The contibutions in this volume constitute a selection of the papers presented
at the 11th International Colloquium of the West-European (German-based)
society for the history of linguistic ideas, the Studienkreis Geschichte der
Sprachwissenschaft. The central theme of the conference was the history of
linguistic and grammatical praxis. While this topic served, for the first time,
as the central theme of a conference in the history of linguistics, the various
types of linguistic praxis - language teaching and language learning,
description and codification of languages, diffusion of linguistic knowledge,
language planning and language policies - constitute the first attestation of
linguistic preoccupations worldwide. twenty-seven contributions in this volume
cover the history of grammatical and linguistic praxis from Antiquity to the
present day. While most of the papers deal with Europe and the United States,
some of them analyse linguistic activity in relation to languages in Africa,
Asia or Australia. (Peeters 2000)
