GROUPS: _________, _________, __________, __________, __________,

__________, _________, _________,

DATE: _____, ______, ______, ______, ______, _______, ______, _______;

LECTURE 5
THEME: Historical Linguistics
1. Etymology
2. Language Change
3. Speech community
Introduction
Historical Linguistics explores different aspects of language change. The most
commonly studied areas in historical linguistics are: Etymology: Studying the
DEVELPMENT and origin of words. Analysis and description of multiple speech
communities. Tracing (as far as possible) the history of language.
What is the concept of historical linguistics?
Historical linguistics, also called Diachronic Linguistics, is the branch of linguistics
concerned with the study of phonological, grammatical, and semantic changes, and the
reconstruction of earlier stages of languages.
What is the nature of historical linguistics?
"Historical linguistics studies the nature and causes of language change. The causes of
language change find their roots in the physiological and cognitive features of human
beings. Sound changes it is articulatory simplification, assimilation.
What are the types of language change in historical linguistics?
Traditionally there are three main types of change: systematic change in the pronunciation
of phonemes, or sound change; borrowing, in which features of a language or dialect are
altered as a result of influence from another language or dialect; and analogical change,
which include synchronic and a diachronic processes.

What is the advantage of historical linguistics?

To study the pre-history of languages and to determine their relationship, grouping them
into language families (comparative linguistics) to develop general theories about how and

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why language changes. to describe the history of speech communities. to study the history
of words, i.e. etymology.
What is the difference between historical linguistics and comparative linguistics?
Historical linguistics studies how language develops in time; comparative linguistics (or
comparative philology) uses linguistic comparison to establish that two or more languages
are genetically related.
1. Etymology is the study and investigation of the origin of words in a particular language.
Some words are passed down from a variety of languages to form a new language, while
about others no one knows their true origin.
The etymology of a word typically starts with the main word, known as the root. Take, for
example, the word beautiful; the root word is beauty. Once you know the root word, you
can recognize the meaning of the additions made to the word. When you add the suffix -
full to the root word beauty, you get a word to describe something "full of beauty." Once
you know information like this, it's easier to work your way backward to investigate the
word and its etymology further. English, for example, is a West Germanic language.
Through its evolution, though, English adopted many Latin words—about 60% of English
words have a Latin origin—and has continued the tradition of welcoming words from
different languages and dialects.
Modifications
Modifications happen when the use of the word creates some desired change. Whether it’s
to make the word easier to say or any other reason to modifications happen over time as
the word is used repeatedly.
Memo – shortened from the word memorandum
A modern English speaker would rarely say, “I read your memorandum.” They would
more likely say, “I read your memo,” because this word was modified over time for ease
of use.

Semantic Changes
Semantic changes are those that alter the actual meaning of a word.
Mouse – a device used to direct the cursor of a computer

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Where the word mouse used to only mean a small rodent, today, a mouse might also mean
a computer mouse.
What is semantic change in historical linguistics?
The term semantic change refers to how the meaning of words changes over time. We will
cover five types of semantic change: narrowing, broadening, amelioration, pejoration, and
semantic reclamation.

Borrowing
Many languages borrow words from one another to express something native to a
particular culture.
Telephone – originally derived from the Greek word-forming element tel- which
essentially means “far” and the Greek word pheme, which means “speech, speaking, or
utterance”. Most often, the language adopting the word will alter the sound slightly to help
the word sound more natural in its new context. This accounts for words that might look
and sound similar, and mean the same thing across several languages.
English – is

German – ist

Latin – Est

Indo-European – Esti

2.Language change is variation over time in a language's features. It is studied in several

subfields of linguistics: historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, and evolutionary linguistics.
Traditional theories of historical linguistics identify three main types of change: systematic
change in the pronunciation of phonemes, or sound change; borrowing, in which features
of a language or dialect are altered as a result of influence from another language or
dialect; and analogical change, in which the shape or grammatical behavior of a word is
altered to more closely resemble that of another word.

What are the causes of language change in historical linguistics?

5 Things That Cause Languages to Change

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 Semantic bleaching. The term ‘semantic bleaching’ refers to a type of semantic change
when lexical meaning of a word is blurred.
 Synchronic variation. (The difference between British and American English). Movement
of people. Cultural word-swapping is fluid.
 Simplification. Clearing the clutter from language makes it so much simpler.
 Prestige.

All living languages are continually undergoing change. Some commentators use
derogatory labels such as "corruption" to suggest that language change constitutes a
degradation in the quality of a language, especially when the change originates
from human error or is a prescriptively discouraged usage. Modern linguistics rejects this
concept, since from a scientific point of view such innovations cannot be judged in terms
of good or bad. John Lyons notes that "any standard of evaluation applied to language-
change must be based upon a recognition of the various functions a language 'is called
upon' to fulfil in the society which uses it".

Over a sufficiently long period of time, changes in a language can accumulate to such an
extent that it is no longer recognizable as the same language. For instance, modern
English is the result of centuries of language change applying to Old English, even though
modern English is extremely divergent from Old English in grammar, vocabulary, and
pronunciation. The two may be thought of as distinct languages, but Modern English is a
"descendant" of its "ancestor" Old English. When multiple languages are all descended
from the same ancestor language, as the Romance languages are from Vulgar Latin, they
are said to form a language family and be "genetically" related.

Phonetic and phonological changes

Sound change—i.e., change in the pronunciation of phonemes—can lead to phonological

change (i.e., change in the relationships between phonemes within the structure of a
language). For instance, if the pronunciation of one phoneme changes to become identical
to that of another phoneme, the two original phonemes can merge into a single phoneme,
reducing the total number of phonemes the language contains.

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Lexical changes

The ongoing influx of new words into the English language (for example) helps make it a
rich field for investigation into language change, despite the difficulty of defining
precisely and accurately the vocabulary available to speakers of English. Throughout its
history English has not only borrowed words from other languages but has re-combined
and recycled them to create new meanings, whilst losing some old words.

Spelling changes

Standardization of spelling originated centuries ago. Differences in spelling often catch the
eye of a reader of a text from a previous century. The pre-print era had
fewer literate people: languages lacked fixed systems of orthography, and the handwritten
manuscripts that survive often show words spelled according to regional pronunciation
and to personal preference.

Semantic changes

Semantic changes are shifts in the meanings of existing words. Basic types of semantic
change include:

 pejoration, in which a term's connotations become more negative

 amelioration, in which a term's connotations become more positive
 broadening, in which a term acquires additional potential uses
 narrowing, in which a term's potential uses are restricted
Syntactic change

Syntactic change is the evolution of the syntactic structure of a natural language.

Over time, syntactic change is the greatest modifier of a particular language. [citation needed]

3.Speech community

The study of speech communities is central to the understanding of human language and
meaning. Speech communities are groups that share values and attitudes about language
use, varieties and practices. These communities develop through prolonged interaction
among people. While we are born with the ability to learn language, we do so within
cultures and societies that frame the process of learning how to talk to others. This framing
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once exclusively occurred as face-to-face interactions within communities of speakers.
Constant relocation, mass migration, transmigration, ever-evolving technology and
globalization have transformed many societies and increased the need to provide more
detailed descriptions and theories regarding the nature of speech communities. The
importance of our growing understanding of speech communities remains one of the most
significant projects faced by those interested in language, discourse and interaction. This
chapter defines and identifies types of speech communities, provides the history of the
term and examines its importance to the study of language and discourse in general.
The concept of speech community does not simply focus on groups that speak the same
language. Rather, the concept takes as fact that language represents, embodies, constructs
and constitutes meaningful participation in society and culture. It also assumes that a
mutually intelligible symbolic and ideological communicative system must be at play
among those who share knowledge and practices about how one is meaningful across
social contexts. Thus as peoples relocate away from their families and home communities
and build others, relationships and interactions continue and change, and are sustained
through the use of evolving technology and media that enhances, recognizes and re-creates
communities. These interactions constitute the substance of human contact and the
importance of language, discourse and verbal styles in the representation and negotiation
of the relationships that ensue. It is within speech communities that identity, ideology and
agency are actualized in society.

What is the purpose of historical linguistics?

Historical linguistics is the scientific study of how languages change over time,
which seeks to understand the relationships among languages and to reconstruct earlier
stages of languages.

Head of the department prof.A.Gurbanov