The International Linguistic Association was founded in 1943 as the Linguistic Circle of New York. Its founding members were academic linguists in the New York area, including many members of the École Libre des Hautes Études

École libre des hautes études

The École Libre des Hautes Études was a sort of university-in-exile for French academics in New York during the Second World War. It was chartered by the French and Belgian governments-in-exile and located at the New School for Social Research...

 in exile. The model for the new organization was the Société de Linguistique de Paris. Early members included Roman Jakobson

Roman Jakobson

Roman Osipovich Jakobson was a Russian linguist and literary theorist.As a pioneer of the structural analysis of language, which became the dominant trend of twentieth-century linguistics, Jakobson was among the most influential linguists of the century...

, Morris Swadesh

Morris Swadesh

Morris Swadesh was an influential and controversial American linguist. In his work, he applied basic concepts in historical linguistics to the Indigenous languages of the Americas...

, André Martinet

André Martinet

André Martinet was a French linguist, influential by his work on structural linguistics....

, Henri F. Muller, Giuliano Bonfante

Giuliano Bonfante

Giuliano Bonfante was an Italian linguistics scholar and expert on the language of the Etruscans and other Italic peoples. He was professor of linguistics at the University of Turin.Bonfante was born in Milan...

, Robert Austerlitz

Robert Austerlitz

Robert Austerlitz was a noted Romanian-American linguist. Born in Bucarest, he emigrated to the United States in 1938. In June 1950, he received a Master of Arts from Columbia University, where he studied under André Martinet...

, Robert Fowkes

Robert Fowkes

Robert Allen Fowkes was a noted American linguist, specializing in Indo-European Historical Linguistics and philology....

, Henry Lee Smith, Wolf Leslau

Wolf Leslau

Wolf Leslau ]] November 18, 2006) was a scholar of Semitic languages and one of the foremost authorities on Semitic languages of Ethiopia.-Youth and Education:Leslau was born in Krzepice, a small town near Częstochowa, Poland...

, and Louis H. Gray.

The Circle began publishing the journal WORD

WORD (journal)

WORD is a linguistics academic journal published three times a year by the International Linguistic Association....

 in 1945 under the editorship of Pauline Taylor

Pauline Taylor

Pauline Taylor is a British female recording artist, who came to recognition as the lead vocalist on the singles "Love Love Love, Here I Come" by Rollo Goes Mystic, and "Let This Be A Prayer" by Rollo Goes Spiritual. Both groups are pseudonyms for producer Rollo Armstrong, a member of the band...

. Both the Circle and the journal soon became known as one of the main sources of new ideas in American linguistics before the Chomsky

Noam Chomsky

Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...

era.

In 1969, the society's name was changed to International Linguistic Association, as an acknowledgment of the fact that its membership now extended far beyond New York City.

The ILA holds an annual meeting every April (usually in New York) and sponsors individual talks on six Saturdays during the academic year. WORD is now under the editorship of Donna L. Lillian.