Leonard Bloomfield facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Leonard Bloomfield
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| Born | April 1, 1887 |
| Died | April 18, 1949 (aged 62) |
| Alma mater | Harvard College, University of Wisconsin, University of Chicago, University of Leipzig, University of Göttingen |
| Spouse(s) | Alice Sayers |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Linguistics, Ethnolinguistics |
| Institutions | University of Cincinnati, University of Illinois, Ohio State University, University of Chicago, Yale University |
| Influences | August Leskien, Karl Brugmann, Hermann Oldenberg, Jacob Wackernagel, Pāṇini, John B. Watson |
| Influenced | Charles Hockett, Zellig Harris |
Leonard Bloomfield (born April 1, 1887 – died April 18, 1949) was an important American linguist. A linguist is a scientist who studies language. He helped create a way of studying language called structural linguistics in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s.
He is known as the "father of American distributionalism." This means he focused on how words and sounds are arranged in a language. His famous book, Language, published in 1933, explained this new way of looking at language.
Bloomfield also studied many different languages. He made big contributions to understanding ancient languages like Indo-European. He also studied languages spoken in the Philippines (called Austronesian languages) and Algonquian languages, which are spoken by Native American groups.
His way of studying language was very scientific. He focused on clear rules for analyzing how language works. Later, his ideas were less popular when Noam Chomsky developed a new theory called generative grammar.
Contents
Early Life and School
Leonard Bloomfield was born in Chicago, Illinois, on April 1, 1887. His parents were Jewish. His father's family name was Blumenfeld, but it was changed to Bloomfield when they came to the United States.
When he was nine, his family moved to Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. He went to elementary school there. Later, they moved back to Chicago for his high school years. Interestingly, his uncle, Maurice Bloomfield, was also a famous linguist. His aunt, Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler, was a well-known piano player.
College and Graduate Studies
Bloomfield went to Harvard College from 1903 to 1906. He earned his first degree there. After Harvard, he started studying at the University of Wisconsin. He took classes in German and other old European languages.
A professor named Eduard Prokosch helped him decide to become a linguist. In 1908, Bloomfield moved to the University of Chicago. He continued to study German and other ancient languages. He finished his PhD in 1909. His main project was about how German words changed over time.
He continued his studies in Germany in 1913 and 1914. He learned from top linguists like August Leskien and Karl Brugmann. He also studied Vedic Sanskrit, an ancient language from India, with Hermann Oldenberg and Jacob Wackernagel. Bloomfield felt that Wackernagel and the ancient Indian grammarian Pāṇini greatly influenced his work.
His Career as a Professor
Bloomfield taught at several universities during his career.
- From 1909 to 1910, he taught German at the University of Cincinnati.
- From 1910 to 1921, he taught German and linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.
- From 1921 to 1927, he was a professor at the Ohio State University.
- From 1927 to 1940, he taught at the University of Chicago.
- From 1940 until 1949, he was a special professor of linguistics at Yale University.
In the summer of 1925, he worked for the Geological Survey of Canada. He traveled to study the Plains Cree language, a Native American language. This job was arranged by another famous linguist, Edward Sapir. In 1946, Bloomfield had a stroke, which meant he could no longer work.
Founding the Linguistic Society of America
Bloomfield was one of the people who helped start the Linguistic Society of America. This is a very important group for linguists in the U.S. In 1924, he worked with other professors to create the Society. He wrote the main article for the first issue of their journal, Language. He was also the president of the Society in 1935.
He taught at the Society's summer language programs from 1938 to 1941. These programs helped train new linguists. Bloomfield was also a member of the American Philosophical Society, another important academic group.
Studying Ancient Languages
Bloomfield's early work focused on historical German studies. He was very interested in how languages change over time. He used the "Neogrammarian" idea, which said that sound changes in language happen in a very regular way. This was a key idea in studying ancient languages.
He used examples from Indo-European languages in his textbooks, An introduction to language (1914) and Language (1933). He showed how to use the "comparative method" to figure out what older forms of words might have sounded like. He also looked at how different dialects of a language developed.
His Work on Sanskrit
Bloomfield studied Sanskrit, an ancient language from India. He learned about the grammar written by Pāṇini, who lived around 400 BC. Pāṇini's grammar was incredibly detailed and precise. Bloomfield admired how Pāṇini explained every part of the language.
Bloomfield even wrote to another linguist, saying that Pāṇini was one of his models. Pāṇini's ideas influenced how Bloomfield thought about basic language concepts. For example, Bloomfield used Pāṇini's ideas to describe how words are put together.
Studying Languages in the Philippines
While at the University of Illinois, Bloomfield studied Tagalog. This is a language spoken in the Philippines. He worked with a student from the Philippines named Alfredo Viola Santiago. Santiago helped him by speaking Tagalog so Bloomfield could write it down and analyze it.
Bloomfield's book, Tagalog texts with grammatical analysis, was published very quickly. It included many Tagalog texts and a detailed explanation of every word. People have said his work on Tagalog was "the best treatment of any Austronesian language."
He also wrote an article about the grammar of Ilocano, another language from the Philippines. This article was very short but covered a lot of information about the language's structure.
Studying Native American Languages
Bloomfield did a lot of important work on Algonquian languages, which are spoken by many Native American groups. He studied four main Algonquian languages: Fox, Cree, Menominee, and Ojibwe. He wrote grammars, dictionaries, and collected stories in these languages.
He used the information he gathered to figure out what the very first Algonquian language, called Proto-Algonquian, might have sounded like.
Research on Specific Languages
- Fox Language: He started by studying texts that other people had already collected in the Fox language. He used these to create a grammar of Fox.
- Menominee Language: Bloomfield traveled to do fieldwork on Menominee in 1920 and 1921. He also corresponded with speakers and had others collect information for him. He published texts, a grammar, and a dictionary for Menominee.
- Cree Language: In 1925, Bloomfield did fieldwork among Plains Cree speakers in Saskatchewan, Canada. He collected many stories and created a dictionary for Cree. He also briefly studied Swampy Cree in Manitoba.
- Ojibwe Language: He first studied Ojibwe using old texts and dictionaries. Later, he taught a class where he worked directly with Ojibwe speakers. This led to more detailed descriptions and collections of stories in Ojibwe.
See also
In Spanish: Leonard Bloomfield para niños
