[Lingtyp] Abralin talk on the history of typology (by James McElvenny)

[Martin Haspelmath]

Dear typologists,

Many of you may well be interested in this fascinating talk by James 
McElvenny on Georg von der Gabelentz and the earlier history of typology:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNsNV1AQD-8&t

Highly recommended! Many people know Gabelentz from ALT's Gabelentz 
Award, and some may have heard that he was the first to use the term 
"typology" (in 1894), in a fascinating article that also mentions the 
idea of expert-based comparative methodology, as well as statistical 
correlations.

McElvenny does not glorify Gabelentz, and also puts him in the context 
of racist physical anthropology and Galton's eugenics, which were very 
fashionable in the days before Boas.

(One new thing that I learned from the talk is that Friedrich von 
Schlegel (1808) actually used my preferred term "comparative grammar", 
so it also has a very respectable pedigree.)

Best,
Martin

P.S. I should also mention that McElvenny is series editor of a LangSci 
series on the history of linguistics 
(https://langsci-press.org/catalog/series/hpls), and co-editor of the 
LangSci edition of Gabelentz's famous book "Die Sprachwissenschaft" 
(1891/1901): https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/97

-- 
Martin Haspelmath
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6
D-04103 Leipzig
https://www.shh.mpg.de/employees/42385/25522