Allen Walker Read

The Spread of German Linguistic Learning in New England during the Lifetime of Noah Webster

EVEN THOUGH COPIOUS STATEMENTS about language were made in classical times, it has been customary to say that the science of linguistics was a development of the nineteenth century. The recognition of systematic structures in the relationships of languages can be traced to a group of German and Scandinavian scholars in the decades before i850, particularly to Jacob Grimm. How these new formulations spread to America makes a chapter not only in the history of linguistics but in the diffusion of cultural developments. Furthermore, this bears importantly upon the reputation of Americas leading figure in language study-Noah Webster. The material must cluster around his intellectual evolvement and his relations to others who were bringing the new outlook.