HiPhiLangSci

I had to miss #dhd2026 due to illness, but I’m happy to be back in time for Julia Hübner’s workshop on “Invisible Women – New Perspectives on Language History” @uni-hamburg.de with @fsldigital.bsky.social @earlymodernjohn.bsky.social and many others!

#OTD 83 years ago, Norbert Dittmar (1943–2025) was born 🎉 A pioneer of German sociolinguistics, he studied, among other things, the language of migrants. Shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, he compiled a corpus of interviews with East and West Berliners.

#LinguisticBirthdays #Histlx

#OTD 89 years ago, Annegret Bollée (1937-2021) was born 🥳 A classicist, Romanist, and pioneering scholar of (German) creolistics, she was an expert on French-based creoles, particularly those of the Indian Ocean, such as Seychelles Creole and Réunion Creole.

#LinguisticBirthdays #WomenInLinguistics

#OTD 233 years ago, Karl Lachmann (1793–1851) was born 🥳 A classicist, translator, and textual critic, he formulated the so-called Lachmann’s Law and proposed a normalized Classical Middle High German, a written variety that disregarded dialectal and other differences.

#LinguisticBirthdays #Histlx

This might be of interest to cog scientists at large - quote from one of Nick Enfield's recent article mentioned in the podcast overview: "while concepts are indeed mental objects, they function as choice architectures in the dynamic flow of situated language usage"

Podcast episode 56: Nick Enfield on linguistic signs and concepts In this interview, we talk to Nick Enfield about his research into the connections between linguistic signs and concepts.

New month brings a new episode of our podcast 🤩

This time James McElvenny (@jamesmcelvenny.bsky.social) talks to Nick Enfield (@sydney.edu.au) about his research into connections between linguistic signs and concepts.

🎙️ hiphilangsci.net/2026/03/01/p...

#Histlx

#OTD 161 years ago, Elise Richter (1865–1943) was born 🎂 A specialist in Romance linguistics and phonetics, she became Austria’s first woman to obtain a Habilitation (1905) and its first female professor (1921). She died in 1943 in Theresienstadt.

#WomenInLinguistics #Histlx #LinguisticBirthdays

Recent publications in the history and philosophy of the language sciences – February 2026 Вельмезова, Екатерина, ред. 2025. Тарту в истории славянской филологии, Вып. 3: Из истории Тартуско-московской семиотической школы. [Tartu in the History of Slavic Philology, Issue 3: From the Hist…

Likve every month, February 2026 brings a new batch of recent publications in the history and philosophy of the language sciences 🤩

📚 hiphilangsci.net/2026/02/26/p...

#Histlx

Joseph Bosworth & Old English Studies: Then, Now and the Future (21 May 2026, 16:00-19:00 CEST / 10:00-13:00 EDT) An online academic memorial event reflecting on the continuing impact of Joseph Bosworth († 27 May 1876) and his Old English dictionary on the field of Old English Studies. The programme will consist of a series of 20-minute papers and a roundtable. Confirmed speakers include: • Dabney Bankert (James Madison University) • Rachel A. Fletcher (Leiden University) • Thijs Porck (Leiden University) • Christine Rauer (University of St Andrews) • Ondřej Tichý (Charles University, Prague) • Madeleine Thompson (Anthropic, author of the Bosworth-Toller smartphone app) For more information (or joining the roundtable) you can contact the organisers by sending an e-mail to Rachel A. Fletcher (r.a.fletcher@hum.leidenuniv.nl ). Attendance is free, but please let us know you are coming by filling out this registration form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScj3hMvrYe6vVzQlTWsFyNmgQ44jWkTUyL8ZDlxnF6E6btZJg/viewform Organisers: Rachel A. Fletcher, Thijs Porck, Christine Rauer and Ondřej Tichý This event is is part of a project that has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation program (EMERGENCE, Grant agreement No.101115867, https://doi.org/10.3030/101115867 ). Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Like Old English, dictionaries, and/or nineteenth century scholarship? Save the date for an online event celebrating Joseph Bosworth and his Old English dictionary.
Register (free!) here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

#OTD 174 years ago, Georg Wenker (1852–1911) was born 🎉 He was a pioneering dialectologist, an expert in linguistic geography and the founder of the German Language Atlas. He distributed tens of thousands of questionnaires to map the many dialects spoken across Germany.

#LinguisticBirthdays #Histlx

#OTD 215 years ago, Ferdinand Nesselmann (1811–1881) was born 🎉 He was an orientalist and also an expert on the history of mathematics. Later in his career, he studied Old Prussian, Latvian, and Lithuanian, and in 1845, he coined the term “Baltic languages” for them.

#LinguisticBirthdays #Histlx

In the second episode of our podcast, we touch upon the work of Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm as we explore the emergence of comparative-historical grammar.

🎙️ hiphilangsci.net/2020/01/31/p...

#Histlx

#OTD 171 years ago, Maurice Bloomfield (1855–1928) was born 🎉 He was a comparative linguist and a student of comparative mythology. As a specialist in Sanskrit, he translated Vedic texts into English. His nephew, Leonard, was also a linguist.

#LinguisticBirthdays #Histlx

#OTD 176 years ago, Wilhelm Braune (1850–1926) was born 🎉 He was a historical linguist, a Neogrammarian, and a specialist in Old High German and Gothic. In 1873, he co-founded the journal "Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur" together with Hermann Paul.

#LinguisticBirthdays

Not just one, but two episodes of our podcast explore the life and work of August Schleicher - have a listen!

🎙️ hiphilangsci.net/2020/04/29/p...

🎙️ hiphilangsci.net/2020/05/31/p...

#Histlx

#OTD 90 years ago, Renate Steinitz (1936–2019) was born 🥳 She was a member of the East German Academy of Sciences and worked on German grammar. She also edited several of her father’s works on the Khanty language and wrote about her family history.

#WomenInLinguistics #Histlx #LinguisticBirthdays

Calls: Special Session of SLE: Communicating Linguistic Research Final Call for Papers: (Extended deadline for submitting proposals) On the initiative of 2022 president Arie Verhagen, the SLE conferences since the 2023 edition in Athens have included an outreach session, in which a number of conference participants reported on some national and local initiatives aiming at dispersing linguistic knowledge more widely among the general public. One first result is the SLE Linguistics in School Manifesto (https://societaslinguistica.eu/wp-content/uploads/2024/

Calls: Special Session of SLE: Communicating Linguistic Research

John Haiman

A lovely appreciation of John Haiman by Stephanie Farmer

www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...

Sample pages from Speaking in Pictures by Neil Cohn

Interested in language, cognition, drawing, comics, and/or visual communication? My publisher @bloomsburyling.bsky.social is having a sale all week, including my new graphic novel, Speaking in Pictures: A Vision of Language, that comes out officially on Thursday! www.bloomsbury.com/us/speaking-...

Sequoyah and the Almost-Forgotten History of Cherokee Numerals The story of a numerical system nearly consigned to oblivion.

"Almost paradoxically, Sequoyah’s numerals could not succeed because they had not yet succeeded, and came into existence in a social context where a prestigious, common notation had been adopted almost universally."

Episode 55 is out 🤩

This time, James McElvenny (@jamesmcelvenny.bsky.social) interviews Janette Friedrich - in German! - about her career in (the history of) philosophy, psychology, and linguistics.

🎙️ hiphilangsci.net/2026/02/15/p...

#Histlx

#OTD 140 years ago, Maria Klingenheben-von Tiling (1886–1974) was born 🎉 She specialised in the Cushitic and Bantu languages of Africa, including Somali and Swahili, respectively. She was also active at the Hamburg Colonial Institute.

#WomenInLinguistics #LinguisticBirthdays #Histlx

If you’re interested in the Copenhagen Linguistic Circle and the people involved - including Eli Fischer-Jørgensen - then episode 24, an interview with Lorenzo Cigana, is exactly what you’re looking for!

🎙️ hiphilangsci.net/2022/04/01/p...

#Histlx

For a more detailed discussion of Whitney’s conception of language and his intellectual background, check out episode 8 of our podcast!

🎙️ hiphilangsci.net/2020/09/01/p...

#Histlx

Erste Seite des Aufsatzes von Joel Feldkamp und mir zur Entwicklung der Ausdrücke Melancholie und Depression

Erste Seite meiner Rezension zu James McElvenny Entstehung und Entwicklung der modernen Linguistik

Yey, gestern sind erschienen: ein Aufsatz von Joel Feldkamp und mir zur Bedeutungsentwicklung der Ausdrücke Melancholie und Depression (In Sprachwissenschaft Heft 2, 2025) und eine Rezension von mir zu James McElvennys "Entstehung und Entwicklung der modernen Linguistik" (in der ZfAL als Pre-Print)

One common misconception about the Neogrammarians is that they were defenders of the Tree Model.* In fact, they took up Schuchardt's ideas and expressed the still common view that Tree and Wave describe different aspects of language history. 1/2
*This misconception is NOT found in the quoted post.

#OTD 184 years ago, Hugo Schuchardt (1842–1927) was born 🎉 He was a specialist in Romance historical linguistics, an expert on Basque, and a pioneer of creole studies, he was a leading critic of Neogrammarian ideas and a prominent advocate of the wave model.

#LinguisticBirthdays #Histlx

All: Obituary for Elisabeth Leiss (1957 – 2026) Elisabeth Leiss passed away unexpectedly on 7 January 2026 at the age of 68. We are deeply saddened to have lost an outstanding and profound scholar, colleague and friend, who dedicated her life to linguistics. Elisabeth Leiss studied German and Romance languages and literature as well as philosophy at the Universities of Regensburg and Erlangen-Nürnberg. In 1995, she was appointed Professor of German Linguistics at the University of Bamberg. From 2002 to 2023, she was Professor of German Lin

All: Obituary for Elisabeth Leiss (1957 – 2026)

Frontispiece from Barrett (1857), depicting the structural analysis of the first part of verse Hebrew 1:1 from the King James translation of the Bible: God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son.

Solomon Barrett (1800-1882), teacher in Madrid (NY), wrote *The principles of language* in 1837. In 1842 he adds the infamous plate with grammatical trees, influenced by James Brown. In 1857 he adds two frontispieces with possibly the most exquisite grammatical trees in the history of linguistics.

I'm on the excellent @hiphilangsci.bsky.social podcast talking about linguistics and my research on visual languages. Check it out!