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

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

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.