1. Language history and change
The Study of Language.
George Yule
Unit 17. Dilella - Horvath
2. The study of the history of a language and
its changes is known as PHILOLOGY.
The term “Family trees” applies to the notion
that a variety of languages spoken in different
parts of the world are members of the same
family.
3. S
In 1786 Sir William Jones noted the similarities in the roots of verbs and in the forms of
grammar between Sanskrit and both Latin and Greek
Sir William suggested that languages from very different geographical areas shared a common
ancestor; which, since there weren’t any existing records of it, had to be hypothesized on the basis
of similar features existing in those languages presumed to be its descendants.
The term Proto-Indo-European is applied to what is thought to be the source of
modern languages in the Indian subcontinent and in Europe.
Indo-European is the language family with the largest population and distribution in
the world.
4. Proto - Indo - European
Germanic
Celtic
Italic
(Latin
)
Danish
English
German
Swedish
Breton
Gaelic
Irish
Welsh
French
Italian
Portuguese
Spanish
Hellenic(Greek)
Greek
Balto - Slavic
Baltic Slavic
Latvian
Lithuanian
Czech
Polish
Russian
Ukrainian
Indo -Iranian
Indic
(Sanskrit)
Iranian
Bengali
Hindi
Punjabi
Urdu
Kurdish
Pashto
Persian
Tajiki
7. There are actually 6,912 languages in the world. Some are in danger of extinction while some are expanding.
Similarities, such as using the same writing or pronunciation, among languages of older generations are good evidence for
proposing Family Connections among modern languages .
COGNATES Words from different languages that have a similar form and are or were used with a similar meaning
Comparative
Reconstructio
n
Aims to reconstruct what must have been the
original or “proto” from in the common
ancestral language.
This procedure operates on the basis of
GENERAL PRINCIPLES
The Majority Principle.
If, in a cognate set, three words begin with a [p]
sound and one word begins with a [b] sound,
then it is guessed that the majority have retained
the original sound [p]
The Most Natural Development
Principle.
This principle is based in the
fact that certain types of sound
change are very common
whereas others are extremely
unlikely.
(1)Final vowels often disappear
(2)voiceless sounds become voiced
(3)Stops become fricatives
(4)Consonants become voiceless at
the end of words
8. Sound
Reconstruction
Deciding what was the most likely
form of the initial sound in the original
source of different related languages
by comparing cognate words in those
languages.
A B C
cantare cantar chanter sing
catena cadena chaine chain
caro caro cher dear
cavallo caballo cheval horse
A and B begin with the [k] sound, a stop consonant.
According to the majority principle the initial sound [k] is closer
to the original sound.
According to the most natural development principle stop
sounds tendo to change into fricatives such as the [*] sound.
Again everything points to [K] as the original sound.
The reconstruction of proto-forms is an
attempt to determine what a language
must have been like before any written
records.
Word Reconstruction
9. Languages such as English can be traced back to its
older forms thanks to existing written records. It is
also possible, thanks to these, to see what changes
the English language has undergone. Through time.
The history of English is traditionally divided into four
periods.
Before
1100
1100 to
1500
1500 to
1700
After
1700
Old
English
Middle
English
Early
Modern
English
Modern
English
10. Old English
”From this early version of Englisc we have
many of the most basic terms in the language.
Mann (man), wif (woman), cild (child), hus
(house), mete (food) etan (eat), drincan (drink)
and feohtan (fight)
From the sixth to the eighth century , there was an
extended period during which theses Anglo-Saxons were
converted to Christianity and a number of terms from
Latin (the language of the religion) came into English at
that time. Words like angel, bishop, candle, church, martyr,
priest and school date from that period.
From the eighth century through the ninth
and tenth centuries, another group of
northern europeans came first to plunder
and then to settle in parts of the coastal
regions of Britain : The Vikings.
From their language-Old Norse- the
original forms of words like give, law, leg, skin,
sky, take and they were adopted.
All these are examples of external
change -Influence from the outside-
11. Middle
English
The event that marks the beginning of the Middle English period, is the
arrival of the Norman French in England following their victory at
Hasting in 1066.
These French - speaking invaders became the ruling class, so that the
language of the nobility, the government, the law and civilized life in
England for the next two hundred years was French.
The language of the peasantry remained English.
While peasants talked about sheep, cows and swine, the
upper classes refer to these as mutton, beef and pork.
Early
Modern
English
Early Modern English began around 1500. The
introduction of printing in 1476 brought about
significant changes.
13. Internal Change
Changes that occured within the historical development of English
( and other languages) that don’t seem to be caused by outside
factors. Diachronic variation.
SOUND CHANGES
Sound Loss Some words lost sounds, but kept the spelling,
resulting in the “silent letters” of contemporary written English.
Words with initial velar stops [k] & [g] are no longer
pronounced before nasals, yet are still present in the written
form. E.g: knee // gnaw
Metathesis It involves a reversal in position of two sounds in a
word. E.g: frist first
Epenthesis It involves the addition of a sound to the middle of
the word. E.g: spinel spindel
Prothesis It involves the addition of a sound to the beginning of
a word. It is a common feature in the evolution of some forms
from Latin to Spanish. E.g: schola escuela
SYNTACTIC CHANGES
Different word order
ferde he he traveled
Use of the negative
not gave (ne sealde) This is no longer grammatical
Double negative
You not gave never
Loss of inflectional suffixes
Sealde (he gave) sealdest ( you gave)
Inflectional suffixes that are no longer used
SEMANTIC CHANGES
Words that ceased to be used
Were (man)
Broadening
holy day holiday
Narrowing
hund (any dog) hound
14. All of these changes were gradual and possibly difficult to discern while taking
place.
Some changes can be linked to major social changes caused by wars, invasions and
other upheavals.
The most pervasive source of language change is probably the continual process of
cultural transmission The unending process whereby each individual has to
recreate the language of the community. During process, some elements are bound
to be wrongly picked up; plus the occasional desire to be different
Languages will not remain stable, change and variation are
inevitable.
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