2. Language history and change.
In 1786, Sir William Jones went on to
suggest that a number of languages
from very different geographical areas
must have some common ancestor.
Nowadays, this linguistic investigation carried on two
centuries after his suggestion.
3. Language history and change.
Proto – Indo – European
Original Form Europe
Indian
Sub-continent
PIE Language is the unattested, reconstructed
common ancestor of the Indo-European languages.
6. Language history and change.
Some of the more than 4.000 languages in the world are much more
widely spoken than others.
1st.- Chinese : Close to 1 billion speakers.
2nd.- English : About 350 million speakers.
3rd.- Spanish : Close to 300 million speakers.
4th.- Hindi : About 200 million speakers.
5th.- Arabic and Russian : About 150 million speakers each.
7. Language history and change.
Before starting to recognise the connection of the language family we
have to know what a cognate is.
It is a word that has a common etymological origin
with another one; both from different languages.
Sanskrit Latin Greek
pitar pater patër (“father”)
bhrätar fräter phräter (“brother”)
8. Language history and change.
All PIE sounds and words are reconstructed from later Indo-European languages
using the comparative method.
This procedure operates on the basis
of some general principles
The Majority Principle The Most natural
Development Principle
If there are further related
languages, the sound that
occurs most often in the
relevant cognates is assumed
to be the proto-form.
It is based on the fact that
certain types of sound-change
are very common, whereas
others are extremely unlikely.
9. Language history and change.
* The Majority Principle
If three forms begin with a [p] sound and one form begins with a [f]
sound, the we guess that the majority have retained the original sound
and the minority has changed a little through time.
[p] v/s [f]
pater
(Latin / Italic)
father
(English / Germanic)
pitar
(Sanskrit)
patér
(Greek)
10. Language history and change.
* The Most natural Development Principle
Some rules of this principle are:
↘ Final vowels often disappear
↘ Voiceless sounds become voiced between vowels
↘ Stops become fricatives (under certain conditions)
↘ Consonants become voiceless at the end of words
Italian L. Spanish L. French L.
cavallo caballo cheval (horse)
cantare cantar chanter (sing)
[k] sounds [š] sound
According to this principle, changes tend to occur in the direction of stops
becoming fricatives, so the [k] is more likely to have been the original.
11. Language history and change.
Language change
The historical development of English is usually divided
into three major periods.
↘ Old English
7th century – 11th century.
↘ Middle English
1.100 – 1.500
↘ Modern English
From 1.500 to the present.
12. Language history and change.
* Old English
↘ Variety due to influence of different tribes as Angles,
Saxons and Jutes.
mann (man) - cild (child) - hüs (house)
↘ Variety due to Christian convertion (Latin influence).
angel – bishop – cande – church – priest – school
↘ Variety due to Viking invasion.
give - law - skin - sky - take - they
13. Language history and change.
* Middle English
↘ Influence of new language (French) brought by the Normans.
army - court - defense - faith - prison - tax
↘ Variety in pronunciation terms, for example:
The diphthong /ei/ is spelled "ei", "ey", "ay" or "ai", and
sounds a bit like "whey": they, day.
Both Old and Middle English aspects just mentioned are
examples of external change in language.
14. Language history and change.
Sound changes.
- Quality of the vowels sounds:
Old English Modern English
spo:n spu:n (spoon)
wi:f wayf (wife)
- Some sounds disappeared:
Old English Modern English
nicht [nixt] nayt (night)
- Reversal in position of two adjoining sounds (metathesis):
Old English Modern English
frist first
hros horse
Latin Spanish
crocodilus Cocodrilo (crocodile)
Algeria Argelia (Algeria)
15. Language history and change.
- Addition of a sound to the middle of a word (espenthesis):
- Addition of a sound to the beginning of a word (espenthesis):
turum
arithametic
trump
arithmetic
status
(Latin)
estado
(Spanish)
(state)
spiritus
(Latin)
espíritu
(Spanish)
(spirit)
* ESL learners often add a vowel sound to the beginning of some English words,
such as: espeak (speak), eschool (school), Espanish (Spanish).
16. Language history and change.
Syntactic changes.
Word order.
• Old English:
Subject + Verb + Object
Verb + Subject
Subject + Object + Verb
• Modern English:
Subject + Verb + Object
Inflection.
Nouns, adjectives, articles and pronouns lost many
inflectional affixes and took different inflectional forms.
17. Language history and change.
Lexical changes.
* Borrwing.
Many words that Old English borrowed from other languages
(mainly Latin and Greek) have ceased to be used.
Broadening Narrowing
The range of meanings associated with a word becomes more…
…general than at the beginning of its use. …restricted than at the beginning of its use.
Example: Example:
“cool”, Old English: a part of professional jargon
of Jazz.
“cool”, Modern English: (almost) anything
conceivable.
“mete”, Old English: any solid consumable food.
“meat”, Modern English: edible animal flesh.
* Broadening and Narrowing.
18. Language history and change.
The process of change.
There is an unending process whereby each language-user has to ‘recreate’ for
him/herself the language of the community: each new generation has to find a
way of using the language of the previous generation.
Diachronically: change of the language through time.
Synchronically: change of the language in different places
at the same time.
