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Article published In: Historiographia Linguistica
Vol. 1:2 (1974) ► pp.169–183

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John Eliot of Massachusetts and the Beginnings of American Linguistics

 | University of Wisconsin
Published online: 1 January 1974
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https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.1.2.04min
Summary
The author puts forward the claim that The Indian Grammar Begun (1666) of John Eliot of Massachusetts (1604–90) constitutes the first published account of an ‘exotic’ language that can rightfully be called scientific (0.). The first portion of the argument treats Eliot’s English-based orthography and the problems it poses in the description of a language completely different from English (1.). Eliot’s use of a ‘morphophonemic’ transcription is presented (2.). Eliot’s The Logick Primer (1672) is suggested as a source of particular insights into the Puritan understanding and use of logic (3.). Having speculated about the impact that Jesus College, Cambridge, may have had on Eliot’s linguistic accomplishments in his analysis of an Amerindian language (4.), the author concludes that Eliot derserves to be called the true founder of American linguistics, in particular since he anticipated modern use of levels of representation by more than a century (5.).
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Cited by six other publications

Uckelman, Sara L.
2024.  John Eliot's Logick Primer : A Bilingual English-Massachusett Logic Textbook . History and Philosophy of Logic 45:3 ► pp. 278 ff. DOI logo
Kilarski, Marcin
2018. American Indian Languages in the Eyes of 17th-Century French and British Missionaries. Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 53:s1 ► pp. 295 ff. DOI logo
Chelliah, Shobhana L. & Willem J. de Reuse
2010. The History of Linguistic Fieldwork. In Handbook of Descriptive Linguistic Fieldwork, ► pp. 33 ff. DOI logo
Fountain, Catherine
2009. Worthy the Name of a Grammar. Historiographia Linguistica 36:2-3 ► pp. 281 ff. DOI logo
Salmon, Vivian
1985. Missionary linguistics in seventeenth century Ireland and a North American Analogy. Historiographia Linguistica 12:3 ► pp. 321 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2021. A History of the Study of the Indigenous Languages of North America [Studies in the History of the Language Sciences, 129], DOI logo

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