Language purism in the mirror. William Barnes and August Treboniu Laurian

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.35824/sjrs.v6i1.25003

Keywords:

purism types, William Barnes , August Treboniu Laurian , Saxon/ Germanic , Latin

Abstract

The article sets out to draw a very brief comparison of the common features shared by the purist attitudes displayed by two 19th-century English and Romanian scholars, William Barnes and August Treboniu Laurian and classifies them according to the set of criteria devised by Thomas (1991). The paper also goes over several concepts regarding purism. The author of the paper analyses the concept of purism in both countries within the intellectual and temporal dimensions of purism.

William Barnes was a Victorian reformer, a polymath, a priest, a poet in his Dorset dialect and a utopian prescriptivist linguist capitalizing on the Germanic word stock of English and suggesting the removal of excessive Latin & Greek vocabulary. He wrote several linguistic books and poetry. August Treboniu Laurian was an outstanding Romanian reformer and polymath. He penned a theoretical book heralding his reformist belief: “Tentamen Criticum”, in 1840 and a huge Dictionary of the Romanian language in 1876 (after a seven year work) capitalising on the Latin word stock of Romanian and suggesting the removal of non-Latin lexemes.

Author Biography

Sorin Ciutacu, West University of Timisoara

Dr Sorin Ciutacu earned his combined honours in English and Latin Philology and his PhD on an English Semantics and Philosophy topic at the University of Bucharest, Romania in 1986 and 1999, respectively. He also earned a Master’s Degree in Political Sociology from the West University of Timișoara, Romania in 2002. Dr Sorin Ciutacu is currently an Associate Professor of English & Germanic Studies and Cultural History at the West University of Timisoara, Romania. In 2018 he was granted the Bologna Professor award. He has sat on sundry PhD steering boards and journal editorial boards since his return to WUT in 2016 from the King Khalid University in KSA, where he taught as a Visiting Professor.

He has held different research scholarships from sundry European universities and Erasmus grants and has spent academic time and/or taught in: Cambridge, Oxford, Birmingham, Edinburgh, London, Amsterdam, Utrecht, Brussels, Gent, Paris, Heidelberg, Bonn, Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, Vienna, Zagreb, Aveiro, Catania, Bari, Sassari, Rome etc. Dr Sorin Ciutacu has presented over 80 papers at international conferences in Europe and Asia, has published around 60 papers and studies and has authored and co-authored several books. His most recent book is: Causality and Semantics and he is currently working on four other books entitled: Anglo-Saxon Attitudes. An Intellectual History of Purism in England, From Local to Global English. A Cultural History of English, A Cultural Introduction to Germanic Studies and British Political Discourse. Forms and Ideas.

References

Barnes, W. (1849). Se Gefylsta, an Anglo-Saxon Delectus. London: John Russell Smith

Barnes, W. (1854). A Philological Grammar. London: John Russell Smith

Barnes, W. (1862). Tiw, or a View of Roots. London: John Russell Smith

Barnes, W. (1869). Early England and the Saxon‐English. London: John Russell Smith

Barnes, W. (1878). An Outline of English Speech-Craft. London: C. Kegan Paul & Co.

Brunstad, E. (2003) Standard language and linguistic purism. In Sociolinguistica. 17.

Dumitrașcu, K. (2006). A.T. Laurian şi izvoarele istoriei românilor/ A.T. Laurian and the Sources for the History of Romanians). In Analele Universităţii din Craiova, Seria Ştiinţe filologice. Limbi şi literaturi clasice [online]. 3(1-2). 130-136. Retrieved:http://cis01.central.ucv.ro/litere/activ_st/anale_lit_clasice/analele%20univ%20cvlimbi%20si%20literaturi%20clasice%20nr.%201-2.2006.pdf on 22.10.2022

Laurian, A.T., Massim, I.C. (1871-1876) Dicționariulu Limbei Române / The Dictionary of the Romanian Language, Bucuresci.: Noua typographia a laboratoriloru români

Laurian, A.T. (1840). Tentamen Criticum. Viennae: Typis Congregationis Mechitaristarum

Laurian, Marius. August Treboniu Laurian. Conferinţele Bibliotecii ASTRA (ASTRA Library Conference Proceedings) [online]. 2010, nr. 95 ISSN 1843-4754.

Retrieved: http://www.bjastrasibiu.ro/conferinte/laurian-95.pdf

Macrea, D. A. T. Laurian, Cercetări de lingvistică (Linguistic Research), An (Year) XII, Nr. 2, iulie-decembrie (July-December) 1967, p.169-188

McLelland, Nicola, Linguistic Purism, Protectionism, and Nationalism in the Germanic Languages Today, Journal of Germanic Linguistics 21.2 (2009):93–112

Roper, Jonathan, English Purisms, Victoriographies 2.1 (2012): 44–59

Roșu, Victor Tudor, History Revived by Language. A. T. Laurian’s Romanticist Meta-History, Philobiblon Vol. XIII-2008, p 349-359

Thomas, George (1991), Linguistic Purism, Longman: London

the front gate to the Memorial House of Constantin Brâncuși in Hobița, Gorj County, Romania

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Published

2023-05-15

How to Cite

Ciutacu, S. (2023). Language purism in the mirror. William Barnes and August Treboniu Laurian. Swedish Journal of Romanian Studies, 6(1), 216–228. https://doi.org/10.35824/sjrs.v6i1.25003

Issue

Vol. 6 No. 1 (2023): Swedish Journal of Romanian Studies

Section

Linguistics

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Copyright (c) 2023 Sorin Ciutacu

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