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Darwin Correspondence Project

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19 Items

Language: Interview with Gregory Radick

Summary

Darwin made a famous comment about parallels between changes in language and species change. Gregory Radick, Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at Leeds University, talks about the importance of the development of language to Darwin, what…

Matches: 13 hits

  • … how many parallels there are between the way in which languages change, and the way in which species …
  • … he says, sometimes you get similar words in different languages because these languages are …
  • … their language) lowly peoples who nevertheless speak high languages? These critics went on to say, …
  • … technology, no advanced civilisation, speaking lowly languages. And that as they go up the scale of …
  • … debased circumstances, who nevertheless have grammars, speak languages with grammars of the utmost …
  • … even though they had fallen so far, these savage groups, the languages still show the formerly high …
  • … the correct definition to apply when you’re talking about languages. And on the naturalists’ …
  • … it turns out there’s no problem. It turns out that these languages are as lowly as the rest of these …
  • … no matter what the states of their civilisation, speak languages of more or less equal complexity, …
  • … the theory of evolution predicts exactly that, equality of languages. But that wasn’t the case for …
  • … quoted Darwin on the extent to which the ability to acquire languages, as Darwin put it, a half art …
  • … example, the musical quality of our language—the way that languages, speech goes up and down, and …
  • … of their own, which was similar in degree to the human languages. Indeed, he thought that the …

Language: key letters

Summary

How and why language evolved bears on larger questions about the evolution of the human species, and the relationship between man and animals. Darwin presented his views on the development of human speech from animal sounds in The Descent of Man (1871),…

Matches: 7 hits

  • … John Herschell, regarding the slow development of languages, which casts doubt on the chronology of …
  • … since the Chinese, the [space left in copy], the Caucasian languages separated from one stock.” …
  • … with the previous state of things we should find all languages made up of the debris of former …
  • … to Lyell, Charles, 2 Feb [1861] If the descent of languages was seen by some as analogous …
  • … the independent origins of “evidently affiliated” languages. “I wish I had time to write you an …
  • … grt-grt-grandfather; & insisting that evidently affiliated languages e.g. Latin Greek Sanscrit …
  • … Agassiz (foolish man) admits that the derivation of languages & that of Species or forms stand …

Hensleigh Wedgwood

Summary

Hensleigh Wedgwood, Emma Darwin’s brother and Charles’s cousin, was a philologist, barrister and original member of the Philological Society, which had been created in 1842. In 1857, while Wedgwood was preparing a dictionary of English etymology, he wrote…

Matches: 2 hits

  • … a common etymological origin) in various other Indo-European languages. Hensleigh Wedgwood, …
  • … where he wrote soberly that “the formation of different languages and of distinct species and the …

The origin of language

Summary

Darwin started thinking about the origin of language in the late 1830s. The subject formed part of his wide-ranging speculations about the transmutation of species. In his private notebooks, he reflected on the communicative powers of animals, their…

Matches: 2 hits

  • … utterances that were shared with some animals, and that languages developed and spread gradually …
  • … Darwin drew an extended analogy between the evolution of languages and species, noting in each …

Volume appendices

Summary

Here is a list of the appendices from the print volumes of the Correspondence of Charles Darwin with links to adapted online versions where they are available. Appendix I in each volume contains translations of letters in foreign languages and these can…

Matches: 1 hits

  • … I in each volume contains translations of letters in foreign languages and these can be accessed …

Elleparu (York Minster)

Summary

Elleparu was one of the Alakaluf, or canoe people from the western part of Tierra del Fuego. He was captured by Robert FitzRoy, captain of HMS Beagle, in 1830 after one the small boats used for surveying the narrow inlets of the coast of Tierra del Fuego…

Matches: 1 hits

  • … of Tierra del Fuego comprised several tribes with different languages, he decided to take a fourth …

Suggested reading

Summary

There is an extensive secondary literature on Darwin's life and work. Here are some suggested titles that focus Darwin’s correspondence, as well as scientific correspondence and letter-writing more generally. Collections of Darwin’s letters …

Matches: 1 hits

  • … in English, 1568–1800. Smith College Studies in Modern Languages 15 . On letter …

Books on the Beagle

Summary

The Beagle was a sort of floating library.  Find out what Darwin and his shipmates read here.

Matches: 1 hits

  • … Neuman and Baretti,  Dictionary of the Spanish and English languages.  2 vols. 5th ed. London, …

Yokcushlu (Fuegia Basket)

Summary

Yokcushlu was one of the Alakaluf, or canoe people from the western part of Tierra del Fuego. She was one of the hostages seized by Robert FitzRoy, captain of HMS Beagle, after the small boat used for surveying the narrow inlets of the coast of Tierra del…

Matches: 1 hits

  • … girl of quick learning, especially her capacity for learning languages. During a landfall of three …

Satire of FitzRoy's Narrative of the Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle, by John Clunies Ross. Transcription by Katharine Anderson

Summary

[f.146r Title page] Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle Supplement / to the 2nd 3rd and Appendix Volumes of the First / Edition Written / for and in the name of the Author of those / Volumes By J.C. Ross. / Sometime Master of a…

Matches: 1 hits

  • … – will be amplified, enlarged, and, to those of foreign languages – translations attached &c …

William B. Bowles

Summary

As a famous figure in the debates surrounding human evolution, Darwin could be something of a lightning rod for eccentric thinkers with their own ideas about his theories. The idea of a “missing link” compelled one such enthusiast to write to him about the…

Matches: 1 hits

  • … with several of the top experts in the study of languages, but he always put human language firmly …

Who we were

Summary

Many people have contributed to the Darwin Correspondence Project since it was first founded in 1974. Some names are now lost to us, and we would appreciate hearing from anyone who has contributed in the past and is not listed here. The final staff of…

Matches: 1 hits

  • … She also assists with research and uses her romance languages skills for translating historical …

Frank Chance

Summary

The Darwin archive not only contains letters, manuscript material, photographs, books and articles but also all sorts of small, dry specimens, mostly enclosed with letters. Many of these enclosures have become separated from the letters or lost altogether,…

Matches: 1 hits

  • … practising in 1865 to pursue his passion: the study of languages. In 1858 he translated Rudolf …

Journal of researches

Summary

Within two months of the Beagle’s arrival back in England in October 1836, Darwin, although busy with distributing his specimens among specialists for description, and more interested in working on his geological research, turned his mind to the task of…

Matches: 1 hits

  • … to be widely reprinted and has been translated into many languages.  Other than the Origin of …

Darwin’s reading notebooks

Summary

In April 1838, Darwin began recording the titles of books he had read and the books he wished to read in Notebook C (Notebooks, pp. 319–28). In 1839, these lists were copied and continued in separate notebooks. The first of these reading notebooks (DAR 119…

Matches: 1 hits

  • …   Containing an account of the manners, arts, languages,   religions, institutions, and commerce …

Essay: Natural selection & natural theology

Summary

—by Asa Gray NATURAL SELECTION NOT INCONSISTENT WITH NATURAL THEOLOGY. Atlantic Monthly for July, August, and October, 1860, reprinted in 1861. I Novelties are enticing to most people; to us they are simply annoying. We cling to a long-accepted…

Matches: 1 hits

  • … language, to account for generic similarities among existing languages. Yet no scientific …

Darwin in letters, 1875: Pulling strings

Summary

‘I am getting sick of insectivorous plants’, Darwin confessed in January 1875. He had worked on the subject intermittently since 1859, and had been steadily engaged on a book manuscript for nine months; January also saw the conclusion of a bitter dispute…

Matches: 1 hits

  • … in an ongoing debate with the Oxford professor of oriental languages, Friedrich Max Müller. George’s …

Darwin in letters, 1877: Flowers and honours

Summary

Ever since the publication of Expression, Darwin’s research had centred firmly on botany. The year 1877 was no exception. The spring and early summer were spent completing Forms of flowers, his fifth book on a botanical topic. He then turned to the…

Matches: 1 hits

  • … Scientific work destined to go to all Time and into all languages’, was unworthy of the book and of …

Movement in Plants

Summary

The power of movement in plants, published on 7 November 1880, was the final large botanical work that Darwin wrote. It was the only work in which the assistance of one of his children, Francis Darwin, is mentioned on the title page. The research for this…

Matches: 1 hits

  • … Goebel, an assistant of Sachs and an expert in classical languages. Darwin wanted terminology to be …
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