BLOOMFIELD, Leonard. Chicago 1.4.1887 — New Haven CT 18.4.1949. U.S. Linguist. Professor in Columbus, Chicago, and New Haven. Son of Sigmund Bloomfield and Carola Buber, a Jewish family of German background, nephew of —> Maurice Bloomfield. Elementary school in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, where his father had a hotel, with the family twice in Europe (1898-99 and 1900-01). Secondary school in Chicago. Studies from 1903 at Harvard College (A.B. 1906), then 1906-08 at the University of Wisconsin, in 1909 Ph.D. at University of Chicago (diss. on Germanic). Further studies 1913-14 at Leipzig (Brugmann, Leskien) and 1914 at Göttingen (Oldenberg). In 1906-08 Assistant of German at University of Wisconsin, 1908-09 at University of Chicago. In 1909-10 Instructor at University of Cincinnati, 1910-14 at University of Illinois. In 1914-21 Assistant Professor of German and Comparative Philology at Illinois and 1921-27 Professor of the same at Ohio State University in Columbus. In 1927-40 Professor of German Philology at University of Chicago, and 1940-47 Sterling Professor of Linguistics at Yale. Died after long illness following a stroke in 1946. Married 1909 Alice Sayers, two sons.
Bloomfield was one of the most famous linguists of the 20th century. With a foundation in Germanic, soon also IE linguistics, Bloomfield was influenced by behaviourism and concentrated on the vocal aspect of language (antimentalist, rejected the meaning). A structuralist. He had thoroughly studied Pāṇini. In addition to Sanskrit, German and IE languages he was also a distinguished scholar of the Algongkin languages of North American Indians and of Malayo-Polynesian. At the same time he was much interest in the methods of language teaching. He had only few students and did not encourage beginners to take linguistics, but his 1933 book had enormous influence.
Publications: Introduction to the Study of Language. 355 p. N.Y. 1914, rev. & enl. ed. as Language. 9+564 p. N.Y. 1933; other works on general linguistics.
– “The Indo-European Palatals in Sanskrit”, AJPh 32, 1911, 36-67; “On Some Rules of Pāṇini”, JAOS 47, 1927, 61-70.
– Many articles (e.g. in Language), edited Algongkin texts, etc.
– Charles F. Hockett(edited): A Leonard Bloomfield Anthology. 29+553 p. Bloomington 1970.
Sources: Directory of Am. Sch. 1st ed. 1942; Who Was Who in America; several contemporary accounts in Am. Biogr. Arch. 2nd Series; B. Bloch, *Language 25, 1949, 87-98 (republ. in Sebeok 1966:2, 508-518); ; Staal 1985, 266ff.; E.H. Sturtevant, *American Philosophical Soc. Yearbook 1949 (1950), 302-305 (republ. in Sebeok 1966:2, 518-521); P. Swiggers, Lex. Gramm. 1996, 109-111; Wikipedia with further references and photo.
*R.A. Hall, Jr. (ed.), Leonard Bloomfield: Essays on His Life and Work. 10+237 p. Amsterdam – Philadelphia 1987 and A Life for Language: A Biographical Memoir of Leonard Bloomfield. 10+129 p. Philadelphia 1990.
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