Elements of the Science of Language

“I have intended this book primarily for Indian students. Comparative Philology is still a vague subject to most in this country and I have heard the wildest ideas about it even from otherwise learned and well-informed people. I will be perfectly satisfied if this book arouses the interest of our students in a subject universally regarded as ‘dry,’ and consequently extremely uninteresting. I well remember how 1 myself had to struggle through books dealing with the subject but containing illustrations from modem and ancient languages of Europe some of which were utterly beyond me at that time. I thought (and I think even now) that a great deal of the repulsion this subject evokes is due to the fact that the examples do not come home to us Indians. This I have tried to remedy and this has been my main object in writing this book.

I have had the privilege to sit at the feet of many great teachers. I only hope I am not disgracing them in the following pages. And I have had the great joy of teaching hundreds of young men and women of my country in three great centers of learning—Benares, Calcutta and Bombay. I have had the rare good fortune of being rewarded by their genuine esteem and affection. Many of them have now achieved greatness on their own account. To both these—teachers as well as pupils of mine—I owe far more than I can ever hope to repay. And to both with deep reverence and affection I offer this slight tribute”.
Excerpt from the Author’s Introduction

Contents in Brief
Foreword (First Edition)
Foreword (Second Edition)
Foreword (Third Edition)
Chapter I. Introduction. The Psychology of Speech: Branches of Linguistic Studies
Chapter II. Language Types and the Classification of Languages
Chapter III. Some considerations of Syntactical Growth
Chapter IV. Growth of Languages
Chapter V. The Intellectual Laws of Language: Analogy and Kindred Phenomena
Chapter VI. Semantics or the Science of Meaning
Chapter VII. The Production and Classification of Sounds
Chapter VIII. Phonetic Tendencies in Language and Phonetic Change
Chapter IX. Form-Building and Word-Building
Chapter X. Linguistic Paleontology
Chapter XI. The Languages of India
Chapter XII. The Indo-European Languages
Chapter XIII. The Various Language Families of the World