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HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS

Language change

Historical Linguistics

What is now called historical linguistics was developed in the course of the 19 th century. Scholars had long

been aware that languages change with time. They also knew that many of the modern languages of 

Europe were descended, in some sense, from more ancient languages. For example, it was known that

English had developed out of Anglo-Saxon, and that what we now refer to as the Romance languages all

had their origin in Latin. However, until the principles of historical linguistics were established it was not

generally realized that language-change is universal, continuous and, to a very considerable degree,

regular.

Here it may be noted that the universality and continuity of the process of language-change – the fact that

all living languages are subject to change and that the process itself is going on all the time  – was unknown

due to the conservatism of the standard literary languages (the register or dialect that is used in literary

writing) and the prescriptive attitudes of traditional grammar.

The status of Latin is particularly important in this respect. It had been used for centuries in Western

Europe as the language of scholarship, administration and international diplomacy.

By the 19th century Latin was close to being a dead language, but it still enjoyed a prestige that set it apart

from most other languages. And it does so to this day for traditionally minded grammarians.

Literary languages were more highly regarded than non-literary languages and dialects; and any

differences that were noted by grammarians tended to be condemned and attributed to lack of education.

It was only after a great deal of detailed work had been done during the 19th century, in what we may now

think of as the classical period of historical linguistics, from the 1820s to the 1870s, that scholars came to a

better understanding of the relation between written and spoken languages, on the one hand, and between

standard and non-standard languages, on the other.

On the basis of this detailed research and by applying the so-called comparative method, it was

demonstrated that all the great literary languages of Europe had originated as spoken dialects, and also

that their origin and development could only be explained in terms of principles which determine the

acquisition and use of the associated spoken language.

The truth of the matter is that the transformation of one language into another is not sudden, but gradual. It

is largely a matter of convention and arbitrary decision that leads us to divide the history of English into

three periods – Old English (or Anglo-Saxon), Middle English and Modern English –. What is now StandardEnglish is, in the essential features of its phonology, grammar and vocabulary, a descendant of the dialect

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Very often, however, it is not clear whether two words are semantically related or not. It is for this reason

that the comparative method gives priority to relatedness of form. It should also be noted that words may

change their meaning in time and also, for various reasons, fall into disuse or are replaced.

How do we explain these systematic correspondences? The answer given by the 19 th century inventors of 

the comparative method was that the sound-changes which take place in a language in the course of its

history are regular.

Grammarians proclaimed “The sound changes which we can observe in documented linguistic

history proceed according to fixed laws which suffer no disturbance save (except) in accordance

with other laws”. At first sight, the thesis that sound-laws operated without exception was clearly false.

There were many instances of obviously related words which did not exhibit the expected

correspondences.

In 1822, Jacob Grimm pointed out that there is a systematic correspondence between the consonants of 

the Germanic languages and the consonants of other Indo-European languages. The sound law that was

postulated to account for the observed correspondences is generally known as Grimm’s Law.

(a) Proto-Indo-European (PIE) voiced aspirates [*bʰ, *dʰ, *gʰ] became voiced stops [*b, *d, *g] – or possibly

voiced fricatives [*β, *ð, *ɣ] – in Proto-Germanic (PGmc);

(b) PIE voiced stops [*b, *d, *g] became voiceless stops [*p, *t, *k] in PGmc;

(c) PIE voiceless stops [*p, *t, *k] became voiceless fricatives [*f, *θ, *h] in PGmc.

Now, Grimm‟s Law covers a large number of observed correspondences. For example, it accounts for the

fact that English has [f], where Latin, Greek, French, Sanskrit, etc. have [p], for instance: father(English),

pater (Latin), pater (Greek), pitar (Sanskrit); also in foot (English), pedis (Latin), podus (Greek), padas

(Sanskrit).

Even though Grimm‟s Law is supported by an impressively large number of instances of systematic

correspondence, there were many apparent exceptions. For example, the [p] of split, spew corresponds to

a [p] in other languages, in apparent violation of Grimm‟s Law, spuo (Latin), etc. 

More interesting is another class of apparent exceptions. If we take the words for “father” and “brother” in

various Germanic languages other than English, we see that they differ in respect of the medial consonant:

Go. fadar : broθ ar , G. vater : bruder , etc.

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<d> can be represented by either a stop [d] or a fricative [ð], but in any case it is voiced and different from

the voiceless fricative [θ] of the word for “brother”, so the word for “father” appears to be irregular. 

This problem was solved by Verner. He demonstrated that, on the assumption that the PIE words for 

“father” and “brother” were different with respect to the place of the word stress, as they do in Sanskrit (pitar 

: bhratar), the apparent exception *fader could be explained in terms of what is now called Verner’s Law:

intervocalic voiceless fricatives, for example [θ], become voiced unless they are immediately

preceded by the word-stress.

(i) PIE *pətér- : *bʰrater-

(ii) *faθér- : *broθar-

(iii) *faðér- : *broθar-

(iv) PGmc *fader- : *broθar-

Grimm‟s Law is traditionally held to account for the transition from (i) to (ii) and Verner‟s Law for the

transition from (ii) to (iii).

Several other so-called sound-laws were formulated. Taken together, they gave scholars a much better 

idea of the relative chronology of developments within the different branches of the Indo-European family of 

languages. More important, they made the grammarian principle of the regularity of sound-change far more

likely than it would have seemed to an earlier generation of historical linguists.

Language history and change

In 1786, Sir William Jones (a British government official who was working as a judge of the high court in

India) came up with quite a revolutionary idea for that time. By observing the ancient language of Indian law

he thought that many languages coming from very distant geographical places must have some ancestor in

common. However as there were no existing records, the study had to be hypothesized on the basis of 

familiar features existing in records of languages which were believed to be descendants. These type of 

linguistic investigations were carried out for long, and it focuses on the historical development of languages

and attempts to characterize the regular processes which are involved in language change.

Family Trees

During the 19th century, linguists‟ main concern was to study the history of languages (described as

PHILOLOGY) and a new term came into existence to describe the common ancestor. It incorporated the

notion that this was the original form (proto) of a language which was the source of modern languages in

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cultural transmission. Each new generation has to find a way to of using the language of the previous

generation. Each new language-user has to recreate for him or herself the language of the community, and

it is unavoidable to pick up some elements exactly and others only approximately and there also is the

desire to be different. So languages will not remain stable but they will change and vary.

The change of language has been diachronically dealt in this summary that is from the historical

perspective of change through time. The type of variation which can be viewed synchronically, that is in

terms of differences within one language in different places and among different groups at the same time.

Change in Language

Old English

Old English was the West Germanic language spoken in England area during 5 th to 11th centuries. Old

English began to appear in written language in the 8th century. It was fully inflected with five grammatical

cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, and instrumental), three grammatical

numbers (singular, plural, dual) and three grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter). The dual

forms occurred in the first and second persons only and referred to groups of two. Adjectives, pronouns

and (sometimes) participles agreed with their antecedent nouns in case, number and gender. Finite verbs

agreed with their subject in person and number.

Within the Germanic group the family tree looks like this:

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Example of Old English:

Hwæt! Wē Gār -Dena in geārdagum, 

þēodcyninga þrym gefrūnon, 

hū ðā æþelingas ellen fremedon.

Oft Scyld Scēfing sceaþena þrēatum, 

monegum mǣgþum, meodosetla oftēah, 

egsode eorlas. Syððan ǣrest wearð

fēasceaft funden, hē þæs frōfre gebād, 

wēox under wolcnum, weorðmyndum þāh, 

oðþæt him ǣghwylc  þāra ymbsittendra

ofer hronrāde  hȳran scolde, 

gomban gyldan. Þæt wæs gōd cyning!

Translation to modern English:

Lo, praise of the prowess of people-kings

of spear-armed Danes, in days long sped,

we have heard, and what honor the athelings won!

Oft Scyld the Scefing from squadroned foes,

from many a tribe, the mead-bench tore,

awing the earls. Since erst he lay

friendless, a foundling, fate repaid him:

for he waxed under welkin, in wealth he throve,

till before him the folk, both far and near,

who house by the whale-path, heard his mandate,

gave him gifts: a good king he!

The main differences between Old English and modern English are grammatical ones. Old English has

different word order and often the words “a” and “the” are missing. But the biggest difference is the large

number of grammatical endings in Old English. Old English was similar to modern German, because it had

three genders, many different classes of nouns and verbs, as just about as many endings of German.

English had been changing since the day the Angles and the Saxons arrived in Britain about AD 500. Since

then English lost a lot of endings and now it has only few, eg. Dog, dogs, dog‟s, love, loves, loved, loving.

English has gone so far that now it has fewer grammatical endings than any other European language.

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Borrowing

 About 60 per cent of the vocabulary of Old English has disappeared, and been replaced by different words.

Even before the ancestral English- speakers arrived in England they had already borrowed a number of 

words from Latin: wine, soap, church, angel, devil, anchor, butter, cheese, etc. When the English-speakers

first settled in Britain, that country was already occupied by the Celtic-speakers of British, but only a few

Celtic words were taken into English, even though a large number of Celtic place names were adopted into

English: London, Kent, York , etc.

In the 9th century Vikings invaded Britain from Scandinavia and settled in large numbers. English adopted a

big amount of words from it: skirt, window, scrub, sky, skill, scowl, score, skin, etc. The majority of the

words have sk or sc which marks the Scandinavian origin.

In 1066 French-speaking Normans conquered England and French became official language for a couple

centuries. French words adapted to English are mostly from warfare, administration, social organizations

and law spheres: government, castle, service, royal, prince, soldier, chief , etc. As well as from every sphere

of human activity: fry, boil, language, sentence, color, pity, fruit , etc.

By around 1400, English had reasserted its dominion over French in England and the flood of French loans

began to slow down, but the usage of French words never stopped. The reduced rate of borrowing French

words changed into Indian loans, when English-speaking people settled in North America: skunk,

moccasin, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Mississippi, Chicago, etc. Settlers in Australia and New Zealand

borrowed: kangaroo, kiwi, koala, etc. From Dutch English borrowed: boss, brandy, yacht , etc. From

Spanish: patio, mosquito, sherry , etc. Borrowings were adapted also from other languages like German,

Italian, Arabian, Turkish, Chinese, Russian ( perestroika and glasnost ), etc.

Phonetic changes

In the last thousand years not only vocabulary but also phonetics changed. The most important change in

pronunciation is the one with “h”. In Old English “h” was very common consonant, and it could occur in

almost any position in a word, eg. Hiw  – color, hit  – it, hnutu  – nut, hring  – ring , etc. “H” was pronounced in

all these words very vigorously. The time was passing and “h” became less and less usable, especially in

written language. In the USA though pronouncing “h” in the first word marks you as an uneducated person,e.g. Instead of “hotel”, educated people say “‟otel”. In the 19th century “h” began to disappear from all the

words beginning with hw. Dropping of “h” is still continuing and now in England it is said that you can easily

differ middle class from upper class by “h” pronunciation (middle class keep dropping “h” while upper class

sticks to “h”). 

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http://www.omniglot.com/writing/oldenglish.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English_grammar 

http://www.jebbo.co.uk/learn-oe/origins.htm

Bibliography

LYONS, JOHN (1991) Language and Linguistics: An introduction. Cambridge University Press.

YULE, GEORGE (1985-1998) The Study of Language. Cambridge University Press.

Dos Santos, Fernanda

Kleivaite, Sarune

Santolin, Mariana