th century and clarifies its place in the history of Komi lexicography. The article solves the problems of classification of lexicographic monuments and systematization of approaches to their description, and reveals gaps in research that has not been conducted since the mid-20th century. The currently known lexicographic monuments of the Komi language are limited to the dictionary materials of D.G. Messerschmidt, F.I. Stralenberg, G.F. Miller, P.S. Pallas and I.I. Lepekhin; the materials were collected during their expeditions in the 1720s–1770s. Unlike the church monuments of the Old Komi language of the 14th–17th and 18th centuries, the materials have not yet received a thorough archaeographic description, textual analysis and cultural and historical interpretation. The new Zyryan-Russian dictionary, discovered as part of the manuscript collection of the monk Prokhor Kolomnyatin and accurately dated (1668), is the earliest monument in the history of Komi lexicography today. The dictionary is interesting because it belongs to the period almost undocumented by written evidence and differs from all existing monuments in its dialect basis. The article describes the structure of the dictionary, thoroughly analyzes the lexical composition and presents most of its content, and reveals parallels with the dictionary materials of other monuments. The Russian-Komi dictionary-phrasebook that I.I. Lepekhin found and published in his Diary Notes is considered in more detail. Later V.I. Lytkin reprinted and deciphered the phrasebook, as well as made commentaries on it in his Old Permic Language (1952); thus, it became an auxiliary material for the reconstruction of the Old Komi language of the 14th–17th centuries. The dictionary dates back to the 18th century, although it has not been subjected to serious cultural-historical and chronological attribution. The newly discovered monument, unlike Lepekhin’s dictionary created by the type of translated old Russian dictionaries-phrasebooks based on the Russian questionnaire, reflects the live Komi-Zyryan language of the second half of the 17th century. It does not contain typical phrases, phrases from dialogues and connected texts that are typical of translated phrasebooks. There is only a certain tendency towards a thematic presentation of the material, although not always consistent. Like the dictionary materials contained in the draft papers of Russian and foreign travellers of the 18th century, the vocabulary of the new dictionary was written by the author of the collection directly from the words of a native speaker (or native speakers) of the Komi language in order to fix it and, apparently, was not intended for communicative use. Unlike the existing dictionary materials, which often contain short lists of Komi numerals, the new dictionary contains a consistent detailed money vocabulary list, from “denga” to “thousand rubles”. Numerical values are given in the Cyrillic numeral system using letters, which is undoubtedly of interest for ethnohistorical research and Russian paleography.

Images of Botany: Celebrating the Contribution of Women to the History of Botanical Illustration

Collections ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 547-567
Author(s):  
Heather Pardoe ◽  
Maureen Lazarus
Keyword(s):  
Women Artists ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
National Museum ◽  
Scientific Curiosity ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Botanical Illustration ◽  
Contemporary Artists

The superb botanical illustration collection of Amgueddfa Cymru– National Museum Wales in Cardiff, Wales, has developed through bequests, donations, and selective purchases. Numbering more than 7,000 works, 15% of these are by women, including the work of well-known Victorian artists and leading contemporary artists such as Gillian Griffiths, Pauline Dean, and Dale Evans. In particular, the Cymmrodorion Collection is the most prestigious collection, containing illustrations dating from the 18th century and featuring works by Elizabeth Blackwell, Jane Loudon, and Sarah Drake. Using this and other collections from the museum, this article examines the contribution that women artists have made to the field of botanical illustration by referring to the lives of these women and considering their motives, whether they pursued botanical illustration out of financial necessity, out of scientific curiosity, or to allay boredom. The article further examines the social restrictions and prejudice that many of these women had to overcome.

Sprachwandel und Etymologie in Der Spanischen Sprachwissenschaft Des Siglo De Oro

1984 ◽  
Vol 11 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 95-116
Author(s):  
Werner Bahner
Keyword(s):  
National Language ◽  
Siglo De Oro ◽  
Good Opportunity ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of Linguistics ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
First Time

Summary The Renaissance constitutes a new phase in the history of linguistics. The study of modern languages in particular contributed to enlarge the scope of philological concern as scholars try to promote and to codify a young national language. During this time philologists give particular attention to the origin of these vernaculars, distinguishing the different stages in their evolution and developing an especial awareness of chronology. For the representatives of a national philology, Latin is the starting point, the mould according to which the vernaculars are described and classified. Soon, however, more and more traits are recognized which are particular to these living languages, and which do not agree with the traditions of Latin grammar. On the one hand, modifications on the theoretical level are called for, and, on the other, there is a good opportunity to demonstrate the particularity of a given vernacular. All these tendencies can be found for the first time in the writings on Cas-tillian by the great philologist Antonio de Nebrija (1444–1522). Nebrija recognized a series of phonetic correspondences which, much later in the 19th century, are transformed into ‘phonetic laws’ by a rigorous methodology. In so doing the elaboration of orthographic principles had been for him a stimulus for his explications. In his “Diálogo de la lengua”, Juan de Valdés (devoted himself more extensively to the social aspects of Castillian, to linguistic changes, and to the historical causes for the distribution of Romance languages on the Iberian peninsula, stressing expecially the role of the ‘Reconquista’. The work of Bernardo José de Aldrete (1560–1641) offers a synthesis of all these efforts concerning the evolution of Castillian. He discusses all the substrata and superstrata of the language, sketches the different stages of development of his native tongue, examines Old Castillian with the help of medieval texts, and exploits what Nebrija had noted about the phonetic correspondences. In terms of scholarship, Aldrete’s work constitutes the culmination point in the movement engaged in supporting the rights of the Castillian language et in documenting its sovereignity vis-à-vis the Latin tradition.

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