Historical linguistics

The birth, evolution, and death of languages

Rank Language Population (in millions) % of world’s pop. 1 Chinese (Mandarin) 885 152 English 322 5.43 Spanish 266 4.54 Bengali 189 3.25 Hindi 182 3.06 Portuguese 170 2.87 Russian 170 2.88 Japanese 125 2.19 German 98 1.610 Chinese (Wu) 77 1.311 Javanese 76 1.212 Korean 75 1.213 French 72 1.214 Vietnamese 67 1.115 Telegu 66 1.1 

Polygenesis vs. monogenesis

• Monogenesis prevails in biological evolution

• Polygenesis prevails in cultural evolution: independent invention

• Polygenesis seems to prevail in remote language origins

Causes of language change

• Random Drift

• Phonetic Assimilation

• Language contact:– Borrowing– Interference in acquisition of second language

• Institutionalization of formerly aberrant forms.

Change in animal systems?

• Little evidence that call systems of other primates evolve through time– Data about the past are skimpy.– Linked to genes. Genetic evolution slower than

cultural evolution

• Whales: the possible exception

Language families

• No evidence for one common ancestor language

• But languages can be grouped into families

• The role of Sanskrit in the discovery of the Indo-European family

Indo-European family

• Probably originated in north-central Europe

• Associated with “Aryan” warriors who were to conquer Europe, India, and parts of Asia

• No literary remains

• No archeological site can be firmly linked.

• Has been hypothetically reconstructed

Branches of Indo-European

• Italic: Latin and Romance languages

• Slavic: Russian, Polish etc/

• Celtic: Irish, Gallic, Welsh, Breton

• Germanic: German, English, Swedish, et.al.

• Indo-Iranian: Hindi, Bengali, Farsi, Pashto

Map of Celtic Languages Today

European language distribution, present

Indo-European Expansion

Indo-European languages in times past

Indo-European languages around the world

Language Families in Europe

Indo-European branches in Europe today