Různost jazyků a její interpretace v díle Vladimíra Skaličky: studie z moderních dějin české lingvistiky

Vladimir Skalicka's contributions to linguistic typology have been widely recognized. This paper tries to capture the significance of the problem of language diversity in its broadest sense for the development of Skalicka's scholarship and for his scientific legacy. The author argues that in a 1947 Czech-language article titled 'The problem of language diversity' published in Slovo a slovesnost, Skalicka gave in fact a sketch of a blueprint for modern linguistics in which he advocated a holistic approach to the study of language through a balanced texture of the triple aspect of language: its semiotic nature, its diversity and its structure. The least one can say is that Skalicka seems to have followed these self-imposed, yet highly stimulating guidelines for the rest of his life. The final part of the paper is an attempt at summarizing Skalicka's contribution to the understanding of the semiotic connection of linguistic typology and the mutual relations between language and mind or language and society. The author concludes that although Skalicka did not directly answer or even explicitly ask the question of why languages differ from each other, he nevertheless cleared the way for future attempts at a structural explanation of the origins of language diversity.