Chapter 17 language history and change

LANGUAGE HISTORY

AND CHANGE

Chapter 17 – study of the language

George YULE

LINGUISTICS

Carlos Lara

Family trees

The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident.

During the nineteenth century, a term came into use to describe that common ancestor. It incorporated the notion that thiswas the original form(Proto) of a language that was the source of modern languages in the Indian subcontinent (Indo) and in Europe (European).

Language history and change

Proto-Indo-European established as some type of “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 containingmore than 6,000 different individual languages.


Many of these languages are in danger of extinction while a few are expanding. In terms of number of speakers, Chinese has the most native speakers (about 1 billion), while English (about 350 million) is more widely used in different parts of the world.


Family connections One way to get a clearer picture of How they

are related is through looking 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 and brother in Sanskrit, Latin and Ancient Greek, some common features become apparent.


Cognates A cognate of a word in one language (e.g.

English) is a word in another language (e.g. German) that has a similar form and is or was used with a similar meaning. The English words mother, father and friend are cognates of the German words Mutter, Vater and Freund.

By the same process, we can look at similar sets in Spanish (madre, padre, amigo) and Italian (madre, padre, amico) and conclude that these cognates are good evidence of a common ancestor in the Italic branch of Indo-European.


Comparative reconstruction

Using information from these sets of cognates, we can embark on a procedure called comparative reconstruction. The aim of this procedure is to reconstruct what must have been the original or “proto” form in the common ancestral language.

The majority principle is very straightforward. 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 (i.e. [p]).


The most natural development principle is based on the fact that certain types of sound change are very common whereas others are extremely unlikely. The direction of change described in each case (1)–(4) has been commonly observed, but the reverse has not.

(1) Final vowels often disappear (vino → vin)(2) Voiceless sounds become voiced, typically between vowels (muta → muda)(3) Stops become fricatives (ripa → riva)(4) Consonants become voiceless at the end of words (rizu → ris)


Sound reconstruction f we were faced with some examples from three

languages, as shown below, we could make a start on comparative reconstruction by deciding what was the most likely form of the initial sound in the original source of all three.


Since the written forms can often be misleading, we check that the initial sounds of the words in languages A and B are all [k] sounds, while in language C the initial sounds are all [ʃ] sounds.

Through this type of procedure we have started on the comparative reconstruction of the common origins of some words in Italian (A), Spanish (B) and French (C).

In this case, we have a way of checking our reconstruction because the common origin for these three languages is known to be Latin.


Word reconstruction Looking at a non-Indo-European set of

examples, we can imagine receiving the following data from a linguist recently returned from an expedition to a remote region of the Amazon.


Using the majority principle, we can suggest that the older forms will most likely be based on language 2 or language 3. If this is correct, then the consonant changes must have been [p] → [b], [t] → [d] and [k] → [ɡ] in order to produce the later forms in language 1. There is a pattern in these changes that follows one part of the “most natural development principle,” i.e. voiceless sounds become voiced between vowels. So, the words in languages 2 and 3 must be older forms than those in language 1.


The history of English The older letters þ (called “thorn”) and ð (“eth”)

were both replaced by “th” (as in þu→thou, eorðan→earth), and æ (“ash”) simply became “a” (as in to dæg → today). To see how one language has undergone substantial changes through time, we can take a brief look at the history of English, which is traditionally divided into four periods.

Old English: before 1100 Middle English: 1100 to 1500

Early Modern English: 1500 to 1700 Modern English: after 1700


Old English

we have the term Anglo-Saxons to describe these people, and from the name of the first tribe that we get the word for their language Englisc andtheirnewhome Engla-land.

From this early version of Englisc, now called Old English, we have many of the most basic terms in the language: mann (“man”), wı ¯f (“woman”), cild (“child”), hu ¯s (“house”), mete (“food”), etan (“eat”), drincan (“drink”) and feohtan (“fight”).

They were the Vikings and it is from their language, Old Norse, that the original forms of give, law, leg, skin, sky, take and theywere adopted. It is fromtheir winter festival jo ´l that we have Yule as a term for the Christmas season.


Middle English the language of the peasants remained English.

The peasants worked on the land and reared sheep, cows and swine (words from Old English) while the upper classes talked about mutton, beef and pork (words of French origin). Hence the different terms in modern English to refer to these creatures “on the hoof” as opposed to “on the plate.”

Throughout this period, French (or, more accurately, an English version of French) was the prestige language and Chaucer tells us that one of his Canterbury pilgrims could speak it.


he was cleped Madame Eglentyne Ful wel she song the service dyvyne, Entuned in her nose ful semely, And Frenche she spak ful faire and fetisly.

Most significantly, the vowel sounds of Chaucer’s timewere very different fromthose we hear in similar words today. Chaucer lived in what would have sounded like a “hoos,” with his “weef,” and “hay” might drink a bottle of “weena” with “heer” by the light of the “mona.”

The effects of this general raising of long vowel sounds (such as [oː] moving up to [uː], as in mo ¯na→moon) made the pronunciation of Early Modern English, beginning around 1500, significantly different from earlier periods.


Sound changes sound loss: a sound change in which a particular

sound is no longer used in a language (e.g. the velar fricative [x], in Scottish loch, but not in Modern English).

The initial [h] of many Old English words was lost, as in hlud → loud and hlaford →lord. Some words lost sounds, but kept the spelling, resulting in the “silent letters” of contemporary written English.

Another example is a velar fricative [x] that was used in the older pronunciation of nicht as [nɪxt] (closer to the Modern German pronunciation of Nacht), but is absent in the contemporary formnight, as [naɪt].


The sound change known as metathesis involves a reversal in position of two sounds in a word. This type of reversal is illustrated in the changed versions of these words from their earlier forms.

acsian → ask frist → first brinnan → beornan (burn)bridd → bird hros → horse wæps → wasp

The reversal of position in metathesis can sometimes occur between non-adjoinin sounds. The Spanish word palabra is derived from the Latin parabola through th reversal of the [l] and [r] sounds.


Another type of sound change, known as epenthesis, involves the addition of a sound to the middle of a word.

æmtig → empty spinel → spindle timr → timber

The addition of a [p] sound after the nasal [m], as in empty, can also be heard in some speakers’ pronunciation of something as “sumpthing.”


One other type of sound change worth noting, though not found in English, occurs in the development of other languages. It involves the addition of a sound to the beginning of a word and is called prothesis. It is a common feature in the evolution of some forms from Latin to Spanish, as in these examples.

schola → escuela (“school”) spiritus → espı´ritu (“spirit”)

Spanish speakers who are starting to learn English as a second language will sometimes put a prothetic vowel at the beginning of some English words, with the result that words like strange and story may sound like “estrange” and “estory.”


Syntactic changes we find the Subject-Verb-Object order most

common in Modern English, but we can also find a number of different orders that are no longer used.

For example, the subject could follow the verb, as in ferde he (“he traveled”), and the object could be placed before the verb, as in he hine geseah (“he saw him”), or at the beginning of the sentence, as in him man ne sealde (“no man gave [any] to him”).

and ne sealdest þu¯ me næfre a¯ n ticcen and not gave you me never a kid


Semantic changes Less obviously, many words have ceased to be

used. Sincewe no longer carry swords (most of us, at least), theword foin, meaning “the thrust of a sword,” is no longer heard.

A common Old English word for “man” was were, but it has fallen out of use, except in horror films where the compound werewolf occasionally appears.

A number of expressions such as lo, verily or egad are immediately recognized as belonging to a much earlier period, along with certain medieval-sounding names such as Bertha, Egbert and Percival.


An example of broadening of meaning is the change from holy day as a religious feast to the very general break from work called a holiday. We have broadened the use of foda (fodder for animals) to talk about all kinds of food.

Old English words such as luflic (“loving”) and hræd (“quick”) not only went through sound changes, they also developed more complex evaluative meanings (“wonderful” and “preferentially”), as in their modern uses: That’s a lovely idea, but I’d rather have dinner at home tonight.


The reverse process, called narrowing, has overtaken the Old English word hund, once used for any kind of dog, but now, as hound, used only for some specific breeds.

Another example is mete, once used for any kind of food, which has in its modern form meat become restricted to only some specific types.

A different kind of narrowing can lead to a negative meaning for some words, such as vulgar (which used to mean simply “ordinary”) and naughty (which used to mean “having nothing”).


Diachronic and synchronic variation Each new generation has to find a way of using

the language of the previous generation. In this unending process whereby each individual child has to “recreate” the language of the community, there is an unavoidable propensity to pick up some elements exactly and others only approximately.

There is also the occasional desire to be different. Given this tenuous transmission process, it should be expected that languages will not remain stable and that change and variation are inevitable.


Study Questions 1 What are cognates?Cognates are words in different languages that are similar in form and meaning.

2 How would you group the following languages into pairs which are closely related from a historical point of view: Bengali, Breton, Czech, English, French, Kurdish, Pashto, Portuguese, Swedish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Welsh?

Bengali and Urdu; Breton and Welsh; Czech and Ukrainian; English and Swedish; French and Portuguese; Kurdish and Pashto


3 On the basis of the following data, what are the most likely proto-forms?

Most likely proto-forms: cosa, capo, capra (initial [k], voiceless [p] voiced [b])


4 Which of the following words are likely to be from Old English and which from French: bacon, beef, calf, deer, ox, pig, veal, venison?

From Old English: calf, deer, ox, pig. From French: bacon, beef, veal, venison

5 What types of sound changes are illustrated by the following pairs?

(a) thridda → third (b) scribere → escribir (c) glimsian → glimpse (d) hring → ring (e) slummer → slumber (f) beorht → bright(a) metathesis (b) prothesis (c) epenthesis (d) sound loss (e) epenthesis (f) metathesis


6 The Old English verb steorfan (“to die, from any cause”) is the source of the Modern English verb starve (“to die, from lack of food”). What is the technical term used to describe this type of meaning change?

Narrowing of meaning


tasks A- We can often trace the roots of several

different words in Modern English back to a single Indo-European form. Using what you learned in this chapter, can you complete the following chart, using the words provided, to illustrate several English word histories?

corage, coraticum, cord, cordialis, heorte, herton, kardia, kardiakos, kerd


B Which of these languages cannot be included in the Indo-European family tree? To which other language families do they belong? Catalan, Chamorro, Faroese, Georgian, Hebrew, Hungarian, Marathi, Serbian, Tamil, Turkish.

Four of the languages can be included in the Indo-European family tree, with their branches in brackets: Catalan (Italic), Faroese (Germanic), Marathi (Indic) and Serbian (Slavic). The others, with their family trees in brackets are: Chamorro (Austronesian), Georgian (Caucasian), Hebrew (Semitic or Afro-Asiatic), Hungarian (Uralic or Finno-Ugric), Tamil (Dravidian) and Turkish (Altaic).


C A Danish linguist, Rasmus Rask, and a German writer more famous for fairy tales, Jacob Grimm, both working in the early nineteenth century, are credited with the original insights that became known as “Grimm’s Law.” What is Grimm’s Law and how does it account for the different initial sounds in pairs of cognates such as these from French and English (deux / two, trois / three) and these from Latin and English (pater / father, canis / hound, genus / kin)?

Grimm’s Law Indo-European consonants underwent a series of regular sound changes in the development of the Germanic branch that did not happen in the Italic branch (and other branches). As a descendant of the Germanic branch, English has a number of words that show the results of the sound changes when compared to French and Latin words (both in the Italic branch). Grimm’s Law is essentially a small set of rules that show how most of those changes took place in a regular pattern. Voiceless stops such as [p], [t] and [k] became voiceless fricatives [f], [θ] and [h] in the Germanic branch, but not in the Italic branch, as illustrated by the pairs pater/father, tres/three and canis/hound. Voiced stops such as [d] and [ɡ] became voiceless stops [t] and [k], as in the pairs duo/two and genus/kin. These are examples of the regular patterns of change described by Grimm’s Law and can still be found in the differences between first consonants of the French/English cognates deux/two and trois/three. The basic set of changes is presented here, with Indo-European consonants on the left and Germanic consonants on the right. voiceless stops /p, t, k/ voiceless fricatives /f, θ, h/ voiced stops /b, d, g/ voiceless stops /p, t, k/ voiced aspirated stops /bh, dh, gh/ voiced stops /b, d, g/ The circular nature of these sound change rules is considered to be a good feature.


D What happens in the process of change known as “grammaticalization”? Can you find out how the grammaticalization process made it possible for the English verb forms go and will to be used in sentences such as I’m gonna be late and I’ll be at work until six?

In historical studies, grammaticalization is the process by which a form with lexical meaning (a lexical morpheme) develops into one with grammatical function (a grammatical or inflectional morpheme).


E Describe what happened in any documented case of “language death.”

One of the most detailed accounts of language death involves the (near) demise of Gaelic in northern Scotland. Although it has undergone a revival in recent years and is taught as a second language in many Scottish schools, Gaelic became a language with fewer and fewer native speakers. Until the eighteenth century, Scottish Gaelic was spoken throughout the northern areas and in the western islands. An unfortunate combination of failed rebellions and economic changes led to a large-scale displacement of the Gaelic-speaking population during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.


F These four versions of the same biblical event (Matthew 26: 73) are presentedin Campbell (2004) as a way of illustrating some changes in the history of English. Can you describe the changes in vocabulary and grammar?

(i) Modern English (1961) Shortly afterwards the bystanders came up and said to Peter, “Surely you are another of them; your accent gives you away!”

(ii) Early Modern English (1611) And after a while came vnto him they that stood by, and saide to Peter,Surely thou also art one of them, for thy speech bewrayeth thee.

(iii) Middle English (1395) And a litil aftir, thei that stooden camen, and seiden to Petir, treuli thou art of hem; for thi speche makith thee knowun.

(iv) Old English (1050) þa æfter lytlum fyrste gene¯ alæton þa ðe þær stodon, cwædon to petre. Soðlice þu eart of hym, þyn spræc þe gesweotolað. (Literally: “then after little first approached they that there stood, said to Peter. Truly thou art of them, thy speech thee makes clear”)


1 Among the changes in vocabulary we can first note the loss of certain letters that were used in writing Old English (O.E.) words. The letters þ (“thorn”), ð (“eth”) and æ (“ash”) are not used in the examples after the O.E. period.

2 Some O.E. words, in the left column below, have been completely replaced by other forms. genēalæton camen came came cwædon seiden saide said soðlice treuli surely surely gesweotolað makith ... knowun bewrayeth gives ... away 3 The O.E. verb spræc is similar to Modern German Sprache (“speech, language”), but lost the “r” element among other sound changes before it became the modern English form in speech.

4 Words related to second person (you) illustrate a series of changes. þu thou thou you (subject) þyn thi thy your (possessive) þe thee thee you (object) 5 Words related to third person plural (they) also change. þa thei they hym hem them them


6 A number of inflections disappear. These examples show the O.E. third person plural ending (-on) as it changes then disappears. genēalæton camen came came stodon stooden stood cwædon seiden saide said Also, the third person singular ending (-að) changes. gesweotolað makith bewrayeth gives 76 Also, the second person singular ending (-rt) changes. eart art art are Also, the O.E. inflectional ending (-um) on nouns after prepositions like “æfter”, as in “æfter lytlum”, doesn’t survive into the other versions.

7 The relative pronoun form (that, who, whom,which in modern English) had a quite different form in O.E.: ðe that that

8 Word-order preferences also changed. In the O.E. version, after the initial time phrase, the subject (þa) is placed after the verb (genēalæton). This type of inversion was much more common in O.E. writing. This syntactic structure is also used in the Early Modern version (came ... they), but not in the Middle English or Modern English versions. It is rare, but not impossible, for a subject to be placed after a verb in Modern English (e.g. Into the room came two large men in black uniforms. Never had I seen such a pair of huge brutes before.)


Education

Chapter 17 language history and change