Of course I have been thinking about an April Fool's post, but just lately I've been reading a fair bit of historical and comparative linguistics and you just can't make up stuff in that realm any more … any genetic relationship you can imagine has been proposed with a straight face, climatic and 'temperamental' causes of sound change too. So, we resort to reality to celebrate the day:On this day in 1887, Leonard Bloomfield was born in Chicago, Land of Flat, but his connections to Wisconsin are very rich. His family moved to Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin when he was 9. He attended UW for two years and then of course worked on Menominee. Even if we don't buy his core theoretical positions today, he contributed tremendously to the development of our field in a lot of ways.
So, happy birthday, Leonard Bloomfield.
1 comment:
Another connection between April Fool's Day, a famous linguist, and Wisconsin can be found here: http://www.dailycardinal.com/article/2534
Post a Comment