Crosscurrents in linguistic research: Humanism and positivism in Central Australia 1890--1910

Trained in nineteenth century humanist traditions of philology, German Lutheran
missionaries conducted linguistic fieldwork in the Dieri (Diyari) language near
Lake Eyre in South Australia and in the Aranda (Arrarnta, Arrernte) and Loritja
(Luritja) languages at Hermannsburg in the Northern Territory. As the discipline
became increasingly positivist in the late nineteenth century, anthropologists and
linguists with this very different orientation also took an interest in the languages
of Central Australia. In this paper I contrast humanist and positivist researchers of
Central Australian languages arguing that common metascientific orientations are
more significant factors than nationality for understanding their research.