QUOTE : Like many things that are claimed as Western inventions, grammar was first practiced in the East. According to scholars, there is a rich tradition of grammatical typology in Sanskrit that dates back to at least the sixth century B.C. and probably the eighth century B.C. *3 I had that teacher, and that comment still chaps my hide. *4 Modern linguistic relativism goes back at least two thousand years: “Multa renascentur quae iam cecidere, cadentque / quae nunc sunt in honore vocabula, si volet usus, / quem penes arbitrium est et ius et norma loquendi.” (Many words shall revive, which now have fallen off; / and many which are now in esteem shall fall off, if it be the will of usage, / in whose power is the decision and right and standard of language.) Horace, Ars Poetica, A.D. 18. What a commie hippie liberal.