This book, first published in 2003, examines the history of western linguistics from ancient Greece up to the Renaissance.

Preface; 1. Getting ready to study the history of linguistics; 2. Greek philosophy and the origins of western linguistics; 3. Towards a discipline of grammar: the transition from philosophy; 4. From literacy to grammar: describing language structure in the ancient world; 5. Christianity and language; 6. The early Middle Ages; 7. The Carolingian Renaissance; 8. Scholasticism: linking language and reality; 9. Medieval vernacular grammars; 10. The Renaissance: discovery of the outer world; 11. And what happened next? Linguistics since 1600 - in brief; 12. Becoming a historian of linguistics.

Vivien Law is Reader in the History of Linguistic Thought at Cambridge University, and Fellow of Trinity College.