Geographic linguistics
A portion of Course in General Linguistics comprises
Saussure’s ideas regarding the geographical branch of linguistics.
According to Saussure, the geographic study of languages deals with
external, not internal, linguistics. Geographical linguistics, Saussure
explains, deals primarily with the study of linguistic diversity across lands,
of which there are two kinds: diversity of relationship, which applies to
languages assumed to be related; and absolute diversity, in which case there
exists no demonstrable relationship between compared languages. Each type of
diversity constitutes a unique problem, and each can be approached in a number
of ways.
For example, the study of Indo-European and Chinese languages (which are
not related) benefits from comparison, of which the aim is to elucidate certain
constant factors which underlie the establishment and development of any
language. The other kind of variation, diversity of relationship, represents infinite
possibilities for comparisons, through which it becomes clear that dialects and
languages differ only in gradient terms. Of the two forms of diversity,
Saussure considers diversity of relationship to be the more useful with regard
to determining the essential cause of geographical diversity.