Why Sir William Jones got it all wrong, or Jones' role in how to establish language families

Abstract

1. IntroductionSir William Jones (1746-1794) is often credited with establishing the Indo-European family of languages and founding comparative linguistics. Since manyhave argued that there are methodological lessons to be learned from Jones forestablishing language relationships, this paper shows why this view of Jones’ work ismistaken. Larry Trask contributed much to exposing methodological and othererrors in long-range comparisons intent on defending questionable proposals ofdistant genetic relationship (see for example, Trask 1995). This paper follows hislead in this arena; its goals are to set the record straight with respect to Sir WilliamJones’ ideas, to examine the methods Jones used and to put them in properperspective, and in so doing to contribute to understanding of appropriate methodsfor establishing genetic relationships among languages.Jones’ (1786[1789]) famous ‘philologer passage’ —that most momentoussound-bite of yore— which declared a relationship between Sanskrit and severalother Indo-European languages, is often cited as the beginning of Indo-Europeanand of comparative-historical linguistics in general (cited below). Nearly allintroductory textbooks on historical linguistics repeat this claim, as do many otherlinguistic publications. On all sides we see statements such as Bengtson and Ruhlen’s(1997: 3) that Sir William Jones “discovered the method of comparative linguistics—and with it the Indo-European family”. Murray (1998: 3) reports as generalknowledge that Jones “had founded comparative philology, or historical linguistics”.Cannon (1990: 246) asserts that Jones’ “was the first known printed statement ofthe fundamental postulate of Indo-European comparative grammar; more thanthat, of comparative linguistics as a whole”. Gray (1999: 116-17) speaks of Jones’“earth-shattering discovering”, asserting that “Jones used careful etymologicalanalysis to demonstrate that [here he repeats the philologer passage]... Thesignificance of this statement cannot be overestimated. It rested on an empiricaldemonstration...”; “Jones stimulated a stampede of philologists”. Trautmann(1998: 105), immediately after repeating the famous philologer passage, remarksthat “the modernity of the formulation is remarkable … these are exactly the viewshistorical linguists hold today”. (See also Emeneau 2000: 545). Even in his own