This document provides an overview of the key concepts in historical linguistics. It defines historical linguistics as the study of language change over time. The main concerns of historical linguistics are to describe and account for language changes, reconstruct pre-histories of languages, develop theories of language change, describe the history of speech communities, and study etymology. It also outlines tools for studying language change, specific areas of change, evidence of change, and dispels common myths about language.

1. MODULE 1
HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS
Part One
History of the English Language
2nd Semester 1432-1433 AH
Dr. Abdel-Fattah Adel

2. HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS
 The two types of linguistic studies:
Synchronic and Diachronic
Linguistics
 The Definition of Historical
linguistics
 The main Concerns of Historical
linguistics
 Studying language change
 Two axes of the historical study of
language
 Four Myths of Language.

4. The Definition of Historical
linguistics
 Historical linguistics (also
called diachronic linguistics) is the
study of language change.

5. The main Concerns of
Historical linguistics
Historical linguistics has five main concerns:
 to describe and account for observed changes in
particular languages
 to reconstruct the pre-history of languages and
determine their relatedness, grouping them
into language families (comparative linguistics)
 to develop general theories about how and why
language changes
 to describe the history of speech communities: a
group of people who share a set of norms and
expectations regarding the use of language
 to study the history of words, i.e. etymology: their
origins, and how their form and meaning have
changed over time.

6. Three tools for the study of
language
 1. Articulatory phonetics:
 2. Sociolinguistics:
 3. Comparative philology:

7. Four specific areas of
language change
 1. pronunciation
 2. grammar and morphology
 3. meaning (semantic change)
 4. attitudes toward language change

8. The evidence for language
change
 A. Surviving written evidence
 B. Knowledge of speech sounds
 C. writing about language

9. Language is a form of social
and human behavior
 No language is inherently better or
more grammatical than any other
 Languages have rules and
conventions of successful
communication; and yet, throughout
history, people have judged language,
language performance, and individual
linguistic competence.

10. Two axes of the historical
study of language
 Prescriptive
 Descriptive

11. Four Myths of Language.
 A. The myth of universality:
 B. The myth of simplicity
 C. The myth of teleology:
 D. The myth of gradualism