Historical Linguistics: Language Change and Evolution

Posted on Jan 31, 2025 in English Studies. Language, Literature, and Culture

Topic 1: Historical Linguistics

1. What Historical Linguistics (HL) Is Not

HL is not concerned with the history of linguistics, though it has played an important role in the development of linguistics. Its main aim is not to unravel the ultimate origin of human language and how it may have evolved. Historical Linguistics’ theory and methods are, nevertheless, very relevant to corroborate theories of language evolution. Historical Linguistics is not about determining or preserving what are the correct and pure forms of language, or attempting to prevent language change (this would be a puristic attitude/movement, which normally associated language change with decay, corruption, and degeneration). Historical Linguistics is not prescriptive, but descriptive (it studies what, how, and why languages change).

2. What Is Historical Linguistics (HL) About?

It is a linguistic discipline that deals with language change, that is, with how and why languages change over time. Historical linguistics is also called diachronic linguistics (δια- “through” + χρόνος “time”). On the other hand, a synchronic approach (from Greek συν- “together” and χρόνος “time”) considers a language at a moment in time without taking its history into account. Synchronic linguistics aims at describing a language at a specific point in time, usually the present. Historical Linguistics, therefore, is contrasted with synchronic linguistics, which deals with language at a single point in time.

But, does synchrony really exist? It is difficult to determine which grammar we have learned in English lessons, which English, whose English (AmE? BrE?) — Synchrony is an idealization: language is complex and dynamic, ever-changing and characterized by variety (regional, social, stylistic, determined by age, gender, etc.). Within synchrony we find chaos, variety; order/paths… Therefore, we could say that synchrony and diachrony overlap, so variation and change are two sides of the same reality.

3. A Brief History of Historical Linguistics

(From the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century). The main periods of the development of Historical Linguistics as a discipline are:

1) End of the 19th century: It appeared thanks to the study of the Neogrammarians. It was a discipline that aimed at establishing relationships among languages of the world and reconstructing a common ancestor of European languages. Then, Linguistics is born through comparison of cognate words: those that have a common etymological origin.

2) From the 1930s to 1970s: structuralism and generativism. They saw language as autonomous, abstract, static, and homogeneous. A special emphasis was placed upon synchrony vs. diachrony, language vs. parole, structure vs. meaning, synchronic vs. autonomous approach.

3) From the 1970s till today: There are Functional and Cognitive approaches to language. Diachrony is the main approach to study language, and it is used by sociolinguistics, pragmatics, psycholinguistics, cultural linguistics, etc. Thus, the approach to language is, again, dynamic and integrating. Today, Historical Linguistics is at the center of the linguistic research, not only checking the findings of other linguistic disciplines but also corroborating them.

Difference between sociolinguistics and cognitive linguistics:

• Cognitive Linguistics: It explains not only how language is acquired, created, and changes but also how the brain works (semantic categories, meanings, forming radial networks, organized by the neuronal system). WHY LANGUAGE CHANGES.
• Sociolinguistics: It claims that language/linguistic systems do not change; it is real speakers who spread the changes and make them evolve since they adapt them to their necessities (depending on the historical period, as we shall see). HOW LANGUAGE CHANGES.

4. Reasons for Studying Historical Linguistics

• To understand the reason underlying Present-Day English irregularities.
• To find out where words come from.
• To understand literature: Shakespeare’s ‘imperfect’ rhymes, style…
• To understand linguistic acquisition strategies = mechanisms language change.
• To promote interdisciplinary approaches, integrate knowledge.
• To help eradicate deep-rooted misconceptions/prejudices about language.
• Better vs. worse languages.
• Written vs. spoken language.
• Standard vs. non-standard.
• To promote tolerance and raise awareness on immediate social and linguistic context, language policies, perspectivism, one’s and others’ varieties.
• To promote awareness and appreciation of differences, variety, HL gives a more realistic view of language and society, preventing self-centered, official approaches often leading to manipulation.

5. The Main Aims of Historical Linguistics

The main aims of Historical Linguistics (that will be studied throughout this course) are:

• To understand how and why language changes as a universal process, with special reference to English.
• To become familiar with the most important semantic, morphosyntactic, and phonological processes of language change before applying them to English.
• To become familiar with the methodology and tools of Historical Linguistics.
• To familiarize with the origins of English as a Germanic and Indo-European language.
• To become familiar with the socio-historical backgrounds of English to understand its linguistic evolution and prestige (a highly heterogeneous linguistic community from Germanic times till today).
• To eliminate the linguistic/ social prejudices and accept language change as a natural, non-stoppable process which can be scientifically explained.

Topic 2: How Do Languages Change?

1. The Ever-Whirling Wheel

Language, like everything else in this universe, changes. As the German philosopher-linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt noted in 1836: ‘There can never be a moment of true standstill in language, just as little as in the ceaseless flaming thought of men. By nature it is a continuous process of development.’ Even the simplest and most colloquial English of several hundred years ago sounds remarkably strange to us. Take the work of Robert Mannyng, who wrote a history of England in the mid-fourteenth century. He claimed that he made his language as simple as he could so that ordinary people could understand it, yet it is barely comprehensible to the average person today:

In symple speche as I couthe,
That is lightest in mannes mouthe.
I mad noght for no disours,
Ne for no seggers, no harpours,
Bot for the luf of symple men
That strange Inglis can not ken.

Language, then, like everything else, gradually transforms itself over the centuries. As Saussure noted: ‘Time changes all things: there is no reason why language should escape this universal law.’ In spite of this, large numbers of intelligent people condemn and resent language change, regarding alterations as due to unnecessary sloppiness, laziness, or ignorance. Letters are written to newspapers and indignant articles are published, all deploring the fact that words acquire new meanings and new pronunciations.

There are three possibilities of language change:

1) The first possibility is slow decay, as was frequently suggested in the nineteenth century. Many scholars were convinced that European languages were on the decline because they were gradually losing their old word-endings.

2) The second possibility: languages might be slowly evolving to a more efficient state. We might be witnessing the survival of the fittest, with existing languages adapting to the needs of the times. The lack of a complicated word-ending system in English might be a sign of streamlining and sophistication, as argued by the Danish linguist Otto Jespersen in 1922:

In the evolution of languages the discarding of old flexions goes hand in hand with the development of simpler and more regular expedients that are rather less liable than the old ones to produce misunderstanding.

3) A third possibility is a partial position between progress or decay. This is the view of the Belgian linguist Joseph Vendryes, who claimed that ‘Progress in the absolute sense is impossible, just as it is in morality or politics. It is simply that different states exist, succeeding each other, each dominated by certain general laws imposed by the equilibrium of the forces with which they are confronted. So it is with language.’

1.1. The Search of Purity

Against this background, two powerful social factors combined to convert a normal mild nostalgia for the language of the past into a quasi-religious doctrine. The first was a long-standing admiration for Latin, and the second was powerful class snobbery.

It was taught in schools, and Latin grammar was used as a model for the description of all other languages. This had three direct effects on attitudes towards language:

• Desire for a “Correct” Form: The belief in a fixed, “correct” form of language, influenced by the study of Latin, was extended to English.
• Written vs. Spoken Language: Latin’s dominance as a written language led to the idea that written language was superior to spoken.
• English’s “Decline” from Latin: English was seen as inferior for losing Latin’s noun and verb endings, with languages like Latin considered more “complete.”
• Resistance to Change: Edward Sapir criticized the persistent attachment to Latin’s form, likening it to an unrealistic ideal in evolution, showing the irrationality of such views.

However, there were other eighteenth-century purists whose influence may have equaled that of Johnson. The most notable of these was Robert Lowth, Bishop, who wrote A Short Introduction to English Grammar. He set out to put matters right by laying down ‘rules’:

• Prepositions at the End of Sentences: It’s thought that prepositions should not end sentences.
• Pronoun Usage: The phrase “wiser than I” is considered more “correct” than “wiser than me” by some.
• Double Negatives: The belief that double negatives are wrong persists, despite their use in various English dialects without hindering understanding (e.g., “I didn’t know nothin'”).

Purism, then, does not necessarily make language ‘purer’. Nor does it always favor the older form, merely the most socially prestigious- has its origin in a natural nostalgic tendency, supplemented and intensified by social pressures.

The sum total of the rules found in any one language is known as a grammar, a term that refers to: first, the rules applied subconsciously by the speakers of a language; secondly, a linguist’s conscious attempt to codify these rules. The term grammar is commonly used nowadays by linguists to cover the whole of a language: the phonology (sound patterns), the syntax (word patterns), and the semantics (meaning patterns). An important subdivision within syntax is morphology, which deals with the organization of segments of words as in kind-ness, kind-ly, un-kind, and so on.

Topic 3: Attitudes Towards Language Change

Throughout history, older and more conservative speakers have objected to changes in the language whenever they have noticed them. These attitudes are still with us today, but they rarely have much effect on the development of the language. Consider the following sentence: Hopefully we’ll arrive in time for lunch. Do you regard this as perfectly normal English, or do you find it strange or worse? In fact, the vast majority of English speakers, especially younger speakers, undoubtedly regard such sentences as perfectly normal and would not hesitate to use them in spontaneous conversation. But some English speakers take a very different view. The problem, for these other speakers, is the way in which the word hopefully is used in the above example. Until not so many years ago, it was simply impossible to use this word in the particular way illustrated above: an English speaker would have had to say something like I hope we’ll arrive in time for lunch. But around 1970 this new use of hopefully began to occur in British English, after establishing itself a few years earlier in the United States. My example sentence therefore represents a change in English, an innovation which took place only about a quarter of a century ago. And this innovation has not been well received by everyone.

2.1. The Missing Evidence

There is a set of underlying rules which people who know a language subconsciously follow, the sum total of which constitutes a grammar. This statement implies that it is, in principle, possible for a linguist to write a perfect grammar, to formulate a complete set of rules which will account for all the well-formed sentences of a language and reject all the ill-formed ones. In practice, this optimistic aim faces a number of problems involving language variation on the one hand, and language fuzziness on the other.

Language variation:

• Geography (regions)
• Social
• Individual (gender, age)
• Style
• Group membership

1) Language variation:

• The most obvious type is geographical variation. Everybody is aware that people from different geographical areas are likely to display differences in their speech. The grammatical rules of a language are likely to alter slightly from region to region.
• The other type is social variation: As we move from one social class to another, we are likely to come across the same type of alterations as from region to region, but these co-exist within a single area.
• Variations in style in the speech of individual speakers. Almost all speakers of a language alter their speech depending on the formality of the occasion, though they are often unaware of doing so. Variations not only occur in pronunciation but also in syntax and vocabulary. Contractions such as wanna, I’d, we’ve, ain’t are likely to be common in casual situations, but replaced by want to, I would, we have, haven’t in more formal ones. Thus, variations in style happen according to the needs of the occasion. In brief, it is normal for speakers to have a variety of different forms in their repertoire, and to vary them according to the needs of the occasion.
• Variations related to group membership: Friend members tend to use codes, different forms of communication to distinguish themselves from other social groups.

2) Language fuzziness:

Due to the constant use of sentences, vocabulary by a wide range of different speakers sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between well-formed and ill-formed sentences. Because of its use, language changes, new words appear, new constructions, etc. Therefore, the aim of descriptive linguistics is to write a set of rules that tell us which sequences of language are permissible and which are not. However, language changes and varies, and sometimes it is difficult to establish clear-cut rules to know how to speak properly. Human language is not static.

1.2. Charting Fluctuations in Language

Linguists have always ignored changes in language, and those fluctuations were often indications that language was changing. This was firstly recognized William Labov, an American at the University of Pennsylvania. He suggested that linguistic differences between the speech of different generations meant a difference in the speakers’ use of language (we do not speak in the same way as our grandparents). He demonstrated that language fluctuations exist according to some statistic studies he did. For example, he studied the pronunciation of the r in New York speech. After two statistic experiments he discovered that it was a matter of social status. The higher ones pronounced it and the lower ones not. This is one of the linguistic variables (that change depending different factors, such as socio-economic status) that he investigated.

Labov made a preliminary check on his hunch that New York r was related to social status by an ingenious and amusing method. He checked the speech of sales people in a number of New York stores. Sociologists have found that salesgirls in large department stores subconsciously mimic their customers, particularly when the customers have relatively high social status. Labov hoped, therefore, that if he picked three Manhattan department stores from the top, middle, and bottom of the price and fashion range, the sales people would reflect this social pattern in the pronunciation or non-pronunciation of r in their speech. Therefore, he picked first Saks Fifth Avenue, which is near the center of the high-fashion shopping district. It is a spacious store with carpeted floors, and on the upper floors very few goods on display. His second store was the middle-ranking Macy’s, which is regarded as a middle-class, middle-priced store. His third was Klein’s, a cheap store seemingly cluttered with goods, not far from the Lower East Side – a notoriously poor area. Compared with Saks, Klein’s was a maze of annexes, sloping concrete floors, low ceilings – it has the maximum amount of goods displayed at the least possible expense. Comparative prices also showed the difference: women’s coats in Saks cost on average over three times as much as women’s coats in Klein’s, while prices in Macy’s were about twice as high as those in Klein’s.

The technique used was surprisingly simple. Labov pretended to be a customer. He approached one of the staff and asked to be directed to a particular department, which was located on the fourth floor. For example, ‘Excuse me, where are the women’s shoes?’ When the answer was given, he then leaned forward as if he had not heard properly, and said ‘Excuse me?’ This normally led to a repetition of the words ‘Fourth floor’, only this time spoken more carefully and with emphatic stress. As soon as he has received these answers, Labov then hastily moved out of sight and made a note of the pronunciation, recording also other factors such as the sex, approximate age, and race of the shop assistant. In this way, 264 interviews were carried out in the three stores. As Labov had hypothesized, there was an interesting variation in the use of r in each store: the overall percentage of r-inclusion was higher in Saks than in Macy’s and higher in Macy’s than in Klein’s. And, interestingly, the overall percentage of r-inclusion was higher on the upper floors at Saks than the ground floor.

His results suggested that there is social stratification in New York which is reflected in language: the higher socio-economic groups tend to insert r in words such as beard, bear, car, card, while the lower groups tend to omit it. But what evidence is there that an actual change is taking place? An interesting pointer that a change was occurring was the difference between the casual speech and the emphatic speech in the data from Klein’s. At Klein’s, there was a significantly higher proportion of rs inserted in the more careful, emphatic repetition of ‘fourth floor’, than in the original casual response to Labov’s query. It seemed as if these assistants had at least two styles of speech: a casual style, in which they did not consciously think about what they said, and a more careful, formal style in which they tried to insert elements which they felt were socially desirable.

Labov suggested, then, that the reinsertion of r was an important characteristic of a new prestige pattern which was being superimposed upon the native New York pattern. This is supported by descriptions of New York speech in the early part of the century, which suggest that r was virtually absent at this time – a fact observable in films made in New York in the 1930s. A follow-up study to Labov’s department-store survey was carried out over twenty years later. This found more examples of r overall, but the same general pattern. As in the original study, more examples of r were found in Saks than in Macy’s, and more in Macy’s than in May’s, a lower class department store which in the new study replaced Klein’s, which no longer existed. But the percentage of speakers who used r all the time had increased in all three stores. The greatest increase was in Saks, the highest status store, and the lowest in May’s.

Labov’s methods are now widely used for studying change in progress. They have also been extended to old documents, where change within different styles can be examined due to him being the one claiming that fluctuations exist and that they are the reason why languages change. However, there are two problems with large-scale investigations of the type conducted in New York by Labov. First, they give more information about formal than casual speech, because people tend to be extra polite in interviews with strangers. Second, they imply that society is a fairly simple layer-cake with upper class, middle class, and working class heaped on top of one another. In practice, humans are more like stars than sponge-cakes, since they group themselves into loose-knit clusters. Study of these social networks can reveal the intricate interlacing of human contacts. Potentially, they can show who influences who. So ideally, broad, outline surveys need to be supplemented by smaller-scale studies of speech within networks. Social networks vary in density. Sometimes they are close-knit, when the same group of people live, work, and spend their free time together. Or they can be loose-knit, as with neighbors who chat occasionally, colleagues who meet only at work, or a choir which gets together once a week for singing practice. Quite often a person is most closely associated with one network but has weaker links with several others. All these links potentially affect a person’s language.

Spreading the Word (from Person to Person)

Key Concept: Language Change Spread – Language changes spread socially, often through imitation or adaptation, and this process can be either conscious or unconscious. William Labov’s research on New York City’s /r/-insertion and Martha’s Vineyard’s vowel changes are classic examples.

Conscious vs. Unconscious Change: Changes can be consciously adopted or subconsciously absorbed, influencing how they spread.

3.1. New York City

Hypercorrection: Lower-middle-class New Yorkers over-insert /r/ in careful speech (in words like “bear” and “beard”) as a way of signaling social mobility and prestige.

Historical Context: New York City originally lost the /r/ sound, but it was reintroduced by the middle of the 20th century, possibly due to a shift toward American identity during WWII.

3.2. Martha’s Vineyard

Key Concept: Social Group Influence – Language change spreads from specific social groups, often through imitation and exaggeration.

Vowel Shift: Islanders, particularly fishermen, developed distinct diphthongs which were adopted by other social groups as a sign of local pride and resistance to outsiders.

Stages of Change:

1. Speech features of one group differ from the standard.
2. Another group adopts these features as a marker of social solidarity.
3. The feature becomes the norm.
4. The process repeats across age and ethnic groups.

This was an unconscious change.

4. Conflicting Loyalties

Key Concept: Prestige in Language – Language choice is influenced by overt prestige (standard, prestigious dialects) and covert prestige (non-standard, often working-class speech). Societies often stigmatize non-standard speech as inferior, but some individuals resist this by valuing their local dialect.

Bidialectalism: Some speakers maintain proficiency in both standard and non-standard dialects, balancing social expectations and community belonging.

Self-Identification: People choose language based on social identity, ethnicity, and group membership, often linked to cultural pride.

4.1. Walkin’ and Talkin’ in Norwich

Key Concept: Gender and Prestige – In Norwich, the pronunciation of “-ing” as [-n] (e.g., “walkin'”) reflects a social division where men gravitate toward non-standard forms with covert prestige, and women gravitate toward standard forms with overt prestige.

Status and Conformity: Women tend to align with prestige forms due to a greater awareness of social status, while men maintain non-standard forms, associated with toughness and masculinity.

4.2. Wat Grawss and Bawd Nacks in Belfast

Key Concept: Linguistic Accommodation – Language change can spread through accommodation, where speakers modify their speech to align with others. In Belfast, vowel changes (e.g., “Grawss” instead of “grass”) spread from working-class Protestant men to Catholic women through social interactions.

Changes like these demonstrate both linguistic and social factors at play in language spread.

4.3. We Knows How to Talk in Reading

Key Concept: Maintaining Tradition – In Reading, adolescents use non-standard forms like “I knows” and “you knows,” which are relics of older English dialects. This non-standard usage is not a new innovation but a preservation of linguistic tradition.

4.4. Jocks vs. Burnouts

Key Concept: Linguistic Style and Identity – At Belten High, two groups of teenagers (Jocks and Burnouts) adopt different linguistic styles to create social identity and distinguish themselves from others.

Innovators: Female Burnouts lead the adoption of non-standard linguistic features (e.g., vowel shifts). The study shows how linguistic style reflects social identity and group dynamics.

4.5. Spatial Diffusion

Key Concept: Geographical Diffusion – The spread of language change across geographical spaces is complex, and not all linguistic changes diffuse uniformly across regions. Linguistic changes depend on a variety of demographic processes and social motives, complicating the study of language spread.

4.6. Summarizing the Spread

Key Concept: Social Phenomenon – The spread of language changes reflects social dynamics and group membership.

Changes are usually based on prestige and can be both conscious (toward prestigious forms) and subconscious (away from prestigious forms).

Diffusion: Language changes spread through social groups, often by people imitating those they wish to align with.

Tug-of-War: Conflicts can arise when new changes clash with established norms, and this can cause changes to be delayed or contested.

Language as Social Marker: Language change is a marker of social belonging and identity, showing how changes are socially motivated and tied to prestige.

Overt vs. Covert prestige:

• Overt prestige: positive, high value attributed to varieties or languages widely recognized as prestigious among speakers.
• Covert prestige: positive evaluation given to non-standard varieties or low-status, dialectical forms of speech.

Topic 4: Why Do Languages Change?

Universal Processes of Language Change

1. How Change Spreads Through Language

All sound changes, as mechanical processes, take place according to laws with no exceptions implying that sound changes were controlled, as it were, by a master switch which altered the sound in question to the same extent in all the words concerned, automatically and simultaneously. But we find variation: same speaker pronouncing differently even in same utterance. Changes need to be looked at while they are happening, not after. The process is like that of leaves falling off a tree, but the image of leaves falling off trees may oversimplify the situation: it implies that a change happens in definite steps.

2. Why Do Languages Change?

Language change has been attributed to a bewildering variety of factors ranging over almost every aspect of human life: consonant changes begin in mountain regions due to the intensity of expiration in high altitudes (Danish??). Part of the problem is that there are several different causative factors at work, not only in language as a whole but also in any one change. A language change may have multiple causes; there is a combination of factors, all of which contribute to the overall disaster: Findings from psycholinguistics, functional-cognitive models, language acquisition… Two main groups: sociolinguistic & psycholinguistic.

1. Sociolinguistic: Coming from relationship «language-society«.
2. Psycholinguistic: Coming from relationship between language and cognition & communication.

1) Substratum theory: It is normally produced by invasions (Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Germanic Tribes), which originally had Celtic features. Celtic thus influenced English and Anglo-Saxon. It had a small influence and left traces in those languages. However, there always remained the language of the dominants. Another example is the influence of South-American variation on present-day American English. With words like taco, tortilla, guacamole. In this sense, subdued languages influenced powerful ones.

2) Superstratum theory: like Latin, which developed into Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese. Actual English influences all languages in the world.

3) Adstratum theory: linguistic alliance. Different languages of the same social level that influence each other.

1. Sociolinguistic Causes

2. Social Need for Language Change.

The reasons for a social need for language change are:

1. Speakers stop using words because they no longer need them.
2. Changes in society.
3. Non-sexist use of language.
4. Language manipulation: for difficult political and social issues.

2. Fashion and Random Fluctuation.

It has been demonstrated that language does not change randomly, as some linguistic have suggested in the last decades. The reasons are the following:

1. Language changes follow a well-organized pattern.
2. If language were purely governed by fashion, we would not expect so many different languages to hit on the same whims of fashion.
3. There seem to be constraints concerning which elements can change in a language. There are “weak spots” in a language structure that are likely to change, and “stable elements” that remain unchangeable.

For these reasons, the majority of linguists regard fashion changes as a triggering factor, something that may set off a tendency whose deeper causes lie hidden beneath the surface.

3. Foreign Bodies.

According to some people, the majority of changes are due to the infiltration of foreign elements. Perhaps the most widespread version of this view is the so-called substratum theory, the suggestion that when immigrants come to a new area, or when an indigenous population learns the language of newly arrived conquerors, they learn the adopted language imperfectly. They transmit these imperfections to their children and to other people in their social circle, and eventually alter the language. One example is the Black English: this variety arose when speakers of a West African language were brought to America as slaves. When these Africans learned English, they carried over features of their original language into the adopted one. There are as well cases of language mixture (adstratum). One of the most bizarre occurs in southern India, in the village of Kupwar, which is situated roughly 200 miles south-east of Bombay. Here, two dissimilar language families, Indo-European and Dravidian, come into contact. In this village of approximately 3,000 inhabitants, three languages are in common use: Kannada, which is a member of the Dravidian language family, and Urdu and Marathi, which are Indo-European languages. These languages have probably been in contact for more than six centuries, since many of the inhabitants are traditionally bilingual or trilingual.

4. Substratum vs. Borrowing.

When people learn a new language, they unintentionally impose some of their old sound patterns, and to a lesser extent, syntax. One example of this is what happened with Yiddish English speakers in the U.S. Their English, the language they have learned, has been affected by their native Yiddish accent and syntax. Their Yiddish, the language they use at home, has taken over numerous English vocabulary items but has otherwise remained relatively unaffected. In practice, it’s not always possible to separate out the two types of contact, especially long after the event. In addition, children who grow up bilingual can totally blur the substratum-borrowing distinction. Borrowing, however, seems to have a number of general characteristics. Thus, the four most important characteristics of borrowing are:

• Detachable elements are the most easily and commonly taken over that is, elements which are easily detached from the donor language and which will not affect the structure of the borrowing language. An obvious example of this is the ease with which items of vocabulary make their way from language to language, particularly if the words have some type of prestige.
• Adopted items tend to be changed to fit in with the structure of the borrower’s language, though the borrower is only occasionally aware of the distortion imposed.
• A language tends to select for borrowing those aspects of the donor language which superficially correspond fairly closely to aspects already in its own.
• A final characteristic has been called the minimal adjustment tendency the borrowing language makes only very small adjustments to the structure of its language at any one time. In a case where one language appears to have massively affected another, we discover on closer examination that the changes have come about in a series of minute steps, each of them involving a very small alteration only, in accordance with the maxim ‘There are no leaps in nature.’

2. Psycholinguistic Causes

: 1) Cognitive: both language and brain are flexible and structured. Example: polysemy/polyfunctionality (one word used in different contexts) Languages tend towards efficiency. 24 2) Functional: how language works. The use of language in contexts, how people use it. Speakers use metaphors, metonimy, hyperbolic constructions (intensifiers). Speakers tend to give as much info with less effort. Hearers want transparency and clarity in messages. 1. Communicative factors: how real communicative interactions take place: speaker-hearer negotiation (pragmatics) 2. Anatomical, cognitive factors (psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, biology, cognitive linguistics.. · Certain sound combinations are impossible, never attested ¥ Universal phonological, semantic & morphosyntactic changes ¥ Languages are both flexible and structured (brain) ¥ Language (speakers) has a remarkable instinct for self-preservation. It contains inbuilt self-regulating devices which restore broken patterns and prevent disintegration 2.6 Language Change: Progress or Decay?: Can Language Change Be Socially Undesirable? Language change becomes undesirable if it causes communication breakdown. However, dialects reflect regional culture, and as long as speakers can communicate, dialects can be positive.Extreme language change, like when one accent evolves separately, could result in a new language. Jean Aitchison compares language change to humpback whale songs, which evolve over time.Language change cannot be stopped as it is a natural, continuous process. Factors like psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic changes drive it. However, some changes, like the loss of certain sounds (e.g., the /t/ phoneme), may disrupt communication. 4 Are Languages Progressing or Decaying? Historically, there were two views: progress (languages evolve towards perfection) or decay (languages decline in complexity). The 19th-century perspective saw languages as living beings, progressing to maturity and then decaying. Language borrowing (e.g., Latin influencing English) shows that change is natural and not necessarily a sign of decay.Changes in English (like the shift in pronunciation of /t/) show that change is inevitable, and some may be seen as negative or disruptive. 5. Can Regularity Be Applied to Language Change? While language change is unavoidable, efforts to prevent miscommunication may lead to the imposition of a standard language. This is usually done naturally, like in London. Language change is influenced by psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic factors. It is difficult to predict future language changes.Some changes (like the loss of /t/ or /h/) may seem disruptive but are part of the natural evolution of language.

TOPIC 5: RESEARCH METHODS IN HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS 3. Historical Linguistics. Since 1970, there have been new relationships between language and history (reorganizations of thought). These relationships focus on the linguistic evolution. Historical linguistics is an interpretative discipline whose main order is to organize data in a coherent way through a narrative line. The historian selects the data, the facts, etc. From the 19th century, there has been a systematic study of language, in order to organize the past of languages and recreate it: the periods, links and the reconstruction of the Prehistoric Linguistics. In this sense, we can identify three main periods in the history of English (it is a Germanic language): — Ancient English Middle English Modern English The first sources to study languages are: First Clues a. Spelling mistakes: MidEI ham/am, wane/when Lat. b. consul/ cosul, censor/cesor Puns and rhymes: (Chaucer, Shakespeare) You spotted snakes with double Thorny hedge-hogs, be not seen tongue Newts, and blind worms, do no wrong Come not near our fairy queen (Midsummer nightÕs dream) c. Spelling: Meet/meat, sole/soul, so/sow, etc. Not on thy sole, but on thy soul, harsh Jew, Thou makÕstthe knife keen (The Merchant of Venice) d. Texts: Personal letters, sermons, dialogs, homilies, etc. Filling in the gaps (traditional methods) ¥ Arm-chair vs tape-recorder methods ¥ ÒHistorical Linguistics is an interpretative disciplineÓ ¥HLinguists are detectives/archaeologists patiently searching for and putting together the pieces of a puzzle ¥ Òall languages are protolanguagesÓ In order to study a language we are provided with external/indirect sources and direct sources. External/ indirect sources. Data from historical studies, cultural, literary studies, archaeological. Historical, literary, archaeological studies & remains (runic stones, weapons, jewellery, burialsÉ) Present-day linguistic theory (language in general, linguistic change, acquisition, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics.) Internal/direct sources. Written texts from the 7th century ac. Nevertheless, these studies present some problems (drawbacks): ¥ Chronological: it depends on the period. ¥ Linguistic level: morphologic, phonologic, syntactic, lexical. Thus, it provides information about the morphologic levels (lexical, syntactic of the first periods of the language. Glossaries are used to reconstruct specialized vocabulary). ❖ Runic inscriptions II-XII cs) ❖ Glossaries: lists of Latin words & Anglo-Saxon correspondences, specialized semantic fields (lexis & phonology). ❖ Glossed Latin Texts with English transliterations (lexis, phonology & morphology) ❖ Freer tranlations (biblical, still very close to Latin) ❖ Original texts ¥ Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (history of England throughout King AlfredÕs reign; historical events from departure of Romans -60BC Ðdecades after Norman Conquest -1066; prose) ¥ Old English epic poetry (Beowulf VIII ÐX cs) ¥ Ormulum (late XII c, 20.000 phonetic lines. Lincolnshire) ¥ Aȝenbite (Agenbite) of Inwit, literally, the “again-biting of inner wit”, or the Remorse (Prick) of Conscience; Middle English. Kentish prose text -1340) ❖ Grammar books, orthographies, dictionaries (XVIc>) ❖ Bible throughout whole history of EL ❖ Personal letter, homilies, sermons, plays 3.1. Limitations of the original sources. ¥ The nature of the available data: they are sometimes difficult to maintain: natural disasters, fires. ¥ Problems regarding the elaboration of texts. ¥ Difficulties to preserve all kinds of texts. Moreover, the language was firstly spoken and after, written. Therefore, there are differences between spoken and written language (more formal). 3.2.The Uniformity Principle.It claims that the processes which we observe in the present can help us to gain knowledge about processes in the past. The reasoning behind this is that we must assume that whatever happens today must also have been possible in the past; whatever is impossible today must have been impossible in the past. 3.3.Linguistic reconstruction. It creates hypothetical linguistic systems of non documented periods of a language. It reconstructs from incomplete data. Previous periods of a language. Some elements are reconstructed because we lack enough evidence to study that. Therefore, all languages are protolanguages. Depending on the available data, we have different methods/procedures:  The comparative method: Its main aim is to find out whether different languages are related by comparing semantic, phonological and morpho-syntactic systems ¥ Cognate words ¥ 1786 Sir William Jones discovers similarities between Sanskrit, Greek, Latin and Germanic languages: ¥ Gk. pater, Sk. pitar, Lat. pater, Goth. fadar, It./Sp padre, Fr. p re, Port. pai, Cat. pare ** OIr. athir, Eskimo ataataq Languages with blank spaces (not documented) and similarities between linguistic systems. Languages were related. (They were the continuation of an initial system). From the contrast between related words we can establish the degree of relationship that exists between languages. This method was initially used to reconstruct phonological systems. Internal reconstruction: Especially valuable when there is not a large number of languages to compare  Works with linguistic probability, uniformity principle ¥ Present Day irregularities= regularities in the past ¥ Japanese numerals: hitotsu, fatatsu, mittsu, yottsu, itsutsu, muttsu, nanatsu, yattsu, kokonotsu, to It is used to establish past systems taking as reference only data belonging to a single language. The synchronic irregularities refer to regular processes in the past. It is useful for morpho-phonologic reconstruction. ¥ Protolexicon: IE homeland. Toponymy: – Place names give important information regarding the people who have inhabited a specific area and their relations. – Extremely peersistent to replacement, even the language of the area is replaced. – Reflect linguistic system of time: lexical, phonological and morphs-syntactic. – Contain many old words unrecorded elsewhere: OE beos «reed«, «rush«as in Beeston; OE sumpt «mars« as in Sompting, OE ean «lamb«, EnhamÉ As a conclusion, the trajectory of investigations has been able to realize inferences about languages in estates previous to the first written documents..  3.1. Limitations of the original sources.  • The nature of the avaiable data: they are sometimes difficult to maintain: natural disasters, fires. • Problems regarding the elaboration of texts. • Difficulties to preserve all kinds of texts. Moreover, the language was firstly spoken and after, written. Therefore, there are differences between spoken and written language (more formal). 3.2.The Uniformity Principle. It claims that the processes which we observe in the present can help us to gain knowledge about processes in the past. The reasoning behind this is that we must assume that whatever happens today must also have been possible in the past; whatever is impossible today must have been impossible in the past. 3.3. Linguistic reconstruction. It creates hypothetical linguistic systems of non docummented periods of a language. It reconstructs from incomplete data. Previous periods of a language. Some elements are reconstructed because we lack enough evidence to study that. Therefore, all languages are protolanguages. Depending on the avaiable data, we have different methods/procedures: • The comparative method://.  Internal reconstruction:

TOPIC 6: ENGLISH AS A GERMANIC LANGUAGE Tree diagrams are used as models of divergence over time. Furthermore, is the best way for us to picture languagesÕ origin and the interrelations they have between them (ancestor languages deriving in daughters, which are sisters between them). It is said that European languages have their origin next to the black sea, in the ÒPosited HomelandÓ. At one point in history, people decided to start moving across Europe: some people decided to move through the Mediterranean sea entering Greece whereas other people managed to enter the continent surrounding the Caspian and Black seas, carrying with them the ÔDiffusion of early Indo-European dialectsÕ. Nevertheless, there are a bunch of languages which are related to no other language, for example, Zuni, Haida, Basque or Sumerian. These languages are known as isolated languages. IE group of languages Ñ over 445 living languages. Ñ 313 (2/3) belong too Indo-Iranian branch. Ñ Spanish, English, Hindustani, Portuguese, Bengai, Punjabi, Russian (+100 million speakers each.) Ñ About 46% of human population speaks an IE language as 1st language. IE spoken over 2500 years ago. No written records. Reconstructed through comparative method: * Inflected Language (Latin) – 8 noun cases (nom, vic, ac, gen, dat, abl, loc, ins) – Verb endings (number, person, tense, mood, aspect, voice). PDE?? * SOV > SVO * Common, core vocabulary: cognates which have helped to reconstruct culture & homelandÉ Language has a direct relation with historical contexts an history overall, as events occurring in history had its impact on languages and their changes. Major changes from IE to Germanic – Common distinctive vocabulary (cognate words) – Simplified verbal system (present-past) – Preterit with dental suffix – Double adjectival system (weak-strong) – Fixed accentual system – Specific vocalic changes – First Sound Shift. 1. Common, core vocabulary: * Germanic has a large number of words that have no common cognate in other IE languages. * Lost in IE or taken from other non IE languages originally spoken in the Germanic homeland. * broad, drink, drive, fowl, hold, meat. rain, wife, function words. * Importance of Ôcore vocabularyÕ * Core vocabulary: Basic concepts or ideas which, all together, construct a type of Ôuniversal and essential vocabularyÕ. Words like ÔfamilyÕ, ÔfoodÕ, ÔmotherÕÉ belong here.  2. Simplified verbal system: * All IE distinctions for tense & aspect were lost except present-past. * A simplification that took place in all Germanic Languages – English bind-bound – German binden-band – Old Norse kinda-band *No Germanic languages that can compare to latin future (laudabo), perfect (laudavi), pluperfect (laudaveram), & future perfect (laudavero). 3. Preterit + dental suffix: * Germanic developed a preterit tense form with a dental suffix (d or t). * All Germanic languages have two types of verbs: – Weak (dental suffix)Ñ> talk-talked (regular verbs) – Strong (vowel change)Ñ> sing-sang (irregular verbs) * Borrowings & new verbs incorporated into WVÕs (televise, elbow, forward, defriendÉ) * Most SVÕs assimilated into WC through analogy (helpan-healp-hulpon-geholpen). 4. Double adjectival system (weal-strong): * All old Germanic languages had two ways of declining adjectives. – Weak declension: when adjective was in definite context, preceded by definite determiner, demonstrativeÉ – Strong declension: adjective in indefinite context. 5. Fixed accentual system: All languages coming from Indo-European families, originally, share the accentual system with the Proto-Germanic languages. In other words, the location of the accent was usually kept. 6. Specific vocalic changes: Some IE vowels underwent changes into Germanic languages: – IE o, maintained in Latin, became a in Germanic (Lat octo / Goth ahtau; Sp ocho / En eight). – IE a, maintained in Latin, became o in Germanic (Lat ma:ter / OE mo:dor; Sp madre / En mother). 7. First Sound Shift (GrimmÕs Law): Latin and Greek voiceless stops (p, t, k) were changed to Germanic spirants (f, p (th), h). Grimm realized that when taking a Latin or Greek words and comparing them with their counterpart in Germanic languages a change was happening when it came to the consonants, By that, he proved that certain Germanic words evolved with different consonants which had their matching counterpart in Latin and Greek. – example: Latin p, t, k ÔpodÕ Ñ English f, th, h ÔfodÕ Ñ High German f, d, g ÔfuoÕ. – example: Latin b, d, g ÔduoÕ Ñ English p, t, k ÔtwoÕ Ñ High German f, ts, kh ÔtsuaiÕ. – example: L bh, dh, gh ÔbhāratiÕ Ñ E b, d, g ÔbearÕ Ñ H.G. p, t, k ÔperanÕ. Specific consonants underwent modifications. Gradual and long period of time (AitchisonÕs Ôtherapeutic changesÕ, ÔMad hatterÕs tea partyÕ). VernerÕs Law: * Some words appear to have had an irregular development – t > ð not θ (?) voiced fricative, not voiceless (step 2). – Sanks (pitā) > pat r > Goth fadar, ONorse faðir, OE f¾der. * Explained in 1875 by Danish linguist Karl Verner: All non-initial voiceless fricatives (spirants) became voiced between voiced sounds (VCV) if they allowed an unaccented syllable in Indo-European or Sanskrit. * After law operated, stress in Germanic languages shifted to front syllable. In order for a consonant to follow the Verner law, it must: not be in initial position, be surrounded by vowels and the previous syllable needs to be unaccented. 

5. Processes of word creation. • Onomatopeia: An onomatopoeia is a word that phonetically imitates, resembles or suggests the sound that it describes. Example: “pop” sudden noise. • Affixation: Affixation is the morphological process whereby an affix is attached to a root or stem. Ex: noncash “credit” • Compounding: In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme (less precisely, a word) that consists of more than one stem. Compounding, composition or nominal composition is the process of word formation that creates compound lexemes. Example: halfback • Clipping: Clipping is also known as “truncation” or “shortening”. Example: psychic “a médium” • Back formation: Back-formation is either the process of creating a new lexeme (less precisely, a new “word”) by removing actual or supposed affixes, or a neologism formed by such a process. Back-formations are shortened words created from longer words, thus back-formations may be viewed as a sub-type of clipping. Example: curio • Blending: A blend is a word formed by joining parts of two words after clipping. Example: slanguage. • Acronymy: An acronym is a pronounceable word formed from the first letter or first few letters of each word in a phrase or title. Example: maser • Folk etimology: It is a change on a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a more familiar one. Example: gillyflower. • Commonization: the act of making something common, standard, or universal. Example: marathon. • Functional shift: Functional shift. In linguistics, functional shift occurs when an existing word takes on a new syntactic function. Example: research.

TOPIC 8: STANDARDIZATION IN ENGLISH: 1. Language and dialect. Dialects are not imposed over others. There is normally a chosen dialect over other because: – – There is a more civilised civilisation. Politic hegemony Difference between language and dialect: for politic reasons. Normally a dialect is imposed over other for extralinguistic reasons (social and politic reasons), and it becomes the standardised language. There is no language with total homogeneity. The bigger the geographic factor is, the more local varieties exist. A language is an abstract entity that can be described, normalised and imposed rules. However, the dialect is more concret than a la language, although it usually has pejorative meaning: it is normally considered as uncultivated, illi terate. If we compare both, language and dialect: Dialect: uncultivated, illiterate, irregular, talked by ethnic minorities. Any variety of a language characterized by systematic differences in pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary from other varieties of the same language is called a dialect. Everyone speaks a dialect Ð in fact, many dialects at different levels. The people who speak a certain dialect are called a speech community.  A dialect spoken by one individual is called an idiolect. ACCENT An accent is a certain form of a language spoken by a subgroup of speakers of that language which is defined by phonological features. Everyone has an accent, just as everyone speaks a dialect. Language: cultivated, literate and regular. Talked by the majority of speakers. 

* Dialectology: Dialectology is the study of regional dialects, or dialects defined by geographical regions. This was done originally by traveling around a country and asking the people living in various locales what words or phrases they use for particular objects and concepts. The most famous American study was performed by Hans Kurath in the second quarter of this century, and covered most of the east 1/4 of the U.S. He looked for were isoglosses (iso=same gloss=speech) Ð boundaries separating regions of a country which uses different words or constructions to describe the same things. What Kurath found in some parts of the country were that the isoglosses for several unrelated words fell in practically the same locations, forming bundles of isoglosses. These bundles were significant discoveries, as they indicated the existence of a real correlation between speech patterns and region. These bundles also provided a living linguistic reminder of the patterns of migration of Americans moving Westward.

2. Standarisation and writing.This point 3 will outline the process of standardisation of the English language, which fo-llows these 4 stages, more or less: 1) Selection of a dominant variety 2) Conditions of acceptance by the classes 3) Elaboration of the functions of the standard 4) Stages of codification, to fix the standard varity (dictionaries and grammar books). 3.The Nature of the Writing System a.Fixity of Spelling English spelling was fixed in the 18th century, largely due to Johnson’s Dictionary (1755). The printing system (1470s) reinforced consistent spelling for economic reasons, though handwritten texts still showed variation.Despite fixed spelling, pronunciation varies, making the system seem arbitrary and disconnected from sound. b) The Scribal TraditionEarly Anglo-Saxon scribes adopted the Latin alphabet via Irish monks, which originated from Greek and Middle Eastern systems.French influence (Norman Conquest) reshaped English spelling, e.g., “cwic” became “quick.”By the 14th century, copying texts extended to middle-class professionals, aiding the spread of written norms. Standard Variety Selection The East Midlands dialect from London’s merchant classes became the basis for a written standard by the mid-15th century. Social and regional factors influenced its adoption, and its use spread across law, literature, religion, and education. Acceptance of a standard also led to the decline of dialects as written forms. c) Codification and Grammar Codification minimized variation, defining what was “correct” through tools like Johnson’s Dictionary. English grammar was modeled partly on Latin, transferring rules that sometimes seemed arbitrary.Pronunciation was harder to standardize, but Received Pronunciation (RP) became associated with the upper class by the 19th century. 3. Process of Standardization (of English) The English language, just like any other, had to follow these four stages in order for it to become a standard language: 1) Selection of a variety (15th) 2) Acceptance by powerful & educated classes (16th) 3) Elaboration of functions (17th) 4) Codification in dictionaries, grammars, etc. (18th) 

TOPIC 9: ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA; 1. English in the world.The period between the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603 and the later years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II at the start of the 20th century, the number of English speakers increased from 5/7 millions to 1’5/2 millions. Nowadays, there are approximately 75 territories where English is the language in government and education. There are four kinds of English speakers: – English as a Foreign Language (EFL): – – – English as a Second Language (ESL): English serves for country-internal functions. For example, in Singapore and Nigeria. English as a Lingua Franca: English is not official in the country. Since the 1990s, ELF has been referred to as English as an International Language. For example: the English used in Europe and Japan. The use of English as a contact language among themselves. They use English as an “intranational” language, between them. English as a Native Language. 1.1 The Two Major Dispersals of English There were two significant dispersals of English, resulting in the creation of new varieties of the language across the world.1) First Diaspora: English in the New World -Migration: 25,000 people from England moved to America, Australia, and parts of Africa, which led to distinct regional varieties.- America: English spread through the slave trade, with slaves creating a pidgin that later became a creole. –Australia: Convicts and settlers from Britain brought English, blending it with Aboriginal languages. –New Zealand: Early European settlers, mainly from Britain, mixed English with the Maori language. –South Africa: English arrived with the British in the 1790s, alongside the Dutch, and became prominent in institutions. 2) Second Diaspora: English in Asia and Africa West Africa: English spread through the slave trade, creating pidgin and creole forms for communication. East Africa: Countries like Kenya and Uganda were colonized by the British, with English becoming vital for government and education.South Asia: English became a key second language in India and Bangladesh during British colonialism.Southeast Asia & South Pacific: British influence in places like Singapore and Hong Kong led to the creation of pidgins like Tok Pisin. These movements were critical in the global spread of English, leading to diverse regional forms. 1.2.The origins of Pidgins and creoles. There were 3 types of English colonies during the colonial period: 1) America and Australia: the first English language speakers displaced the pre colonial population. 2) Nigeria: pre-colonial population used English as a Second Language. 3) Caribbean: the pre-colonial population was replaced by new labour from elsewhere. Until recently, pidgin languages were regarded as “bad” languages, but linguists realised that they could develop as first and second languages. Actually, they reflect the lifestyle of their speakers. The fact that these languages are simplified means that they have a simpler register. 1.3.Who speaks English today? Nowadays, there are 3 types of English: 70 • ENL (English as a Native Language) • EFL (English as a Foreign Language) • ESL (English as a Second Language) ENL: the language of those who have been born and raised in one of the countries where English is historically the first language: US, UK, Canada, USA, Australia and New Zea land. ESL: India, Bangladesh, Nigeria. They were colonised by the British. They originally learned the language to use it with the speakers of US and UK. It has, more or less, 350 million speakers. EFL: related to the degree of competence that will define such speaker. There are around 1 billion speakers. 1.4.Models and description of the spread of English. The most influential model is that of Kachru, who divides the World Englishes into 3 concentric circles: 1) Inner circle 2) Outer circle 3) Exoanding circle They represent the types of spread, patterns of spread and acquisition and the functions of English in diverse cultural contexts: 1) Inner circle: ENL countries. “Norm-providing English”. 2) Outer circle: ESL countries. “Norm-developing countries”. 3) Expanding circle: EFL countries. “Norm-depending English”. McArthur’s circle. It sets the centre in “World standard English”, which does not exist in an identifiable form. Moving outwards, there is a band of regional varieties, including both standard and standarising forms. Beyond these, there are subvarieties, such as aboriginal English, Black English, Vernacular English, Gullah, Jamaican Ntion language, Singapore English and Ulster Scots. 1.7. Advantages and disadvantages of learning English. Advantages: – – – – The use of English in the world is natural, neutral and beneficial. It is necessary to have access to higher education, jobs… It is used as a neutral and global lan-guage which helps to see ourselves as human beings that form one community (globalization). Moreover, minor cultures have spread through English (China, Nigeria). Diasdvantages: – – – – – The spread of English can jeopardize the learning of other languages and the very existence of smaller languages (linguistic genocide) English is a langiage of imperialism and or particular class interests (linguicism, linguistic imperialism) Major means social, political and economic inequalities. Students and scholars of English are obligued to acquire a high level of English in otder to pursue their studies (more time, more money and effort than native speakers). The use of English as a LF (Lingua Franca) is not natural: since the 1950s, there has been a deliberate interest to use English in media, shopping, sales, and for po litical and economic purposes. 1.8.The internationalisation of English. Why is English the international language? Although England’s former colonies had become independent states by the mid 20th century, they retained the English language to serve various internal funcions. Thus, thanks to its past, English has spread well beyond its use as a second or additional language. The Present-Day world satus of English is the result of two factors: – – The expansion of British colonial power. The emergence of the US as the leading economic power of the 20th century. Historical reasons: because of the British and American Imperialism. Due to this, the country’s main institutions carry out their proceedings in English. 2) Internal political reasons: to provide a neutral way of communication between the different ethnic croups in a country. A distinctive local variety may become a symbol of national unity. 3) External economic reasons: the USA’s dominant position acts as a magnet for international business and trade and oaragisations that wish to develop international markets, under the pressure to work in English. 4) Practical reasons: English is the language of international air traffic control. 5) Intellectual reasons: most of the scientific, technological and academic information in the world is expressed in English. 6) Entertainment reasons: English is the language of popular music, popular culture and advertising.