Darwin’s Origin of the Species (1859) made an immediate impression on philologists at the time – in fact, too much of one. A scant six years after its publication, namely in 1865, the Société de Linguistique de Paris was founded and a year later formally banned in its bylaws discussion of the origin of language in its transactions and debates. The London Philological Society followed suit in 1873. The reason for the ban can be found in the words of the most influential American linguist of the nineteenth century, William Dwight Whitney, who, in the first volume of the American Philological Association, wrote:

Despite this caustic view of the state of evolutionary explanations, Whitney saw no need for the American association to feel bound by the French example. He declared the topic “legitimate,” even a worthy challenge since “all [the] fundamental doctrines [of linguistic philosophy] are involved in its solution” (emphasis mine). Whitney’s endorsement of the topic, however, did not win the day. The prohibitions set by the societies in Paris and London were effective, and for the next one hundred years, philologists/linguists dropped the topic and pursued other matters.