I have noticed that most of the linguistic studies tend to the new branches of applied linguistics ,or pragmatics ignoring the basic branch which is historical linguistics!!!!
is it because every thing have been tackled in it? or because of the emergence of new more important branches of linguistics ?
according to me I do believe that historical linguistics still has much to study and discuss.
Modern Linguistic research has appeared to go through several stages. Clearly, establishing the links between living and past languages was an important part of the development of Linguistics as a field in the first place, and this continued to be a part of the early descriptivist work as new languages were encountered and documented. From Chomsky's introduction of Transformational Generative Grammar in the late 1950s, though, the focus shifted heavily to trying to find Universal Grammar through more and more detailed introspection of fewer and fewer languages (and often only one: English). Meanwhile, countless indigenous languages were being ignored, persecuted and driven into decline and extinction. There is currently a revival of interest in - and a race against the clock to save - the many endangered languages of the world, and presumably this fieldwork supercedes the more armchair-oriented approach to comparative analysis. Nevertheless, historical linguistics is a fascinating field and there will hopefully always be those interested in pursuing it - and the data to allow it.
I agree. And since studying the Linear B scripts of the ancient Minoans and Mycenaneans, it has come to my notice just how many people are now studying ancient languages. This is indeed a fascinating subject from which we are learning more about our ancestors.
I think you are right dear Dr.Lubna,there is a lot to study concerning the historical stages of languages and their diachronic development.I do agree with your view.
I think that there are two reasons for the eclipse of historical linguistics. First, while it lifted up the masses in the 19th century, identifying them as heirs to an ancient language and culture and no longer simply unwashed peasants, it was abused by the Nazis and became stigmatized as a racist pursuit. Second, Chomsky's approach reflects a zeitgeist, an Information Technology approach to knowledge and languages. After all one of Chomsky's most enduring contributions, or most stable, is his hierarchy of grammars, which is useful in programming as well. Historical linguistics has only recently undergone some mathematical modelling efforts, but these tells us little that we do not already know. It does seem to be undergoing a revival, however, driven by the modern hunger for finding one's roots. One trouble is, though, that a researcher should ideally have substantial polyglot capacity, something not necessary in grammatical theory efforts. Also, all the old scripts and the documents, which are often enigmatic, mean that the knowledge at any given stage of pursuit will be crystal clear in some areas and muddy or non-existent in others. This can be frustrating.
This question requires an extensive answer. Basically, I would like to draw the reader's attention particularly to the valuable (but German) book by Péter Maitz (published in 2012 - by de Gruyter), namely "Historical Linguistics (subtitles: interests in knowledge, fundamental problems, desiderata)". Already in the first contribution (from the editor): "Where is historical linguistics heading?" there are many questions that you may ask yourself in this regard. For example, the phases of linguistics, the back and forth and wrestling of two (synchronous and diachronic) directions of linguistics, and even the phases of diachronic linguistics itself or its new rise since the 1960s, etc. Yes, in the end you will be convinced and know that historical linguistics still has a lot to study and discuss.
In my opinion there is still a lot to study. One of my colleagues and I work on some comparative historical linguistics studies (mostly as far as grammar is concerned) and it seems that there are still many valuable things to be done. However, the fact that these undertakings are quite time-consuming and usually quite slow to finish cannot be overlooked. I guess that is one of the valid reason why nowadays less researchers decide to deal with research in this branch.
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