Dear Ken, Jeffery, All,
Thank you for your comments and response. It is very interesting and I
see the discussion trailing off into more interesting perspectives.
You both point to ancient Greece as the source of organized science or
organized study of language (and communication), and make a good point
with that. I would like to make also a point about how organized the
study of language was.
I assume Ken refers to the Babylonians who compute the first known
approximate value ofπ at 3.125 on, possibly, a mud tablet or a stone
2000 BCE.
However, predating that treatise on mathematics is a Sumerian treatise
on nouns (on mud tablet), with which the Sumerians people, who began to
adopt Akkadian for every day speech, taught their children (and possibly
in an organized manner) how to continue and use Sumerian for legal and
religions contexts.
In general. There is a big hypothetical question in my mind: It is more
likely for primitive cultures to develop an organized teaching of their
language before they could do so for stars and numbers or after the
could so for stars and numbers.
Language is perhaps the most powerful force that can centralize a
culture, even an illiterate one (with out written literature). I tend to
think that our pre-historic ancestors debated how to pronounce words and
how to indicate the right meaning with vocal sounds, and that once they
knew how to communicate with each other, then they could have debated
the circle and the stars and write about these.
What do you think?
Best,
*Yoád David Luxembourg *
BA (DAE <http://www.designacademy.nl/>,2004), MA (MAHKU
<http://www.mahku.nl/>,2006)
Ph.D (University of Porto <http://www.up.pt/>, 2015)
Creative Direction at Elementum by Daniela Pais
<http://www.luxuryistohavesimplethings.com/>
LinkedIn <http://nl.linkedin.com/pub/yoad-david-luxembourg/5b/95a/69a>
On 24-2-2016 20:14, Ken Friedman wrote:
> Dear Yoád,
>
> If you mean that linguistics as we understand the science of linguistics today is the “oldest science in the world,” this is not correct. It is true that the study of language and the way that languages work date back to ancient times. Nevertheless, the organised study of mathematics and geometry dates back further. The first known mathematical treatise dates to around 2,000 BCE. Astronomy may be far older, though we know this by inference from archeological calendars rather than written books. The oldest known such calendar dates to nearly 10,000 years ago.
>
> While there may have been some organised study of language for translation, the earliest organised science of language is probably that of classical Athens with Aristotle. The Organon, especially Peri Hermeneias (De Interpretatione) would likely be the first books on language as an organised field of inquiry, but even these are closer to philology and philosophy than to modern linguistics.
>
> It was a linguist who became one of the great early contributors to semiotics — Ferdinand De Saussure, as Jeffrey Bardzell notes.
>
> But linguistics is far from the oldest organised science.
>
> Yours,
>
> Ken
>
> Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Tongji University in Cooperation with Elsevier | URL: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/
>
> Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| University Distinguished Professor | Centre for Design Innovation | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia
>
> --
>
> Yoád David Luxembourg wrote:
>
> —snip—
>
> Linguistics, by the way, is the oldest science in the the existence of
> mankind. The first books on human language date back hundreds if not
> thousands of years and long before we had cognitive science (and FMRI
> technology) people investigated aphasia and other language disorders.
> Compared to linguistics design and semiotics are like spring chickens :)
>
> —snip—
>
>
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