Change in language: Whitney, Bréal, and Wegener By Brigitte Nerlich (review)

412 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 67, NUMBER 2 (1991) the work will run at least to the three volumes projected by the author (2). The entries are in general longer and much more full of detail, both of linguistic material and of bibliography and evaluation of etymological hypotheses, than were the entries in KEWA. A typical entry consists of: the initial lemma with meaning (no alternative English meaning, as was given in KEWA) and the text source (in standard abbreviation); a very abbreviated statement of its fate, if any, in later stages of Indo-Aryan (but this is a very secondary concern of the author); reference to R. L. Turner, A comparative dictionary of the IndoAryan languages ; occasional citation of forms from the later languages; relationship, if any, to Iranian, with quotation of the necessary minimum of related forms from any stage of Iranian; further relationship, if any, to Indo-European languages, with quotation of the necessary minimum of related forms. In these last categories there is much use of reconstructed forms, making full use of laryngeal theory. All this is interlarded with, and followed (in smaller type) by full reporting and considerable evaluation, in the most concise form possible, of the hypotheses that have been offered for the origins of the forms . Hypotheses of non-Indo-European origin are not neglected. All this is accomplished by means of a most complete bibliography keyed to an elaborate set of abbreviations. In the introductory section of fascicule 1 (7-31), M offers in small print the initial list of abbreviations and bibliographical references. These must number in the neighborhood of 500 (I have not counted). Each succeeding fascicule adds more on two or three pages of the temporary paper covers (as did the fascicules of KEWA); as each volume of EWA is completed, there will undoubtedly be consolidation of the bibliographical references and abbreviations of the volume (as there was for KEWA), and some pages of Nachtrage to take account of new material . The method of composition, with so much use of abbreviated reference, makes of course for very difficult reading. But who can expect an etymological dictionary, detective work though it is, to be as easy reading as the fictional detective story? KKEWA now turns out to be—though a most useful handbook—a merely interim production, we Indologists must look forward to, and devotedly hope for, completion of M's much more ambitious EWA ! It would of course be ungrateful to lament that the work, in German, will be unavailable to most Indian students. Can we look to the future for an English translation, prepared and published in India? The present 7 fascicules, of about 80 pages each, have appeared injust about 5 years, a very commendable rate of speed. [M. B. Emeneau, University of California, Berkeley.) Change in language: Whitney, Bréal, and Wegener. By Brigitte Nerlich. (Routledge history of linguistic thought series.) London: Routledge, 1990. Pp. xiv, 213. Cloth $47.50. Perhaps it is mere inertia, but the tendency is always there to identify our field with the achievements of just the very recent past. But often it is useful to look a little further back in time, to see things in a broader and truer perspective . Otherwise, we risk the danger of reinventing the wheel every thirty years. The Routledge series edited by Talbot Taylor, which includes the present volume, is one such source; another is the more extensive Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science , edited by Konrad Koerner. Both series are significant and welcome contributions. Of the three names in the subtitle of this volume , Whitney is probably the best known to readers of Language, in part because he wrote in English. The 1971 anthology of his writings, edited by Michael Silverstein (Whitney on language , MIT Press), includes a fascinating account by Roman Jakobson, which makes clear the immense influence Whitney exerted over not only linguistics but also large sectors of American humanistic scholarship. Bréal's contributions come to us primarily through his very successful Essai de sémantique (first edition in 1897), a pioneering investigation of meaning. Indeed , the term 'semantics' traces back to an article he published in 1883. The...