ABSTRACT
Treatment of the language and the early dialects should be the primary concern of Indo-European linguistics; but many Indo-Europeanists have also emphasized the importance of dealing with the speakers as well as with their languages. This aim was one of the major points made by Brugmann in his manifesto; he severely criticized Indo-European studies carried out before his time for dealing abstractly with languages rather than with languages in reference to the societies in which they were used. The last sentence in his second paragraph may well be recalled as pertinent for linguists also at other periods: "languages were indeed investigated most eagerly, but the person who speaks, much too little" (1878: iii).
