Nearly All Institutions, It Might Be Said,

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.

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

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.

A Linguistic System Is A Series Of Differences Of Sound Combined With A Series Of Differences Of Ideas...

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.