History of women in linguistics
[5] Though she lived in Athens, being foreign-born granted her more freedom than other women,[6] which allowed her to distinguish herself in Sophist circles as a great rhetorician and to engage her rhetorical skills in political life.
[3] Furthermore, his Menexus mentions that she wrote a funeral speech delivered by Pericles, and cites her as Socrates',[3] as well as many other Athenians',[5] teacher in rhetoric, which also ranks among her linguistic achievements.
[6] Conversely, Plutarch's account, which mentions that Socrates sporadically visited her with his pupils and that even his close friends allowed their wives to listen to her, is considered more plausible.
Among the readings of the Neoplatonist curriculum, for instance, was Plato's Cratylus, a testimony to the importance held by linguistic topics in the philosophic framework of late antiquity.
[12] Her understanding of medicine, astronomy, and, most importantly, poetry enabled her to formulate expressions with a certain subtlety,[12] and her thorough knowledge of Arabic grammar shines through in her transmissions.
[12] Besides, she issued fatwas during the caliphates of Umar and Uthman[14] and held discussions with Companions of the Prophet about the correct way of formulating these judgements, which stimulated the adoption of an accurate grammar and vocabulary.
[12] Lastly, she is also valuable to the field of linguistics because she taught Arabic to her nephew Urwa ibn al-Zubayr, as well as to other prominent male jurists.
She was also reportedly proficient in multiple languages and was a member of Maria of Portugal's renowned circle, which partook in literary sessions and held a unique cultural importance.
Furthermore, because she was the daughter of Gil Vicente, Queen D. Catarina de Áustria gave her permission to both print and sell his collected works.
Nonetheless, because of the lack of information about the grammar and several other works ascribed to her, some researchers believe these attributions to be part of a myth created around the figure of Paula Vicente.
On top of that, de Gournay can also be considered a pioneering female linguist because she is the earliest known woman who wrote a French metalinguistic work.
[16] She was a defender of the language usage and poetic style of the Pléiade poets, Ronsard in particular, and supported their use of archaisms, neologisms, diminutives, and metaphors.
[16] Furthermore, women in the French tradition had more influence on the linguistic debate through their work as translators, which was at the time considered a sort of applied grammar.
Moreover, in 1740, Corleva also composed her Algemeene en geredeneerde spraakkonst, a Dutch translation of the second edition of Antoine Arnauld and Claude Lancelot's Grammaire générale et raisonnée (General and Rational Grammar).
[22][23] While the former served as the foundation for Corleva's nomenclature,[23] the latter supplied her with the idea that the Dutch language could be learned entirely with only a modest number of words and without using loanwords.
[25] Nonetheless, she is also the best known 18th-century female grammarian and one of the only two women featured in the Corpus of Fundamental Linguistic Texts because of her Grammaire raisonnée (Rational Grammar).
[26] Additionally, the lost second chapter supposedly addressed the operations of the mind on objects ('Opérations de notre âme sur les objets').
Additionally, Du Châtelet provided her grammar with her own comments, examples, and amusing remarks, which not only grant the work an enjoyable conversational tone, but also showcase her knowledge of the French language.
Two of her translations stood the test of time, i.e. Bernard Mandeville's The Fable of the Bees and Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy).
[28] Her importance as a linguist lies in the fact that she authored the first female Portuguese grammar dedicated to an exclusively female audience in 1786, entitled Breve compendio da grammatica portugueza para uso das meninas que se educaõ no Mosteiro da Vizitaçaõ de Lisboa (Brief Compendium of the Portuguese Grammar for the Use of Girls, Who Are Educated in the Visitation Monastery of Lisbon).
Knowledge of French, in particular, was regarded as crucial, because it was a prestigious language that granted the Portuguese access to a broader European culture, including literature, fashion, and arts.
[28] The concise Breve compendio, then, with its 58 pages, does not aim to cover all of Portuguese grammar, but instead offers a brief outline of what is most relevant in order to prepare students for foreign language learning.
[32] In 1783, in light of the Academy's organisation, Dashkova also founded and edited the journal Sobesednik liubitelei rossiiskago slova (The Collocutor of the Lovers of the Russian Word).
[33] She envisioned it as a virtual salon that would bring together contemporary writings and imitations of foreign texts as well as linguistic and lexicographical works, such as reflections on code-switching or lexical borrowing.
[32] Among Dashkova's linguistic achievements is also the production of the Slovar' Akademii Rossiyskoy v shesti chastyakh (Dictionary of the Russian Academy in six parts),[33] started in 1783.
As women were authorised to transfer between cultures and languages, they played a key role in the dialogue and interaction between indigenous societies on the one hand and European migrant populations on the other.
[34] An early case was Malinalli, or la Malinche, a Nahua woman of noble birth, who spoke Nahuatl, Spanish, and Maya.
[35] Similarly, Pocahontas,[36] or Amonute,[37] was a Powhatan noble who lived in Tidewater Virginia, when she was captured by English immigrants trying to establish a settlement at Jamestown.
[39] On this mission to discover the region northwest of the Mississippi River, Sacajawea's command of languages proved crucial and her identity as a native woman helped bypass the distrust of the communities Lewis and Clark encountered.
Because of the respect bestowed upon her by both the settler and Native American communities, Kellogg was able to hold a mediating position and facilitate communication between both groups.
