Language, History, Ideology The Use and Misuse of Historical-Comparative Linguistics

Camiel Hamans, Associate Secretary-General, Comité International Permanent des Linguistes,Hans Henrich Hock, Professor Emeritus of Linguistics, University of Illinois

Camiel Hamans is Associate Secretary-General of the Comité International Permanent des Linguistes (CIPL), having previously held positions at the universities of Amsterdam, Leiden, and Poznan, where he taught Dutch modern and historical linguistics. He is a Fellow of the Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde (Leiden) and of the Wiardi Beckman Stichting, the thinktank of the Dutch Labour Party.

Hans Henrich Hock is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the University of Illinois. His research interests are in Indo-European and general comparative-historical linguistics with a focus on Sanskrit/Indo-Aryan and language contact. He is a Fellow of the Linguistic Society of America and an Honorary Life Member of the Societas Linguistica Europaea.

1. Introduction, Camiel Hamans and Hans Henrich Hock
2. Misunderstanding historical linguistics: Three Uralic examples, Johanna Laakso
3. Ideologies and linguistic development in North Germanic, Kristján Árnason
4. Ideology and recent attacks on historical-comparative methodology: Historical linguistics under siege?, Hans Henrich Hock
5. Indo-European linguistic palaeontology and ideology: Nice wheels!, Hans Henrich Hock
6. Historical linguistics and the Macedonia name issue: What's in a name?, Brian D. Joseph
7. Celtic and English language contact and scholarly attitudes, Anders Ahlqvist
8. Borrowing and historical-linguistic ideology, Johanna Laakso
9. The origin of Afrikaans: Purism or language contact?, Camiel Hamans
10. Moldovan and Maltese and the poverty of historicism in Romance linguistics, John Charles Smith
11. The breakup of the national language of the former Yugoslavia: Speeding up language change, Ranko Bugarski
12. The European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages: Turning the tide against linguistic nationalism, Camiel Hamans
13. Methodological nationalism and (anti-)historicism in the history of linguistics: Linguistic essentialism, Ferdinand von Mengden and Britta Schneider