We saw the awful 2009 BBC television serial of Emma a couple of weeks
ago. This stimulated me to read the book again, when I was surprised to
come across this passage (in chapter 38):

> Such an adventure as this,-a fine young man and a lovely young woman
> thrown together in such a way, could hardly fail of suggesting certain
> ideas to the coldest heart and the steadiest brain. So Emma thought, at
> least. Could a linguist, could a grammarian, could even a mathematician
> have seen what she did, have witnessed their appearance together, and
> heard their history of it, without feeling that circumstances had been
> at work to make them peculiarly interesting to each other?-How much
> more must an imaginist, like herself, be on fire with speculation and
> foresight!-especially with such a groundwork of anticipation as her
> mind had already made.

It doesn't make a lot of sense to interpret "linguist" here as
"polyglot". It seems to mean "analyst of language", something close to
the meaning used by linguisticians. So although I had supposed that a
small group of specialists hijacked the word relatively recently to
mean something different from what 99% of English speakers think it
means. Apparently, however, it was already used like that more than 200
years ago.

--
Athel -- French and British, living mainly in England until 1987.

On 4/27/2022 3:47 AM, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:

> We saw the awful 2009 BBC television serial of Emma a couple of weeks
> ago. This stimulated me to read the book again, when I was surprised
> to come across this passage (in chapter 38):

>> Such an adventure as this,-a fine young man and a lovely young
>> woman thrown together in such a way, could hardly fail of
>> suggesting certain ideas to the coldest heart and the steadiest
>> brain. So Emma thought, at least. Could a linguist, could a
>> grammarian, could even a mathematician have seen what she did, have
>> witnessed their appearance together, and heard their history of it,
>> without feeling that circumstances had been at work to make them
>> peculiarly interesting to each other?-How much more must an
>> imaginist, like herself, be on fire with speculation and
>> foresight!-especially with such a groundwork of anticipation as her
>> mind had already made.

> It doesn't make a lot of sense to interpret "linguist" here as
> "polyglot". It seems to mean "analyst of language", something close
> to the meaning used by linguisticians. So although I had supposed
> that a small group of specialists hijacked the word relatively
> recently to mean something different from what 99% of English
> speakers think it means. Apparently, however, it was already used
> like that more than 200 years ago.

Perhaps it meant someone very familiar with language? OED, anyone?

In any case, if it turns out that the word has had both meanings for
some time, that does not justify an attempt to erase the more general
meaning in favour of the particular one.

CDB <bellemarecd@gmail.com> writes:
>Perhaps it meant someone very familiar with language? OED, anyone?

A linguist can also be someone, sometimes jokingly, who is
cunning with the tongue, as I alluded to here recently.

For one example, in Episode 6 of "Twin Peaks", Audrey puts a
cherry stem into her mouth and ties a knot in it with her tongue.

|linguist, n.
| |Compare German Linguist (end of the 16th cent. in sense
|"person who is skilled in the use of foreign languages,
|polyglot", 1801 (and now only) in sense "expert in or student
|of linguistics"), Swedish lingvist (1621 in sense "person who
|is skilled in the use of foreign languages, polyglot", 1650
|(and now only) in sense "expert in or student of
|linguistics"), French linguiste expert in or student of
|language or (in later use) linguistics (1668 or earlier)).
| |1.a. A person who is skilled in the learning or use of
|foreign languages.
|"Mr. Kontz was a linguist, speaking English, German and
|French fluently."
| |+1.b. A native speaker of a particular language. Obsolete.
|rare.
| |+2. A bird that imitates speech and other sounds. Obsolete.
|rare.
| |3. An expert in or student of language or (later)
|linguistics;
| |+4. A fluent or persuasive speaker; one who uses language
|well. Obsolete. rare.
| |5. An interpreter, a translator. Cf. linguister n. 1. Now
|chiefly U.S.
|
|"a U.S. Army linguist translated his word into English."
| |6. With reference to the Akan peoples of West Africa: an
|official orator who speaks and performs duties on behalf of
|a chief.
|"The Fantee linguists attempted to intimidate the linguist
|Quashie of Accra, but ineffectually."
| excerpt abbreviated by me (S.R.)

CDB <bellemarecd@gmail.com> writes:
>Perhaps it meant someone very familiar with language? OED, anyone?

Many linguist have made this experience, when they reveal
that they are linguists, they are immediately asked,
"And how many languages do you speak?".

Best answer: "I speak one language, my native language.
And also I study ...".

On Wednesday, April 27, 2022 at 3:47:17 AM UTC-4, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:

> We saw the awful 2009 BBC television serial of Emma a couple of weeks
> ago. This stimulated me to read the book again, when I was surprised to
> come across this passage (in chapter 38):
>
> > Such an adventure as this,-a fine young man and a lovely young woman
> > thrown together in such a way, could hardly fail of suggesting certain
> > ideas to the coldest heart and the steadiest brain. So Emma thought, at
> > least. Could a linguist, could a grammarian, could even a mathematician
> > have seen what she did, have witnessed their appearance together, and
> > heard their history of it, without feeling that circumstances had been
> > at work to make them peculiarly interesting to each other?-How much
> > more must an imaginist, like herself, be on fire with speculation and
> > foresight!-especially with such a groundwork of anticipation as her
> > mind had already made.
>
> It doesn't make a lot of sense to interpret "linguist" here as
> "polyglot". It seems to mean "analyst of language", something close to
> the meaning used by linguisticians.

Miss Austen's authority isn't enough to make you give up the asinine
"linguistician"?

> So although I had supposed that a
> small group of specialists hijacked the word relatively recently to
> mean something different from what 99% of English speakers think it
> means. Apparently, however, it was already used like that more than 200
> years ago.
> --
> Athel -- French and British, living mainly in England until 1987.

With a lousy and ignorant supposer.

The movie *Clueless* is said to be based on *Emma*. Perhaps he
would prefer that.

On Wednesday, April 27, 2022 at 3:47:17 AM UTC-4, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
> We saw the awful 2009 BBC television serial of Emma a couple of weeks
> ago. This stimulated me to read the book again, when I was surprised to
> come across this passage (in chapter 38):
>
> > Such an adventure as this,-a fine young man and a lovely young woman
> > thrown together in such a way, could hardly fail of suggesting certain
> > ideas to the coldest heart and the steadiest brain. So Emma thought, at
> > least. Could a linguist, could a grammarian, could even a mathematician
> > have seen what she did, have witnessed their appearance together, and
> > heard their history of it, without feeling that circumstances had been
> > at work to make them peculiarly interesting to each other?-How much
> > more must an imaginist, like herself, be on fire with speculation and
> > foresight!-especially with such a groundwork of anticipation as her
> > mind had already made.
>
> It doesn't make a lot of sense to interpret "linguist" here as
> "polyglot". It seems to mean "analyst of language", something close to
> the meaning used by linguisticians. So although I had supposed that a
> small group of specialists hijacked the word relatively recently to
> mean something different from what 99% of English speakers think it
> means.

All in all, compartmentalization of studies makes it easier for grant writers to get grant money. If you grew up in southwestern Switzerland, then you wouldn't have been concerned with grant money as a small child, especially while learning French, German, Italian, etc.. Let's be practical.

In article <t4b8hb$g5e$1@gioia.aioe.org>, CDB <bellemarecd@gmail.com> wrote:

>Perhaps it meant someone very familiar with language? OED, anyone?

Quoth OED3:

# 1.a. A person who is skilled in the learning or use of foreign
# languages.

First quotation is from 1562.

# 3. An expert in or student of language or (later) linguistics; a
# person who specializes in the structure or historical development
# of one or more languages; a philologist.

First quotation is from 1605.

# 5. An interpreter, a translator. Cf. linguister n. 1. Now chiefly
# U.S.

First quotation is from 1612.

So basically all of these senses are roughly contemporaneous EME.

-GAWollman

--
Garrett A. Wollman | "Act to avoid constraining the future; if you can,
wollman@bimajority.org| act to remove constraint from the future. This is
Opinions not shared by| a thing you can do, are able to do, to do together."
my employers. | - Graydon Saunders, _A Succession of Bad Days_ (2015)

On 27 Apr 2022 12:44:34 GMT, ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram)
wrote:

>CDB <bellemarecd@gmail.com> writes:
>>Perhaps it meant someone very familiar with language? OED, anyone?
>
> A linguist can also be someone, sometimes jokingly, who is
> cunning with the tongue, as I alluded to here recently.
>
> For one example, in Episode 6 of "Twin Peaks", Audrey puts a
> cherry stem into her mouth and ties a knot in it with her tongue.

I don't know the show, but she probably tied an overhand knot instead
of the figure eight knot she wanted.

On 27 Apr 2022 12:54:28 GMT, ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram)
wrote:

>CDB <bellemarecd@gmail.com> writes:
>>Perhaps it meant someone very familiar with language? OED, anyone?
>
> Many linguist have made this experience, when they reveal
> that they are linguists, they are immediately asked,
> "And how many languages do you speak?".

I don't know any linguists, so I can't be sure I'm right, but it's
hard for me to imagine someone thinking a linguist is a polyglot.

On Wednesday, April 27, 2022 at 12:10:23 PM UTC-4, Ken Blake wrote:
> On 27 Apr 2022 12:54:28 GMT, r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram)
> wrote:
> >CDB <belle...@gmail.com> writes:
> >>Perhaps it meant someone very familiar with language? OED, anyone?
> >
> > Many linguist have made this experience, when they reveal
> > that they are linguists, they are immediately asked,
> > "And how many languages do you speak?".
>
>
> I don't know any linguists, so I can't be sure I'm right, but it's
> hard for me to imagine someone thinking a linguist is a polyglot.

Have you ever had enough conversation with one or the other?

On 28/04/22 02:10, Ken Blake wrote:
> On 27 Apr 2022 12:54:28 GMT, ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram)
> wrote:
>> CDB <bellemarecd@gmail.com> writes:
>>> Perhaps it meant someone very familiar with language? OED,
>>> anyone?
>>
>> Many linguist have made this experience, when they reveal that they
>> are linguists, they are immediately asked, "And how many languages
>> do you speak?".
>
> I don't know any linguists, so I can't be sure I'm right, but it's
> hard for me to imagine someone thinking a linguist is a polyglot.

My son signed up to study linguistics at university. (Against my advice,
I must say.) Once he discovered what the word meant he changed majors.

--
Peter Moylan Newcastle, NSW http://www.pmoylan.org

On Wednesday, 27 April 2022 at 17:47:17 UTC+10, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
> We saw the awful 2009 BBC television serial of Emma a couple of weeks
> ago. This stimulated me to read the book again, when I was surprised to
> come across this passage (in chapter 38):
>
> > Such an adventure as this,-a fine young man and a lovely young woman
> > thrown together in such a way, could hardly fail of suggesting certain
> > ideas to the coldest heart and the steadiest brain. So Emma thought, at
> > least. Could a linguist, could a grammarian, could even a mathematician
> > have seen what she did, have witnessed their appearance together, and
> > heard their history of it, without feeling that circumstances had been
> > at work to make them peculiarly interesting to each other?-How much
> > more must an imaginist, like herself, be on fire with speculation and
> > foresight!-especially with such a groundwork of anticipation as her
> > mind had already made.
>
> It doesn't make a lot of sense to interpret "linguist" here as
> "polyglot". It seems to mean "analyst of language", something close to
> the meaning used by linguisticians. So although I had supposed that a
> small group of specialists hijacked the word relatively recently to
> mean something different from what 99% of English speakers think it
> means. Apparently, however, it was already used like that more than 200
> years ago.
>
> --
> Athel -- French and British, living mainly in England until 1987.

She probably meant what you said, considering that she was placing the
linguist among the unromantic sorts.
From that point of view, those whom we consider as linguists in the popular sense
(grasp over several languages) are more correctly multilingual.

On 4/27/2022 8:44 AM, Stefan Ram wrote:
> CDB <bellemarecd@gmail.com> writes:

>> Perhaps it meant someone very familiar with language? OED,
>> anyone?

> A linguist can also be someone, sometimes jokingly, who is cunning
> with the tongue, as I alluded to here recently.

> For one example, in Episode 6 of "Twin Peaks", Audrey puts a cherry
> stem into her mouth and ties a knot in it with her tongue.

> |linguist, n. | |Compare German Linguist (end of the 16th cent. in
> sense |"person who is skilled in the use of foreign languages,
> |polyglot", 1801 (and now only) in sense "expert in or student |of
> linguistics"), Swedish lingvist (1621 in sense "person who |is
> skilled in the use of foreign languages, polyglot", 1650 |(and now
> only) in sense "expert in or student of |linguistics"), French
> linguiste expert in or student of |language or (in later use)
> linguistics (1668 or earlier)). | |1.a. A person who is skilled in
> the learning or use of |foreign languages. |"Mr. Kontz was a
> linguist, speaking English, German and |French fluently." | |+1.b. A
> native speaker of a particular language. Obsolete. |rare. | |+2. A
> bird that imitates speech and other sounds. Obsolete. |rare. | |3. An
> expert in or student of language or (later) |linguistics; | |+4. A
> fluent or persuasive speaker; one who uses language |well. Obsolete.
> rare. | |5. An interpreter, a translator. Cf. linguister n. 1. Now
> |chiefly U.S. | |"a U.S. Army linguist translated his word into
> English." | |6. With reference to the Akan peoples of West Africa:
> an |official orator who speaks and performs duties on behalf of |a
> chief. |"The Fantee linguists attempted to intimidate the linguist
> |Quashie of Accra, but ineffectually." | excerpt abbreviated by me
> (S.R.)

That looks like the OED. Thank you.

On 4/27/2022 12:04 PM, Garrett Wollman wrote:
> CDB <bellemarecd@gmail.com> wrote:

>> Perhaps it meant someone very familiar with language? OED,
>> anyone?

> Quoth OED3:

> # 1.a. A person who is skilled in the learning or use of foreign #
> languages.

> First quotation is from 1562.

> # 3. An expert in or student of language or (later) linguistics; a #
> person who specializes in the structure or historical development #
> of one or more languages; a philologist.

> First quotation is from 1605.

> # 5. An interpreter, a translator. Cf. linguister n. 1. Now chiefly #
> U.S.

> First quotation is from 1612.

> So basically all of these senses are roughly contemporaneous EME.

Except for the "linguistics" part in 3, which came "later".

Thanks to you and Stefan.

* Peter Moylan:

> On 28/04/22 02:10, Ken Blake wrote:
>> On 27 Apr 2022 12:54:28 GMT, ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram)
>> wrote:
>>> CDB <bellemarecd@gmail.com> writes:
>>>> Perhaps it meant someone very familiar with language? OED,
>>>> anyone?
>>>
>>> Many linguist have made this experience, when they reveal that they
>>> are linguists, they are immediately asked, "And how many languages
>>> do you speak?".
>>
>> I don't know any linguists, so I can't be sure I'm right, but it's
>> hard for me to imagine someone thinking a linguist is a polyglot.
>
> My son signed up to study linguistics at university. (Against my advice,
> I must say.) Once he discovered what the word meant he changed majors.

Most German universities didn't have a linguistics program or
linguistics department in my time. If you studied in the German
department, you had to cover two out of three branches: literature,
Middle High German and linguistics. It turns out, though, that this is a
bad construction, because very few people are interested in both
literature and linguistics. Modern linguistics is a science, and appeals
more to math and science types.

It's not that unusual that I studied math and then linguistics, and one
of my other major interests is philosophy. The common theme behind all
those is understanding how thinking works.

I have almost never met the usage linguist meaning polyglot. I think
educated people stopped using it this way quite a while ago.

--
Canada's brand is well-intentioned genocide.
-- Hannah McGregor

On Thursday, April 28, 2022 at 12:20:11 PM UTC-4, Quinn C wrote:
> * Peter Moylan:
> > On 28/04/22 02:10, Ken Blake wrote:
> >> On 27 Apr 2022 12:54:28 GMT, r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram)
> >> wrote:
> >>> CDB <belle...@gmail.com> writes:
> >>>> Perhaps it meant someone very familiar with language? OED,
> >>>> anyone?
> >>>
> >>> Many linguist have made this experience, when they reveal that they
> >>> are linguists, they are immediately asked, "And how many languages
> >>> do you speak?".
> >>
> >> I don't know any linguists, so I can't be sure I'm right, but it's
> >> hard for me to imagine someone thinking a linguist is a polyglot.
> >
> > My son signed up to study linguistics at university. (Against my advice,
> > I must say.) Once he discovered what the word meant he changed majors.
>
> Most German universities didn't have a linguistics program or
> linguistics department in my time. If you studied in the German
> department, you had to cover two out of three branches: literature,
> Middle High German and linguistics.

It was language and literature when I studied that.

> It turns out, though, that this is a
> bad construction, because very few people are interested in both
> literature and linguistics. Modern linguistics is a science, and appeals
> more to math and science types.

I wonder if there is a certain uniqueness of how math and science majors sound and how lit majors sound.

ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) writes:
>Many linguist have made this experience, when they reveal
>that they are linguists, they are immediately asked,
>"And how many languages do you speak?".

I am sorry for not having given a source, but now I can give
you one source for this! Monica (Macaulay?) gives a talk
that one can hear in the video "What is Linguistics and What
Can it do for Us?". And there she says around minute 9 - 10:

|First of all, not all linguists speak lots of languages,
|and every single linguist in this room has had the
|experience of: you say you're a linguist, and people
|respond and say, "Oh! How many languages do you speak?".

. I viewed this video once, and then that report must have
become part of my background knowledge, but I have forgotten
the exact source. Now, that I'm coincidentally watching this
video again, I have found a source for my claim!

>Best answer: "I speak one language, my native language.
>And also I study ...".

And she also kind of employs this pattern of speech!

|Alright, so, uhm. Wes said that we should start off by
|introducing ourselfs and I don't have as anywhere near as
|distinguished a category as he does, but I will tell you
|that I am a crazy cat lady and I ride my bike a lot.
|So, that's me! [giggles] Uhm.
| |I'm also president of the endangered language fund.

(All transcriptions done by me.)

Stefan Ram submitted this gripping article, maybe on Wednesday:
> ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) writes:
>> Many linguist have made this experience, when they reveal
>> that they are linguists, they are immediately asked,
>> "And how many languages do you speak?".
>
> I am sorry for not having given a source, but now I can give
> you one source for this! Monica (Macaulay?) gives a talk
> that one can hear in the video "What is Linguistics and What
> Can it do for Us?". And there she says around minute 9 - 10:
>
>> First of all, not all linguists speak lots of languages,
>> and every single linguist in this room has had the
>> experience of: you say you're a linguist, and people
>> respond and say, "Oh! How many languages do you speak?".
>
> . I viewed this video once, and then that report must have
> become part of my background knowledge, but I have forgotten
> the exact source. Now, that I'm coincidentally watching this
> video again, I have found a source for my claim!
>
>> Best answer: "I speak one language, my native language.
>> And also I study ...".
>
> And she also kind of employs this pattern of speech!
>
>> Alright, so, uhm. Wes said that we should start off by
>> introducing ourselfs and I don't have as anywhere near as
>> distinguished a category as he does, but I will tell you
>> that I am a crazy cat lady and I ride my bike a lot.
>> So, that's me! [giggles] Uhm.
>>
>> I'm also president of the endangered language fund.
>
> (All transcriptions done by me.)

That's nice, but what's the source? Can we compare the transcriptions
to the talk?

/dps

--
But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason
to 'be happy.'"
Viktor Frankl

On 29/04/2022 4:20 a.m., Quinn C wrote:
> * Peter Moylan:
>
>> On 28/04/22 02:10, Ken Blake wrote:
>>> On 27 Apr 2022 12:54:28 GMT, ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram)
>>> wrote:
>>>> CDB <bellemarecd@gmail.com> writes:
>>>>> Perhaps it meant someone very familiar with language? OED,
>>>>> anyone?
>>>>
>>>> Many linguist have made this experience, when they reveal that they
>>>> are linguists, they are immediately asked, "And how many languages
>>>> do you speak?".
>>>
>>> I don't know any linguists, so I can't be sure I'm right, but it's
>>> hard for me to imagine someone thinking a linguist is a polyglot.
>>
>> My son signed up to study linguistics at university. (Against my advice,
>> I must say.) Once he discovered what the word meant he changed majors.
>
> Most German universities didn't have a linguistics program or
> linguistics department in my time. If you studied in the German
> department, you had to cover two out of three branches: literature,
> Middle High German and linguistics. It turns out, though, that this is a
> bad construction, because very few people are interested in both
> literature and linguistics. Modern linguistics is a science, and appeals
> more to math and science types.
>
> It's not that unusual that I studied math and then linguistics, and one
> of my other major interests is philosophy. The common theme behind all
> those is understanding how thinking works.
>
> I have almost never met the usage linguist meaning polyglot. I think
> educated people stopped using it this way quite a while ago.

A little late, but I really need to contest that impression. A 2014
discussion led me to look at 21st-century uses of "linguist" =
"polyglot", and it was clear that people (at least literate, if possibly
not what you'd consider educated) still use it:

benl...@ihug.co.nz's profile photo
benl...@ihug.co.nz
10/29/14
to
On Wednesday, October 29, 2014 9:19:37 AM UTC+13, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> On Tuesday, October 28, 2014 10:35:36 AM UTC-4, PeterWD wrote:
> > On Tue, 28 Oct 2014 06:43:44 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
> > <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >
> > >On Tuesday, October 28, 2014 8:32:19 AM UTC-4, athel...@yahoo wrote:
> > >
> > >> This is from Geoff Pullum at Language Log: "The past, the
present, and
> > >> the future walked into a bar. It was tense."
> > >
> > >What's "linguistician"?
> >
> > A practitioner of "linguistics".
>
> Sez who?
>
> Screen after screen of excerpts from the OED are conspicuously absent
> here.

Gee, it's nice to know that you miss them when I'm a little late!
But there's no need to go looking for new ones. Here's my collection
from last year's discussion:

==================================================

The early history is reviewed by Householder & Sebeok,
‘Linguisticians’ and Lexicographers, American Speech 26(3): 221-222
(1951)... but to recap here:

The earliest writer known to have used the word is the American Indo-
Europeanist Edwin W.Fay, who is responsible for _both_ of the first
two OED citations:

1895 Edwin W. Fay (“Agglutination and Adaptation”, American Journal
of Philology XVI: 1-27): Implicit in this explanation is the
assignment of Latin fio to Aryan √dhē. This identification of the
earlier ‘linguisticians’ has been latterly abandoned. (p.10)

with the interesting footnote:

n.2: This neologism should be as good as ‘statistician’, ‘logician’
etc.

1897 Edwin W.Fay (“Contested Etymologies (Continued)” Classical
Review 1897: 89- 94) The earliest linguisticians regarded vῑ in the
words for twenty as a by-form of dvῑ. (p.94)

[Clearly this was Fay’s own coinage. Nobody seems to have picked it up.
There is a gap of more than 30 years in which I find nothing.

Then in the 1930s it comes to life again:]

1931: Frank Plumpton Ramsey (ed. Richard Bevan Braithwaite), The
Foundations of Mathematics and other Logical Essays. : We have
contradictions involving both mathematical and linguistic ideas ; the
mathematician dismisses them by saying that the fault must lie in the
linguistic elements, but the linguistician may equally well dismiss
them for the opposite reason ... (p.21)

1934: Adult Education 7-8: 178: The phoneme, let it be said, is to the
linguistician approximately what the molecule is to the chemist.

1936: The Calcutta Review, p.134: The Malayalam words are given in the
native script of the language and in Roman transliteration, and this
enhances its value for the general linguistician—

1937: American Speech, 12(3): 235-237 “Verbal Novelties”: Miss Annetta
Sprung of the Lincoln, Nebraska High School, is said by the Associated
Press (which is not always reliable in such matters) to have coined
and pleaded for the word linguistician; linguist should be adequate,
but the longer word may seem more impressive.

[Jocular, I suppose, but the source of another Origin Story.]

1939: The Chinese Recorder 70:331 : An immense amount of work still
lies ahead, waiting for skilful handling by the practical
linguistician and the sympathetic educationalist. The vast field of
inter-dialectal vocabulary, for example, is as yet unexplored.

1943: Time 42:74. “Yale's William S. Cornyn, a linguistician (not a
linguist, or talker of particular languages, but a student of the
universal nature of all languages)” teaching Burmese to US troops.

[This seems to have given rise to the tradition that Time invented the
word.
Now Hall, who was also credited by some people with inventing the
word:]

1949 [Robert A.Hall,Jr.] Studies in Linguistics VII. 59, I intend
to use linguistician regularly henceforth instead of linguist ‘worker
in linguistics’.

1950 [Einar A.Haugen] Studies in Linguistics VIII. 1 To one of
these, linguistician, I not only cannot subscribe [etc.]... This
meaning, exemplified by such words as mortician and beautician,
implies pretentiousness rather than precision.

[Hall actually used the word in at least one further publication, but
then seems to have dropped it:]

1952: Hall, “Pidgin English and linguistic change”, Lingua 3:137-146:
Pidgin English --- of the various types spoken in China, West Africa,
Melanesia, Australia and elsewhere - has long been an object of
interest to amateur and scientific linguistician alike.

[For the next one OED gives no author, and the online English Studies
doesn’t want to show me this page.]

1954 English Studies 35 91: In the absence of any..description by
native linguisticians, these observations by an experienced teacher of
foreign students..deserve the attention....

1957: Daniel Jones, The history and meaning of the term
“phoneme”: ...people possess what the eminent American linguistician
Edward Sapir (1884-1939) called “phonemic intuitions”... (p.1)
We owe a great debt of gratitude to him [Bloomfield] and to the many
American linguisticians who have followed him...” (p.19)

1958: L.W.Lanham, ‘The grammatical structure of Zulu’, African Studies
17(4):221-2: To me, and to many linguisticians I feel sure, "function"
is the sum of these features of order and distribution associated with
a form class.

1963: Alma Mater, Vol.30, p.33: Linguistician Says English Will Become
World Language If Ever One Is Adopted. (By William F. Marquardt
Coordinator, NTl Programs In Teaching English as a Second Language)

1965: David Crystal, Linguistics, Language and Religion. A linguist —
or, as some now say, a linguistician — is one who provides a point of
view and a technique for talking about language, so that man can know
more about it, his unique attribute. (p.9)

1976: [originally 1971] Y.R.Chao, My linguistic autobiography “...why
should a linguist – a linguistician, that is – have to be a polyglot
at the same time?...in order to be a good linguistician, one need not
perform like a Thomas Cook type of polyglot.” (p.18)

1984: M.K.Naik, Perspectives on Indian Poetry in English: Attempts
have been made in this direction by Indian linguisticians like B.B.
Kachru, and some Indian fiction has ably been subjected to linguistic
analysis by a number of critics including S.K. Desai and C.B. Patil.
Valuable as these attempts are...

1986: Jefferson, Robey, Forgacs, Modern Literary Theory: A Comparative
Introduction:In an essay entitled 'Descriptive linguistics in literary
studies', the distinguished British linguistician M.A.K. Halliday also
offers a stylistic analysis of Yeats's 'Leda and the Swan', but one
which makes points of a very different kind from Spitzer's.

1991: Malcolm Bowie, Lacan, p.11. Even when Freud simply studies
discourse, he may be seen moving in two directions: he is both a
comparative philologist in the grand Victorian manner and a proto-
structuralist linguistician.

On Wednesday, May 4, 2022 at 6:12:31 PM UTC-4, snide...@gmail.com wrote:
> Stefan Ram submitted this gripping article, maybe on Wednesday:
> > r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) writes:

> >> Many linguist have made this experience, when they reveal
> >> that they are linguists, they are immediately asked,
> >> "And how many languages do you speak?".
> > I am sorry for not having given a source, but now I can give
> > you one source for this! Monica (Macaulay?) gives a talk
> > that one can hear in the video "What is Linguistics and What
> > Can it do for Us?". And there she says around minute 9 - 10:
> >> First of all, not all linguists speak lots of languages,
> >> and every single linguist in this room has had the
> >> experience of: you say you're a linguist, and people
> >> respond and say, "Oh! How many languages do you speak?".

That's true.

> > . I viewed this video once, and then that report must have
> > become part of my background knowledge, but I have forgotten
> > the exact source. Now, that I'm coincidentally watching this
> > video again, I have found a source for my claim!
> >> Best answer: "I speak one language, my native language.
> >> And also I study ...".

That's how I answer it.
> > And she also kind of employs this pattern of speech!
> >
> >> Alright, so, uhm. Wes said that we should start off by
> >> introducing ourselfs and I don't have as anywhere near as
> >> distinguished a category as he does, but I will tell you
> >> that I am a crazy cat lady and I ride my bike a lot.
> >> So, that's me! [giggles] Uhm.
> >>
> >> I'm also president of the endangered language fund.
> >
> > (All transcriptions done by me.)

What "pattern of speech" bothers you (Stefan)?

> That's nice, but what's the source? Can we compare the transcriptions
> to the talk?

lmgtfy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ0-dfGRf_k

It's an hour-long talk.

I've never met Monica Macaulay, but I know she is well regarded.

* Peter T. Daniels:

> On Wednesday, May 4, 2022 at 6:12:31 PM UTC-4, snide...@gmail.com wrote:
>> Stefan Ram submitted this gripping article, maybe on Wednesday:
>>> r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) writes:
>
>>>> Many linguist have made this experience, when they reveal
>>>> that they are linguists, they are immediately asked,
>>>> "And how many languages do you speak?".
>>> I am sorry for not having given a source, but now I can give
>>> you one source for this! Monica (Macaulay?) gives a talk
>>> that one can hear in the video "What is Linguistics and What
>>> Can it do for Us?". And there she says around minute 9 - 10:
>>>> First of all, not all linguists speak lots of languages,
>>>> and every single linguist in this room has had the
>>>> experience of: you say you're a linguist, and people
>>>> respond and say, "Oh! How many languages do you speak?".
>
> That's true.
>
>>> . I viewed this video once, and then that report must have
>>> become part of my background knowledge, but I have forgotten
>>> the exact source. Now, that I'm coincidentally watching this
>>> video again, I have found a source for my claim!
>>>> Best answer: "I speak one language, my native language.
>>>> And also I study ...".
>
> That's how I answer it.

But doesn't, to my mind, imply that the asker thought that was the only
meaning of "linguist". I think many people assume that studying
languages on an academic level involves learning many languages.

In fact, many linguists do learn several, and it is usual and advisable
to learn at least one language not closely related to your native one.
It's just not as central to being a linguist as people assume.

Also, the more traditional majors associated with languages (like
"Slavic languages") did involve learning multiple languages.

--
The bee must not pass judgment on the hive. (Voxish proverb)
-- Robert C. Wilson, Vortex (novel), p.125

* Quinn C:

> I think many people assume that studying
> languages on an academic level involves learning many languages.

Or "studying language on an academic level".

--
I don't see people ... as having a right to be idiots. It's
just impractical to try to stop them, unless they're hurting
somebody. -- Vicereine Cordelia
in L. McMaster Bujold, Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen

On Thursday, May 5, 2022 at 6:09:45 PM UTC-4, Quinn C wrote:
> * Quinn C:
> > I think many people assume that studying
> > languages on an academic level involves learning many languages.
> Or "studying language on an academic level".

Where is institutional bigotry worse?

On 5/05/2022 2:43 p.m., Ross Clark wrote:
> On 29/04/2022 4:20 a.m., Quinn C wrote:
>> * Peter Moylan:
>>
>>> On 28/04/22 02:10, Ken Blake wrote:
>>>> On 27 Apr 2022 12:54:28 GMT, ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram)
>>>> wrote:
>>>>> CDB <bellemarecd@gmail.com> writes:
>>>>>> Perhaps it meant someone very familiar with language?  OED,
>>>>>> anyone?
>>>>>
>>>>> Many linguist have made this experience, when they reveal that they
>>>>> are linguists, they are immediately asked, "And how many languages
>>>>> do you speak?".
>>>>
>>>> I don't know any linguists, so I can't be sure I'm right, but it's
>>>> hard for me to imagine someone thinking a linguist is a polyglot.
>>>
>>> My son signed up to study linguistics at university. (Against my advice,
>>> I must say.) Once he discovered what the word meant he changed majors.
>>
>> Most German universities didn't have a linguistics program or
>> linguistics department in my time. If you studied in the German
>> department, you had to cover two out of three branches: literature,
>> Middle High German and linguistics. It turns out, though, that this is a
>> bad construction, because very few people are interested in both
>> literature and linguistics. Modern linguistics is a science, and appeals
>> more to math and science types.
>>
>> It's not that unusual that I studied math and then linguistics, and one
>> of my other major interests is philosophy. The common theme behind all
>> those is understanding how thinking works.
>>
>> I have almost never met the usage linguist meaning polyglot. I think
>> educated people stopped using it this way quite a while ago.
>
> A little late, but I really need to contest that impression. A 2014
> discussion led me to look at 21st-century uses of "linguist" =
> "polyglot", and it was clear that people (at least literate, if possibly
> not what you'd consider educated) still use it:
>
> benl...@ihug.co.nz's profile photo
> benl...@ihug.co.nz
> 10/29/14
> to
> On Wednesday, October 29, 2014 9:19:37 AM UTC+13, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > On Tuesday, October 28, 2014 10:35:36 AM UTC-4, PeterWD wrote:
> > > On Tue, 28 Oct 2014 06:43:44 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
> > > <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > >On Tuesday, October 28, 2014 8:32:19 AM UTC-4, athel...@yahoo wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> This is from Geoff Pullum at Language Log: "The past, the
> present, and
> > > >> the future walked into a bar. It was tense."
> > > >
> > > >What's "linguistician"?
> > >
> > > A practitioner of "linguistics".
> >
> > Sez who?
> >
> > Screen after screen of excerpts from the OED are conspicuously absent
> > here.
>
> Gee, it's nice to know that you miss them when I'm a little late!
> But there's no need to go looking for new ones. Here's my collection
> from last year's discussion:
>
> ==================================================
>
> The early history is reviewed by Householder & Sebeok,
> ‘Linguisticians’ and Lexicographers, American Speech 26(3): 221-222
> (1951)... but to recap here:
>
> The earliest writer known to have used the word is the American Indo-
> Europeanist Edwin W.Fay, who is responsible for _both_ of the first
> two OED citations:
>
> 1895 Edwin W. Fay (“Agglutination and Adaptation”, American Journal
> of Philology XVI: 1-27): Implicit in this explanation is the
> assignment of Latin fio to Aryan √dhē. This identification of the
> earlier ‘linguisticians’ has been latterly abandoned. (p.10)
>
> with the interesting footnote:
>
> n.2: This neologism should be as good as ‘statistician’, ‘logician’
> etc.
>
> 1897 Edwin W.Fay (“Contested Etymologies (Continued)” Classical
> Review 1897: 89- 94) The earliest linguisticians regarded vῑ in the
> words for twenty as a by-form of dvῑ. (p.94)
>
> [Clearly this was Fay’s own coinage. Nobody seems to have picked it up.
> There is a gap of more than 30 years in which I find nothing.
>
> Then in the 1930s it comes to life again:]
>
> 1931: Frank Plumpton Ramsey (ed. Richard Bevan Braithwaite), The
> Foundations of Mathematics and other Logical Essays. : We have
> contradictions involving both mathematical and linguistic ideas ; the
> mathematician dismisses them by saying that the fault must lie in the
> linguistic elements, but the linguistician may equally well dismiss
> them for the opposite reason ... (p.21)
>
> 1934: Adult Education 7-8: 178: The phoneme, let it be said, is to the
> linguistician approximately what the molecule is to the chemist.
>
> 1936: The Calcutta Review, p.134: The Malayalam words are given in the
> native script of the language and in Roman transliteration, and this
> enhances its value for the general linguistician—
>
> 1937: American Speech, 12(3): 235-237 “Verbal Novelties”: Miss Annetta
> Sprung of the Lincoln, Nebraska High School, is said by the Associated
> Press (which is not always reliable in such matters) to have coined
> and pleaded for the word linguistician; linguist should be adequate,
> but the longer word may seem more impressive.
>
> [Jocular, I suppose, but the source of another Origin Story.]
>
> 1939: The Chinese Recorder 70:331 : An immense amount of work still
> lies ahead, waiting for skilful handling by the practical
> linguistician and the sympathetic educationalist. The vast field of
> inter-dialectal vocabulary, for example, is as yet unexplored.
>
> 1943: Time 42:74. “Yale's William S. Cornyn, a linguistician (not a
> linguist, or talker of particular languages, but a student of the
> universal nature of all languages)” teaching Burmese to US troops.
>
> [This seems to have given rise to the tradition that Time invented the
> word.
> Now Hall, who was also credited by some people with inventing the
> word:]
>
> 1949 [Robert A.Hall,Jr.] Studies in Linguistics VII. 59, I intend
> to use linguistician regularly henceforth instead of linguist ‘worker
> in linguistics’.
>
> 1950 [Einar A.Haugen] Studies in Linguistics VIII. 1 To one of
> these, linguistician, I not only cannot subscribe [etc.]... This
> meaning, exemplified by such words as mortician and beautician,
> implies pretentiousness rather than precision.
>
> [Hall actually used the word in at least one further publication, but
> then seems to have dropped it:]
>
> 1952: Hall, “Pidgin English and linguistic change”, Lingua 3:137-146:
> Pidgin English --- of the various types spoken in China, West Africa,
> Melanesia, Australia and elsewhere - has long been an object of
> interest to amateur and scientific linguistician alike.
>
> [For the next one OED gives no author, and the online English Studies
> doesn’t want to show me this page.]
>
> 1954 English Studies 35 91: In the absence of any..description by
> native linguisticians, these observations by an experienced teacher of
> foreign students..deserve the attention....
>
> 1957: Daniel Jones, The history and meaning of the term
> “phoneme”: ...people possess what the eminent American linguistician
> Edward Sapir (1884-1939) called “phonemic intuitions”... (p.1)
> We owe a great debt of gratitude to him [Bloomfield] and to the many
> American linguisticians who have followed him...” (p.19)
>
> 1958: L.W.Lanham, ‘The grammatical structure of Zulu’, African Studies
> 17(4):221-2: To me, and to many linguisticians I feel sure, "function"
> is the sum of these features of order and distribution associated with
> a form class.
>
> 1963: Alma Mater, Vol.30, p.33: Linguistician Says English Will Become
> World Language If Ever One Is Adopted. (By William F. Marquardt
> Coordinator, NTl Programs In Teaching English as a Second Language)
>
> 1965: David Crystal, Linguistics, Language and Religion. A linguist —
> or, as some now say, a linguistician — is one who provides a point of
> view and a technique for talking about language, so that man can know
> more about it, his unique attribute. (p.9)
>
> 1976: [originally 1971] Y.R.Chao, My linguistic autobiography “...why
> should a linguist – a linguistician, that is – have to be a polyglot
> at the same time?...in order to be a good linguistician, one need not
> perform like a Thomas Cook type of polyglot.” (p.18)
>
> 1984: M.K.Naik, Perspectives on Indian Poetry in English: Attempts
> have been made in this direction by Indian linguisticians like B.B.
> Kachru, and some Indian fiction has ably been subjected to linguistic
> analysis by a number of critics including S.K. Desai and C.B. Patil.
> Valuable as these attempts are...
>
> 1986: Jefferson, Robey, Forgacs, Modern Literary Theory: A Comparative
> Introduction:In an essay entitled 'Descriptive linguistics in literary
> studies', the distinguished British linguistician M.A.K. Halliday also
> offers a stylistic analysis of Yeats's 'Leda and the Swan', but one
> which makes points of a very different kind from Spitzer's.
>
> 1991: Malcolm Bowie, Lacan, p.11. Even when Freud simply studies
> discourse, he may be seen moving in two directions: he is both a
> comparative philologist in the grand Victorian manner and a proto-
> structuralist linguistician.
>
> 1995: Ian Rory Owen, Psychotherapy and Phenomenology: On Freud,
> Husserl and Heidegger: “No anthropologist....No philosopher...No
> linguistician could ever categorize all the possibilities of spoken
> communications in all the languages of the world.”
>
> 1998: Subhadra Kumar Sen, Muhammad Shahidullah: He considered him to
> be the greatest linguistician of Bengal who formulated many
> phonological rules governing the Bengali language.
>
> 2000: Susan Hayward, Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts, 2nd ed.
> Semiology was a term coined by the Swiss linguistician Ferdinand de
> Saussure.
>
> 2005 Nigel Armstrong, Translation, linguistics, culture: a French-
> English handbook: At the same time, students of French at any advanced
> level need to be linguists in the linguistician sense – the sense of
> being intensely interested in, and aware of, the structure of the
> language, and of how it works as a means of cultural expression. ...
> Let us emphasize one last time that the microscopic approach to
> language adopted by the linguistician is necessary for adequate
> translation. (p.3)
>
> That’s enough. Now for those who enjoy real jocular:
>
> 1968 Frederick G.Cassidy, “A Modern Linguistician” (poem) Gilbert &
> Sullivan parody, originally read at LSA dinner in 1968, widely
> reprinted since, e.g.
> http://chukharev.ru/humor/linguistician.txt
> http://rec.music.filk.narkive.com/dCbUBXn0/found-filk-for-linguists-and-others-http-www-phon-ucl-ac-uk-home-wells-modernphonetician-gif
>
>
> and somewhere there is a parody of Whitman, “When I heard the learn’d
> linguistician”, originally ? from CEA Critic, ca. 1965.
>
> And Finally:
> 2003: “Language art of Mao Zedong's poetry”, Journal of Changsha
> Telecommunications and Technology Vocational College: “Mao Zedong is
> an outstanding poet and linguistician as well as a great politics.”
>
> ============================================
> >
> > > In this use a "linguistician" is distinct from a "linguist": "A person
> > > who is skilled in the learning or use of foreign languages".
> >
> > You mean, "polyglot"?
>
> 2000-2010 examples from COHA (US) corpus:
> ==============================================
> He [Ulysses S.Grant] was an accomplished linguist, his reading
> encompassed a broader range than that of most officers...
>
> One key figure was an archdeacon of the cathedral named Domingo
> Gundisalvo, a talented linguist with philosophical interests of his own.
>
> DIED. CHARLES BERLITZ, 90, linguist and author who explored the
> paranormal; in Tamarac, Fla. A grandson of the founder of the
> Berlitz language schools and a onetime head of the company's
> publications, he reportedly spoke more than 30 languages.
>
> Instead I talked about [Richard] Burton, master linguist,
> soldier, towering figure of nineteenth-century letters and adventure.
>
> Aided by native converts whose tongues the natural linguist swiftly
> made his own, he baked bricks and limed them with red mud trodden
> by his own feet....
> ==============================
> And from online texts clearly written within the last decade or two, the
> expression "quite a linguist":
> ===============================
> However, he was apparently quite a linguist, since he wrote tunes for
> some English songs. [Wikipedia on Arturo Buzzi-Peccia, 1854-1943]
>
> He was also quite a linguist, acquiring a knowledge of 12 languages.
> [Robert Stein...]
>
> His intelligence is 'quite above average' than other Vartans, and
> in his spare time, and positions aboard airships travelling to other
> lands around Sinai, he has become quite a linguist.... [description
> of a game character]
>
> Mark McDonnel (Th.M., 1996), a Texas native, is quite a linguist. While
> speaking Russian, he teaches students at Kiev Theological Seminary to
> read Greek … no small challenge.
>
> She is quite a linguist with several languages under her belt.
>
> He attended the world famous Lausanne Hotel School and like so many
> Swiss, he is quite a linguist with the following languages in his
> repertoire: Swiss/German, English, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.
> ==================================================
>
> At the same time, though I don't have a bundle of quotes, it was clear
> that the linguistics sense of "linguist" was becoming more widely
> understood and used.

* Ross Clark:

> On 5/05/2022 2:43 p.m., Ross Clark wrote:
>>
>> 2000-2010 examples from COHA (US) corpus:
>> ==============================================
>> He [Ulysses S.Grant] was an accomplished linguist, his reading
>> encompassed a broader range than that of most officers...
>>
>> One key figure was an archdeacon of the cathedral named Domingo
>> Gundisalvo, a talented linguist with philosophical interests of his own.
>>
>> DIED. CHARLES BERLITZ, 90, linguist and author who explored the
>> paranormal; in Tamarac, Fla. A grandson of the founder of the
>> Berlitz language schools and a onetime head of the company's
>> publications, he reportedly spoke more than 30 languages.
>>
>> Instead I talked about [Richard] Burton, master linguist,
>> soldier, towering figure of nineteenth-century letters and adventure.
>>
>> Aided by native converts whose tongues the natural linguist swiftly
>> made his own, he baked bricks and limed them with red mud trodden
>> by his own feet....
>> ==============================
>> And from online texts clearly written within the last decade or two, the
>> expression "quite a linguist":
>> ===============================
>> However, he was apparently quite a linguist, since he wrote tunes for
>> some English songs. [Wikipedia on Arturo Buzzi-Peccia, 1854-1943]
>>
>> He was also quite a linguist, acquiring a knowledge of 12 languages.
>> [Robert Stein...]
>>
>> His intelligence is 'quite above average' than other Vartans, and
>> in his spare time, and positions aboard airships travelling to other
>> lands around Sinai, he has become quite a linguist.... [description
>> of a game character]
>>
>> Mark McDonnel (Th.M., 1996), a Texas native, is quite a linguist. While
>> speaking Russian, he teaches students at Kiev Theological Seminary to
>> read Greek … no small challenge.
>>
>> She is quite a linguist with several languages under her belt.
>>
>> He attended the world famous Lausanne Hotel School and like so many
>> Swiss, he is quite a linguist with the following languages in his
>> repertoire: Swiss/German, English, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.
>> ==================================================
>>
>> At the same time, though I don't have a bundle of quotes, it was clear
>> that the linguistics sense of "linguist" was becoming more widely
>> understood and used.
>
> Apologies for careless copy/pasting. I meant to post only the last part
> of that, relating to "linguist"="polyglot". It was, however, embedded in
> a larger discussion of "linguistician", which I'd rather not revisit.

[Cut that down for you]

There's a story going round right now about a carpet cleaner who speaks
24 or more languages, and I haven't seen him called a linguist. It may
have a lot to do with who spread the story first or widely, in this case
the Washington Post, it seems.

| He is what linguists call a hyperpolyglot — defined as a person who
| can speak at least 11 languages.

<https://www.cbsnews.com/news/steve-hartman-vaughn-smith-carpet-cleaner-languages/>

--
Quinn C
My pronouns are they/them
(or other gender-neutral ones)