Gathering Language. Language atlases, comparative grammars, and ethnolinguistic classification in the long 19th century KU Leuven
In the 19th century, language became the object of a 'science of language', i.e. linguistics. My research is concerned with how the languages of the world were mapped and made part of that science. This requires an analysis of how linguistic fieldwork and language classification overlapped with geography and ethnic (racial) classification, in an ethically problematic context. Thus my research contributes to a global history of knowledge from ...