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Article published In: Historiographia Linguistica
Vol. 45:1/2 (2018) ► pp.99–132

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Cataloguing the First Histories of the English Language Written from the Late 16th to the End of the 18th Century

 | Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
Published online: 20 June 2018
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https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.00017.rod
Summary
Most studies on the first histories of the English language go as far back as the 19th century, and dismiss earlier historical accounts of the language. However, 17th- and 18th-century short histories of the English language provide valuable insight into information layout, periodisation criteria, ideological tenets and other material which have left an imprint on the formation of the discipline called History of the English Language. This paper attempts to remedy this lack of attention by providing a catalogue of the first historical accounts of the English language (16th–18th century) with useful bibliographic details which will help future researchers of early accounts of the English language to locate them. The catalogue is accompanied by a description of these accounts which reveals a common pattern regarding contents and organisation.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Catalogue compilation and general remarks
  • 3.A general description of the structure and contents of the early histories of English
    • 3.1Preliminaries
      • Characteristics of ‘language’
      • On the origin of language diversity
      • Language families
      • Language change
    • 3.2Histories or chronicles of the language?
    • 3.3Use of sample texts
  • 4.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Primary sources
  • Secondary sources
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