Language change is the manner in which the phonetic, morphological, semantic, syntactic, and other features of a language are modified over time. All languages are continually changing. At any given moment the English language, for example, has a huge variety within itself, and this variety is known as synchronic variation. From these different forms comes the effect on language over time known as diachronic change. Two linguistic disciplines concern themselves with studying language change: historical linguistics and sociolinguistics. Historical linguists examine how a language was spoken in the past and seek to determine how present languages derive from it and are related to one another. Sociolinguists are interested in the origins of language changes and want to explain how society and changes in society influence language. Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone meaning sound or voice) is the study of the sounds of human speech. ... For other uses, see Morphology. ... The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. ... For other uses, see Syntax (disambiguation). ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... Historical linguistics (also diachronic linguistics or comparative linguistics) is primarily the study of the ways in which languages change over time. ... Historical linguistics (also diachronic linguistics or comparative linguistics) is primarily the study of the ways in which languages change over time. ... Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context on the way language is used. ...

Causes of language change

1. Economy: Speakers tend to make their utterances as efficient and effective as possible to reach their communicative goals. Speaking involves therefore a planning of costs and benefits.

2. Analogy Analogy is both the cognitive process of transferring information from a particular subject (the analogue or source) to another particular subject (the target), and a linguistic expression corresponding to such a process. ...

3. Language contact Language contact occurs when speakers of distinct speech varieties interact. ...

Types of language change

All languages are constantly changing. The causes are many and varied.

Lexical changes

The constant influx of new words in the English language would make it an obvious choice of investigation into language change, although it is difficult to define precisely and accurately the vocabulary available to speakers of English. Throughout its history English has not only borrowed words extravagantly from other languages but has re-combined and recycled them to create new meanings. The study of lexical changes is the task of onomasiology. English is a West Germanic language that originated from the Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain by Germanic settlers and Roman auxiliary troops from various parts of what is now northwest Germany and the Northern Netherlands. ... A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one language from another with little or no translation. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

Dictionary writers try to keep track of the change in language by recording the appearance in the language of new words, or new usages for old words. A lexicographer is a person devoted to the study of lexicography, especially an author of a dictionary. ...

Phonetic and phonological changes

Main article: phonological change

The sociolinguist William Labov famously recorded the change in pronunciation in a relatively short period in the American resort of Martha’s Vineyard and showed how this was the result of social tensions and processes.^[1] Even in the relatively short time that broadcast media have been available, we can observe the difference between the ‘marked’ pronunciation of the newsreaders of the 1940s and the 1950s and the more neutral, ‘unmarked’ pronunciation of today. The greater acceptance and fashionability of regional accents in the media may also reflect a more democratic, less formal society. Under the entry sound law is a rundown of various kinds of sound change, both laws as such and types of change (assimilation, dissimilation, metathesis, etc. ... Listen to this article · (info) This audio file was created from an article revision dated 2006-02-04, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ... Map of Marthas Vineyard. ... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ...

Small-scale phonological changes are difficult to map and record, especially as the technology of sound recording only goes back a hundred years or so. So the only evidence we have of how language has changed over the centuries is written evidence of what human languages have sounded like.

Spelling changes

The modern obsession with spelling is a fairly recent trend. Differences in spelling are very often the most immediately obvious thing about a text from a previous century. In the pre-print era, when literacy was much less common, there was no fixed system and in the handwritten manuscripts that survive, words are spelt according to regional pronunciation and personal preference. Proper spelling is the writing of a word or words with all necessary letters and diacritics present in an accepted standard order. ...

The development of the printing press, however, presented printers with dilemmas: texts from the fifteenth through to the seventeenth centuries show many internal inconsistencies, with the same word often being spelled differently within the same text. Famously, Shakespeare spelled his own name in many different ways. Additionally, they were tempted to choose from the various spellings based on typographical criterion, e.g. to get uniform line lengths when assembling type pieces on a composing stick. It being easier to make one of the lines of type longer than to make the other lines shorter, word lengths tended to standardize on the longer spellings. The printing press is a mechanical device for printing many copies of a text on rectangular sheets of paper. ... Shakespeare redirects here. ... Typography (from the Greek words typos = form and grapho = write) is the art and technique of selecting and arranging type styles, point sizes, line lengths, line leading, character spacing, and word spacing for typeset applications. ...

Unfortunately modern spellings were not the result of a single consistent system; rather, they show evidence of previous pronunciations which had changed over time. For example, the spelling of words such as "night" would have represented the original pronunciation, the "gh" representing a sound similar to that found in the Scottish "loch". Other examples include the 'k' in 'knee' and 'knight' that were previously pronounced and the 'ch' in 'chicken' and 'cheese', which was once pronounced as 'k'.

It could be said that spelling is stuck in the 15th Century, when William Caxton chose the East Midland dialect i.e. London (Wessex) variety of English for his first print in 1476. He had to discriminate against many duplicate words used in other areas of England (such as the East Anglia, Northumberland and Mercia). For example, the Southern word 'eyren' was unintelligible with the Northern equivalent, 'egges' (modern 'eggs'). “Caxton” redirects here. ... This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... For the helicopter, see Westland Wessex. ... Norfolk and Suffolk, the core area of East Anglia. ... Northumberland is a county in the North East of England. ... The Kingdom of Mercia at its greatest extent (7th to 9th centuries) is shown in green, with the original core area (6th century) given a darker tint. ...

Semantic changes

Main article: Semantic change

The appearance of a new word is only the beginning of its existence. Once it becomes part of the language the meanings and applications it has for speakers can shift dramatically, to the point of causing misunderstandings. For example, 'villain' once meant a peasant, or farmhand, but means a criminal individual in modern English. This is an example of a word that has undergone pejoration, which means that a negative meaning has come to be attached to it. Conversely, other words have undergone amelioration, where a positive meaning comes to be understood. Thus, the word 'wicked' (generally meaning 'evil') now means 'brilliant' in slang or in a colloquial context. In diachronic (or historical) linguistics, semantic change is a change in one of the meanings of a word. ... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ...

Other semantic change includes narrowing and broadening. Narrowing a word semantically limits its alternative meanings. For example the word 'girl' once meant 'a young child' and 'hound' (Old English 'hund') referred to 'all dogs', and now it means a particular type. Examples of words that have been broadened semantically include 'dog' (which once meant a particular breed). Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon[1], Old English: ) is an early form of the English language that was spoken in parts of what is now England and southern Scotland between the mid-fifth century and the mid-twelfth century. ...

Syntactic change

Main article: Syntactic change

To the extent that a language is vocabulary cast into the mould of a particular syntax and that the basic structure of the sentence is held together by functional items, with the lexical items filling in the blanks, syntactic change is no doubt what modifies most deeply the physiognomy of a particular language. Syntactic change affects grammar in its morphological and syntactic aspects and is seen as gradual, the product of chain reactions and subject to cyclic drift.^[2] The view that creole languages are the product of catastrophism is heavily disputed. A vocabulary is a set of words known to a person or other entity, or that are part of a specific language. ... The Basic Structure doctrine is the judge-made doctrine whereby certain features of the Constitution of India are beyond the limit of the powers of amendment the Parliament of India. ... Sentence, derived from Latin sententia (perception, in the subjective sense of how one feels reality is), has three common meanings: Sentence (linguistics) Sentence (mathematical logic) Open sentence (a term that mathematics teachers attempted to introduce, but not used by mathematicians) Sentence (law) Sentence (music) This is a disambiguation page — a... Gradualism is the belief that changes occur, or ought to occur, slowly in the form of gradual steps (see also incrementalism) In politics, the concept of gradualism is used to describe the belief that change ought to be modified in small, discrete increments rather than abrubt changes such as revolutions... A chain reaction is a sequence of reactions where a reactive product or by-product causes additional reactions. ... A cycle is anything round, in the physical sense (e. ... Drift may refer to: Look up drift in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A creole is a language descended from a pidgin that has become the native language of a group of people. ... Catastrophism is the idea that Earth has been affected by sudden, short-lived, violent events that were sometimes worldwide in scope. ...

Sociolinguistics and language change

The sociolinguist Jennifer Coates, following William Labov, describes linguistic change as occurring in the context of linguistic heterogeneity. She explains that “[l]inguistic change can be said to have taken place when a new linguistic form, used by some sub-group within a speech community, is adopted by other members of that community and accepted as the norm.”^[3] Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context on the way language is used. ... A heterogeneous compound, mixture, or other such object is one that consists of many different items. ...

Language change has been induced by a number of factors over the centuries. In modern times language change is for example being brought about by technology. The internet and mobile technology have drastically altered language with the use of instant messaging and texting from mobile phones.

Notes

Photo of Henri Wittmann in 2002. ...

References

• Coates, J. (1992), Women, Men and Language, Second Edition, Essex.
• Labov, William (1994, 2001), Principles of Linguistic Change (vol.I Internal Factors, 1994; vol.II Social Factors, 2001), Blackwell.
• Wardhaugh, R. (1986), An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, Oxford/ New York.
• Wittmann, H. (1983), "Les réactions en chaîne en morphologie diachronique." Actes du Colloque de la Société internationale de linguistique fonctionnelle 10.285-92.[2]

See also

• Historical linguistics
• Sociolinguistics
• William Caxton
• Oxford English Dictionary

Historical linguistics (also diachronic linguistics or comparative linguistics) is primarily the study of the ways in which languages change over time. ... Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context on the way language is used. ... “Caxton” redirects here. ... The Oxford English Dictionary print set The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is a dictionary published by the Oxford University Press (OUP), and is the most successful dictionary of the English language, (not to be confused with the one-volume Oxford Dictionary of English, formerly New Oxford Dictionary of English, of...

External links

• Sounds Familiar? Visit the British Library website to listen to changing accents and dialects from across the UK