In this chapter, the writer tries to explain the different changes that languages have undergone through centuries and particularly how English evolved from Old English to Modern English. In addition to this, the reader can learn about the “family connections” among languages belonging to the same family tree, The Proto-Indo-European language.
Investigating the features of older languages, and the ways in which they developed into modern languages, involves us in the study of language history and change, also known as philology. In the nineteenth century, philology dominated the study of language and one result was the creation of “family trees” to show how languages were related. Before all of that could happen, however, there had to be discovered that a variety of languages spoken in different parts of the world were actually members of the same family.
During the nineteenth century, a term came into use to describe that common ancestor. It incorporated the notion that this was the original form (Proto) of a language that was the source of modern languages in the Indian sub-continent (Indo) and in Europe (European). Proto-Indo-European established as a long-ago “great-great-grandmother,” scholars set out to identify the branches of the Indo- European family tree, tracing the lineage of many modern languages. Indo-European is the language family with the largest population and distribution in the world, but it isn’t the only one. There are about thirty such language families containing a large number of different individual languages.
There are Family connections among these languages. To get a clearer picture of how they are related we should look at records of an older generation, like Latin and Sanskrit, from which the modern languages evolved. For example, if we use familiar letters to write out the words for father in Sanskrit (pitar), Latin (pater), and Ancient Greek (patër), some common features become apparent.
Also, it is important to mention the meaning of cognate, which is a word in one language (e.g English) but it could be a word in another language (e.g German) that has a similar form and is or was used with similar meaning. For instance, the English words mother, father and friend are cognates of the German words Mutter, Vater and Freund. Another point to mark is the comparative reconstruction. It is a method that usually referred to a reconstruction, establishes features of the ancestor of two or more related languages, belonging to the same language family, by means of the comparative method. Eg, If in a cognate set, three words begin with a /p/ sound and one word begins with a /b/ sound, then our best guess is that the majority have retained the original sound.
The most natural development principle is based on the fact that certain types of sound change are very common whereas others are extremely unlikely. As a matter of fact, sound reconstruction is the practice of establishing the features of an unattested ancestor language of one or more given languages. If we were faced with some examples from three languages. we could make a start on a comparative reconstruction by deciding what was the most likely form of the initial sound in the original source of all three. Eg, language A: cantare, Language B: cantar and Language C: chanter (“sing”).
To understand better the changes that it has undergone through time, it is essential to take a look at the history of English. It can be divided into four periods: Old English (before 1100), Middle English (1100 to 1500), Early modern English (1500 to 1700)*, and Modern English (after 1700)*. These changes can be divided into sound changes and syntactic changes. First there are four processes involved in soung change, that are not reflected after 1700 :
1) Sound loss: from the middle to modern English some sounds disappeared. the initial /h/ of many old English words was lost. Eg, hlud→loud
2) When sound changes, so the METATHESIS involves a reversal in position of two sounds in a word. Eg, frist→first
3)EPENTHESIS involves the addition of a sound in the middle of a word. Eg, spinel→spindel
4)PROTHESIS this is not found in English but it’s pretty common in forms from Latin to Spanish such as, schola→escuela. That is why Spanish speakers tend to add an /e/ sound before a /s/
Second, there are some syntactic changes:
1.Word order: in old English, we can find forms where the VERB is followed by the SUBJECT, for example FERDE HE = TRAVELED HE
2.Double negative forms were also possible now we would say “YOU NEVER GAVE” rather than “YOU NOT GAVE NEVER”
3.the most sweeping change was the loss of a large number of inflexional suffixes, for example, the suffixes -e and -est: SEALDE (he gave) or SEALDEST (you gave)
To analyse the change through time, there are two different perspectives On the one hand, Diachronically is associated with the historical perspective of change through time (for example the history of English). On the other hand, synchronically refers to the differences within one language in different places and among different groups at the same time. (for example, FRENCH when the Normans conquered England, the French spoken in England was not the same spoken in France, it developed differently).
✭ CHAPTER 18
Language and Regional variation
Standard Language is an idealized variety because it has no specific region. It is the variety related to administrative, commercial, and educational centres, regardless of region. It is clearly associated with education and broadcasting in public contexts and is more easily described in terms of the written language.
Accent and Dialect are two important aspects that we have to make a difference. On the one hand, ACCENT is a distinctive way of pronouncing a language, especially one associated with a particular country, area, or social class. Some speakers have very distinct or easily recognized types of accent while others may have more subtle or less noticeable accents. The term accent is restricted to the description of aspects of the pronunciation that identify where an individual speaker is from, regionally, or socially. On the other hand, DIALECT describes the features of grammar and vocabulary as well as aspects of pronunciation. While differences in vocabulary are often easily recognized, dialect variations in the meaning of grammatical constructions are less frequently documented. Another point to mark is Dialectology that is used to distinguish between two different dialects of the same language. Some regional dialects have many dialects that exist in the same region. That is why some of them have influences from outside the region in their speech.
There are some other terms that should be noticed. According to Isogloss which is an imaginary line that divides areas/regions, they differ in words, intonation, vocabulary, and pronunciation. When a number of isoglosses come together a dialect boundary can be drawn. Furthermore, Dialect Continuum refers to speakers who move back and forth across this border area, using different varieties with some ease, may be described as BIDIALECTAL, for example: speaking two dialects. Most of us grow up with some form of bidialectal, speaking one dialect in the street among family and friends, and having to learn another dialect in school.
According to regional variation, in many countries, it is not simply a matter of two or more dialects of the language, but it can involve two or more different languages. This situation has to do with Bilingualism, which is the ability to speak and understand two or more different languages and it tends to be a feature of a minority group. However, it doesn’t have to be the result of political dominance by a group using a different language. It can simply be the result of having two parents who speak different languages. Also, a special situation exists in some countries and it is called diglossia. This involves two distinct varieties of language and there is a "low variety", acquired locally and used for everyday affairs, and a "high variety", learned in school, and used for important matters.
Regarding this, the government, legal and educational organizations have to plan which variety or varieties of the language spoken in the country are to be used for official business. This is known as language planning and this process involves some stages. The first one is the "selection" of an official language; the second one is "codification" in which written modes establish the standard variety; the third one is "elaboration" in which this standard variety is developed for use; the fourth stage is "implementation" which is the matter of government attempts to encourage the use of the standard and finally, the "acceptance" stage in which a majority of the population have come to use the standard and to think of it as the national language.
In some areas, the standard chosen may be a variety that originally had no native speakers. It is the case of a language called Pidgin which is developed among groups of people that do do not have a language in common. But when a pidgin becomes the first language of a community, it is described as a Creole. Tok Pisin is an example of it and is spoken in Papua New Guinea. In many situations where creoles evolve, there is a range of linguistic varieties between a creole and a standard form of the lexifier (the main source of words in the pidgin). This range, known as the Post-creole continuum, usually exists in Creole-speaking communities in which the lexifier is still present and continues to have linguistic influence
✭ CHAPTER 19
Social variation in language
By Macarena Carrizo, Luz Fernandez and Eliana González.
