Roy Harris is Emeritus Professor of General Linguistics in the University of Oxford. He is the author of The Language-Makers (1980), The Language Myth (1981), The Origin of Writing (1986), The Language Machine (1987), Reading Saussure (1987), Language, Saussure and Wittgenstein (1988), Signs of Writing (1995) and Signs, Language and Communication (1996). His award-winning translation of Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics was published in 1983., Talbot J. Taylor is L.G.T. Cooley Professor of English and Linguistics at the College of William and Mary, Virginia. He has published widely on language theory and the history of linguistic ideas. He is the author of Mutual Misunderstanding (1992) and Apes, Language and the Human Mind, with Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and Stuart Shanker. He and Roy Harris are Co-Editors of the journal Language & Communication.

• Chapter 1 Socrates on names; Chapter 2 Aristotle on metaphor; Chapter 3 The Bible on the origin and diversification of language; Chapter 4 Varro on linguistic regularity; Chapter 5 Quintilian on linguistic education; Chapter 6 Thomas of Erfurt on the modes of signifying; Chapter 7 Caxton on dialects; Chapter 8 The Port-Royal Grammar; Chapter 9 Wilkins on a real character; Chapter 10 Locke on the imperfection of words; Chapter 11 Condillac on the origin of language and thought; Chapter 12 Horne Tooke on etymological metaphysics; Chapter 13 Humboldt on linguistic and mental diversity; Chapter 14 Müller on linguistic evolution; Chapter 15 Frege on sense and reference; Chapter 16 Saussure on language and thought;