ABSTRACT
One of the creators of modern linguistics is Ferdinand de Saussure (1959), who was a Swiss linguist. Saussure is credited with creating a way to look at language that goes right to the heart of the nature of language. Around the turn of the century, when Saussure was working, most language study was of the nature discussed in the previous chapter. That is, it was the tradition of historical linguists. Historical linguistics was preoccupied with studying the origins of language and tracing current languages back to their historical roots.
