Professor David Langslow FBA

Latin, Greek and Indo-European languages and their descriptive, historical and social linguistics; ancient special and technical varieties, especially as reflected in the translation and transmission of ancient medical texts

Elected 2019

Fellow type: UK Fellow
Year elected: 2019
Sections: Classical Antiquity, Linguistics and Philology
Website: https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/david.langslow.html

David Langslow was trained in classics, ancient history, and Indo-European comparative philology and linguistics. He started research on word-formation in the broadest sense, examining the possible and the preferred linguistic means of extending vocabulary, first in Greek, and then, and especially, in Latin. On the assumption that an expansion of knowledge entails the development of new vocabulary, he began working on technical language, in particular on medical vocabulary in Latin down to the end of the Roman Empire in the West. The language of medical literature obliged him to supplement grammatical description and reconstruction with literary and social history and socio-linguistics, and to broaden his linguistic interests to include syntax, word-order and other matters of style. He sees these various aspects as inseparably intertwined, and has developed the general view that technical languages are, contrary to an influential claim made in the 1980s, more than mere sets of technical terms. Several of his studies, prompted in the first instance by features of medical texts, are applicable to other genres and other languages, and shed light on more general linguistic questions (including word-order; the use of discourse particles; the linguistic ‘finger-printing’ of texts of unknown provenance; and the use and avoidance of technical vocabulary, both literal and metaphorical, in non-technical texts). Langslow’s early work on word-formation led him, on the one hand, to the comparative and historical interests reflected in his edition of Wackernagel’s Lectures on Syntax, and, on the other, through technical and medical language, to textual and stylistic considerations and the business of preparing a first critical edition of a canonical medical text. A passionate teacher and advocate for access to Latin and Greek in state schools, he has been since 2002 one of the directors of the JACT Greek Summer School (est. 1967), and he is founding Project Chair of Manchester Classics for All (est. 2015), which is already bringing classics to hundreds of state school students in the Manchester area.

Current Post

University of Manchester Professor of Classics

1998 -

University of Manchester Hulme Professor of Latin

1998 -

Wolfson College, Oxford Emeritus Fellow

1998 -

Past appointments

Wolfson College, Oxford Fellow

1984 - 1998

University of Oxford Lecturer in Latin Philology and Linguistics

1984 - 1998

Publications

Archaic Latin inscriptions in Greek and Roman authors

David Langslow FBAEdited by Peter Liddel and Polly Low - Published in 2013 by Oxford University Press

In Inscriptions and their Uses in Greek and Latin Literature, 167-95

praetor urbanus — urbanus praetor: some aspects of attributive adjective placement in Latin

David Langslow FBAEdited by Philomen Probert and Andreas Willi - Published in 2012 by Oxford University Press

In Laws and Rules in Indo‐European, 279-312

Lectures on Syntax: with special reference to Greek, Latin, and Germanic

Edited by David Langslow FBA - Published in 2009 by Oxford University Press

Translated and edited with introduction, notes and bibliography by D.L.

The Latin Alexander Trallianus: the text and transmission of a Late Latin medical book

David Langslow FBA - Published in 2006 by The Roman Society Publications

Prolegomena to a first critical edition, in three volumes, in preparation

Langues réduites au lexique”? – the languages of Latin technical prose

David Langslow FBAEdited by Tobias Reinhardt, Michael Lapidge, and J. N. Adams - Published in 2005 by Oxford University Press

In Aspects of the Language of Latin Prose, 287-302

Medical Latin in the Roman Empire

David Langslow FBA - Published in 2000 by Oxford University Press

Latin discourse particles, “medical Latin” and “classical Latin”

David Langslow FBA - Published in 2000 by Mnemosyne 53: 537-60

The language of poetry and the language of science: the Latin poets and “medical Latin

David Langslow FBAEdited by J. N. Adams & R. G. Mayer - Published in 1999 by Oxford University Press

In Aspects of the Language of Latin Poetry, 183-225

Other Fellows of the British Academy

Professor Nicholas Sims-Williams FBA

Philology Central and Inner Asia

Professor Emily Greenwood FBA

Ancient Greek literature and cultural history in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE; responses to Greek and Roman classics from the 19th century to the present, especially in Black cultures.

Emily Greenwood FBA (credit David Milne)

Professor Harald Clahsen FBA

Psycholinguistics; first and second language acquisition, developmental and acquired language disorders, the experimental study of language processing in different languages

Professor David Langslow FBA

Current Post

University of Manchester Professor of Classics

1998 -