Article ID: CBB659541221

James Cowles Prichard and the Linguistic Foundations of Ethnology (2023)

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This article examines the English scholar James Cowles Prichard's attention to language and comparative philology within his wider project on the natural history of man. It reveals that linguistic evidence was among the most important elements for Prichard in his overarching scientific aim of investigating human physical diversity, and served as the evidential foundation for his ethnology. His work on Celtic comparative philology made him not only one of the earliest British adopters of German comparative grammar, but a comparative philologist of European stature in his own right. More generally, linguistic evidence helped Prichard to keep his magnum opus, Researches into the Physical History of Mankind, as logically ordered as possible, and therefore to turn ethnology into a discipline with analytical aspirations on a global scale.

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Article Floris Solleveld (2023) Language in the Global History of Knowledge. Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (pp. 7-17). unapi

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Authors & Contributors
Anderson, Thomas J.
Fernández Medina, Rita Daniela
Ferrão, Cristina
Friedlaender, Jonathan
Hamilton, Roger
Hasinoff, Erin L.
Journals
Environmental History
História, Ciências, Saúde---Manguinhos
Historical Records of Australian Science
History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences
Museum History Journal
Notes and Records: The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science
Publishers
Pennsylvania State University
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
Blast Books
Duke University Press
Insegna del Giglio
iUniverse
Concepts
Natural history
Biological diversity; biodiversity
Ethnology
Colonialism
Travel; exploration
Scientific expeditions
People
Boas, Franz
Brown, Robert
Darwin, Charles Robert
Finsch, Otto
Goldman, Edward Alphonso
Natterer, Johann
Time Periods
19th century
18th century
20th century, early
20th century
17th century
16th century
Places
Brazil
Singapore
Great Britain
India
Mexico
Asia
Institutions
Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia
American Museum of Natural History, New York
British East India Company
Royal Society of London
Natural History Museum (London, England)
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