Linéaments d'une linguistique historique et comparée en Russie au XVIIIe siècle

Abstract

The potentialities of the general Eighteenth-Century trend which tended towards the historical and comparative study of languages appears in Russia inworks of V. N. Tatiscev (1686-1750) and M. N. Lomonossov (1711-1765). The former emphasizes the relevance of linguistic studies for the inquiry about the origine of peoples. Thus, the unity of an already correctly identified slavic family is established on the grounds of lexical kindship (especially in his Dialogue de deux amis sur l'utilité des sciences et des écoles de 1733). Tatiscev evaluates the role of various differentiating factors for one basic language: geographicai spreading, cultural contacts forced by ware or political domination, trading relationships. He endevears to delineate the concept of borrowing. Con cerning the largedomains he deals with, he distinguishes the mother-nations which gave rise to as many language families: the Scythians (the Tartar group), the Sarmatians (yielding in particular the Finno-ougric languages) and the Slaves. To these is added a group of «stranges languages». Lomonossov tackles the problem from a more general view point. He inserts language into the domain of social activities and amphatizes the reflection in language of natural, evolving environment. We have ms notes and the draft of a Lettre sur la similitude et l'évolution des langues (1755), a work which, through the comparison of Latin, Greeck, German and Russian equivalents, testified to his consciousness of the historical identity of the european languages.