Language change

• All spoken languages change

• Some change faster than others

Continued

• Written languages can be fixed – but will no longer be used in everyday life

• Common if a language has cultural or religious significance

• Latin in Western Europe for 1,500+ years

• Hebrew among Jews

continued

• Classical Arabic – Muslims• Pali – Buddhists• Sanskrit – Hindus• Coptic – Egyptian Christians

• Often used on special occasions but not understood

continued

• Often such languages are part of speech community

• Even non- or semi- speakers insist they are used on certain occasions

Prayer Book rebellion 1549

• “and so we the Cornyshe men (whereof certen of us understande no Englyshe) utterly refuse thyse newe Englyshe”

• Duke of Somerset – they did not understand Latin either so what’s the problem?

continued

• Many reasons for change• Phonological • Structural• economic and technical change• Contact with other speakers• sociolinguistic

Ideas about language change

• Decline – ignorance and laziness before 1786

• Family tree – descent with modification

mother

• 1. Ineny

• 2. Mutter

• 3. Ma

• 4. Um

• 5. Ina

• 6. Madre

• 7. Mere

continued

• 8. Mat’• 9. Madre• 10. Moder• 11. Εm• 12. Tina• 13. Tinaa• 14. Madær• 15. Ma:

Key

• 1. Malagasy• 2. German• 3. Bengali• 4. Arabic• 5. Tagalog• 6. Italian• 7. French

• 8. Russian• 9. Spanish• 10. Swedish• 11. Hebrew• 12. Fijian• 13. Samoan• 14. Persian• 15. Gujerati

Family Tree Model

• William Jones – observed similarities of Latin, Greek and Sanskrit – suggested common (and extinct) ancestor

• Reconstruction of ancestral languages – Proto-Indo-European, sometimes helped by documentary evidence

• Later Bantu, Austronesian

Some language families• Indo-European• Dravidian• Afro-Asiatic• Niger-Congo• Austronesian• Sino-Tibetan• Amerindian?• Nostratic?• Proto-World????????????????????

Wave Model

• Wave model – languages influence neighbours

• How else to explain taxi and OK ?

• Sprachbunde – SE Asia, SE Europe, NE Europe Maybe most of Europe

continued

• 19th century – • Words, structures, forms spread

like waves• Unpopular until late 20th century• But explains PNG and Australia• now “punctuated equilibrium”

Why do languages change?

Wrong Ideas

• Running up German mountains• Noisy factories in Northern England• Stiff Chinese tongues

Structural changes

•Why did Nemo’s father say “jangan sentuh punggung”?

continued

• Language is a system • – one change leads to another – • Vowel shifts in England, US

Northern Cities, China and English speaking southern hemisphere

continued

• Australian front vowels are moving up

• Central vowels are moving down• Boat becomes Buutt

Phonological

• Glottal fricatives deleted• Consonant clusters reduced• Diphthongs monophthongised

BUT

• Not satisfactory• Structural – how did first change

get started?• Contact – why is influence usually

one way?• Ease of articulation – why difficult

sounds in the first place

Sociolinguistic change

• Provides an adequate exalanation

• Languages change because of the relationship between social groups

continued

• First there must be variation – I.e. differences

• But variation does not always lead to change

• -n, -ng – differences for centuries but no change

Continue

• Variation acquires a social function• Differences indicate social status

or prestige• Forms vary according to social

status• Forms will spread or disappear

because they are linked to social characteristics

Language change and society

• Linguistic forms may spread downwards -- post vocalic /r/ in New York

• -- may spread upwards – glottalisation in English – reached Diana but not Charles

• May spread from one ethnic group to another – ‘makan’ ‘bohsia’, ‘innit’

Continued

• May spread geographical ly– post-vocalic /r/ deletion in English

• May spread from one age group to another – “grotty”, “sus out”

• Gender very important – women pioneers in downward change, men in upward change

Example

• Often – all factors contributing to change

• Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts• Fishing community became a

tourist centre• 1950s Young men began imitating

the phonology of older fishermen

Continued

• older form, centralised /aI/ used by fishermen – dying out

• ‘light’ pronounced /l@It/ ‘layeet’

• ‘house’ /h@us/ ‘heyoose’

continued

• But – now became a marker of local identity – locals versus summer people – esp Portuguese and Amerindians

• But by 1990s disappeared – younger people left the island or got jobs in the tourist business

Rates of change

• Why does the rate of change vary?• Network theory• Dense network – slow change• In Belfast, women introduced high

status forms – worked in shops in city centre

Politics and language change

• In Berlin local dialect (BUV) declined rapidly in middle class West Berlin

• Fairly rapidly in Working class West Berlin

• not in Working Class East Berlin – symbol of identity – before reunification Saxon dialect used by unpopular government

continued

• Divergence of Serbo-Croat since 1991

• Divergence of Hindi and Urdu since independence

• Convergence (standard forms) of Malay and Indonesian

• Individual case – Sadat’s Egyptian Arabic response to Arab criticism

continued

• Divergence of Palestinian Arabic in one village since between 1948 and 1967 (Spolsky)

Conclusion

• Languages change• At different rates• For different reasons• Including social reasons• And it cannot be stopped