This book presents an overview of nineteenth century European linguists with an in-depth biography of Graziadio Isaia Ascoli, an Italian pioneer of the modern linguistics. The Author devotes his professional attention to the analysis of an early essay of Ascoli, by detecting his strengths and weaknesses. In this treaty are brought, in addition to some Romance languages such as Friulian, Romanian and Italian, even German and Slavic, with the related considerations on the Latin and Cyrillic spellings.