Joaquim Mattoso Câmara

I'm continuing my posts about history of the language studies. (note that this post isn't about linguistics itself, but about its predecessor, especially traditional grammar)

The writing (in the Western world, at least) was invented more than three thousands years ago, in Sumeria. It was a syllabary, or, in other words, each symbol represented a syllable. The writing took a long road. Many ancient people created their own writing systems. In 9th century BC, Greeks imported the Phoenician writing system (which only represented consonants, not the vowels) and created the first alphabet in the narrower sense of the word: it had symbols for the consonantal sound and the vocalic sounds.

Again, no linguistics here. It's just alphabet. However, in Greece something interesting happens. The Greeks started to study music (musikē), which also included poetry. In 6th century BC, they were able to differentiate vowels, semivowels and consonants and distinguish consonantal articulation zones, such as labial (p, b) and dental (t, d).

A few centuries later, the written texts become more important. They are no more a easier way to remember a poetry, they become a way to register and transmit information. The study of language that already existed in music evolves into tékhnē grammatiké, grammar. It was more or less a kind of "grammar" we still have today. It established what were the "good" and "right" way to talk and the "wrong" and "ugly" ways (based of course, on the that times high-class's speech). Also, thanks to things like democracy in Athens, Rhetoric (the discipline that teaches how to convince people) had an important role in the studies of language.

Besides that, in 4th century BC, Greek philosophy also becomes interested in language as something strongly related to thought. They tried to create a logic model for the structures of language and developed a reasonable knowledge on syntax.

(By the way. The strike in the University is over. I'm having classes again since this Tuesday)

When you start to discuss a subject, a common way to introduce it is by giving a historical background. Let's do this, then.

Many cultures have developed some sort of traditional knowledge on languages. Rhymes and verses, for instance, shows that some primitive understanding of phonetics is present.

The first (if not the first, one of the oldest and most important) systematic analysis of the speech was the alphabet. Although the alphabet doesn't tell us a lot about many linguistic features, it does denote a remarkable understanding of phonemes. (ok, I'll discuss phonemes later) In other words: you don't create a writing system just like that. You must think a bit about language and find how it works. When the ancient cultures began to write, they were forced to thought about language and they did. In some cases, it didn't go any further. In other cases it did. I'll discuss it later in another post.