Editorial Reviews
Book Description
The Prix Volney Essay Series analyzes and reproduces, often for the first time, essays submitted for this most prestigious of linguistic prizes, awarded since 1822 by the Institut de France to recognize work in general and comparative linguistics.
In Volume I the series editor, Joan Leopold, introduces the founder of the prize, Constantin-François Chasseboeuf, Count Volney, and incorporates the history of the Prix Volney into the history of academies and scholarly institutions, linguistics and the social sciences in the nineteenth century. Jean Leclant, Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, which now awards the Prix Volney, and Professor of Egyptology at the Collège de France, summarizes the historical and contemporary role of the Académie, including its organization of prize competitions.
Alan Kemp of the University of Edinburgh treats the first, and initially central, subject of the competition: the transcription of Oriental and other languages using modified forms of the Roman alphabet. His essay `Transcription, Transliteration and the Idea of a Universal Alphabet' is followed by two previously unpublished prize-winning Volney essays (1822, 1823) on this subject by Josef Scherer and a reprint of the prize-winning Essai sur l'analyse physique des langues ou de la formation et de l'usage d'un alphabet méthodique (1837) by Paul Ackermann. The study of French linguistics, which was officially excluded from the competition, but which formed the basis of many entries and numerous winners, is then treated by Jacques Bourquin, for French studies in general, and by Jacques-Philippe Saint-Gérand, for French dialects in particular.
The volume concludes with Gaston Bordet's and Jacques Bourquin's introductions and Jacques Bourquin's edition of the Prix Volney manuscript by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, `Recherches sur les catégories grammaticales, et sur quelques origines de la langue française' (1839). This is a manuscript of the only known linguistic work by the famous French social thinker.
Language Notes
Text: English, French
The Prix Volney : Volume I: Its History and Significance for the Development of Linguistics Research (Prix Volney Essay Series ; V. 1),Joan Leopold,Springer,0792325052,19th century,General,History,History: American,Language Arts / Linguistics / Literacy,Linguistics,Linguistics (General),Popular Culture - General,Prix Volney,Research,Language Arts & Disciplines / Linguistics
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