Linguistics Will Have To Recognise Laws Operating

Everyone, Left To His Own Devices, Forms An Idea About What Goes On In Language Which Is Very Far From The Truth.

Linguistics Will Have To Recognise Laws Operating Universally In Language, And In A Strictly Rational Manner, Separating General Phenomena From Those Restricted To One Branch Of Languages Or Another.

The Business, Task Or Object Of The Scientific Study Of Languages Will If Possible Be 1) To Trace The History Of All Known Languages. Naturally This Is Possible Only To A Very Limited Extent And For Very Few Languages.

The First Of These Phases Is That Of Grammar, Invented By The Greeks And Carried On Unchanged By The French. It Never Had Any Philosophical View Of A Language As Such.

Of All Social Institutions Language Is Least Amenable To Initiative. It Blends With The Life Of Society, And The Latter, Inert By Nature, Is A Prime Conservative Force.