Historical and Comparative Linguistics

How did language evolve?

The Study of Language Relationships

• Comparative Linguistics: Investigation of similarities and differences among languages

• Historical Linguistics: Investigation of how languages are related to each other and evolved over time.

• Only interested in how language changes, not what’s “right,” “wrong,” “good,” “bad”

How are languages related to each other?

• For centuries, people noticed that some languages (French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian) were similar to Latin, and probably came from Latin.

• Sir William Jones– Lived in India in 1786– Noticed that Sanskrit had several words that were

similar to English and Middle Eastern languages– Hypothesized that all these languages “sprung

from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists.”

Indo-European Languages

• Sprang from one original common ancestor, now dead—Proto-Indo-European (PIE)

• About 439 languages in the Indo-European family

• Most major languages of Europe, the Middle East, India, and colonized North and South America

• More speakers than any other language family (3 billion)

Indo-European Languages

• Many theories about where PIE began, but probably in Middle East or Southeastern Europe (present-day Greece, Turkey, or Iran).

• Differences developed with groups of people moved apart and were separated for a long time.– One group moved to India Sanskrit– One group moved to Northern

EuropeEnglish

Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and how it spread

(one theory)

Is this what PIE sounded like?

• An educated guess based on ancient sources and Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit

A sheep that had no wool saw horses, one of them pulling a heavy wagon, one carrying a big load, and one carrying a man quickly. The sheep said to the horses: "My heart pains me, seeing a man driving horses." The horses said: "Listen, sheep, our hearts pain us when we see this: a man, the master, makes the wool of the sheep into a warm garment for himself. And the sheep has no wool." Having heard this, the sheep fled into the plain.

Non-Indo-European Languages

• Altaic--includes Turkish and Mongolian• Afro-Asiatic--includes Arabic and Hebrew• Kechumaran—spoken in the Andes• Khoisan, Niger-Kordefanian, Nilo-Saharan—

spoken in Southwest, Southern, and Central Africa

• Japonic—includes Japanese, • Sino-Tibetan--includes dialects of Chinese and

Tibetan• Uralic--includes Finnish, Hungarian, and

Estonian• Uto-Aztecan—spoken in Central America and

Western North America

Non-Indo-European Languages

Language Change

• Languages change gradually, over long periods of time

• Languages change systematically and orderly, usually through sounds

Language Change: An Example

• How did PIE change into a Germanic language?

• The First Germanic Consonant ShiftPIE Sounds became Germanic

sounds

B P

D T

G K

(Voiced Unvoiced)

Language Change: An Example

PIE Sounds Became Germanic sounds

P F

T TH

K H

(“stops” became “spirants” where air is slowed down but not stopped)

Language Change: An Example

• That’s why distantly-related languages have similar words

Latin, Greek, or Hebrew

English

Dentum ToothAgros AcrePhrather Brother Abba Papa

Language Change

• Languages don’t split off at the same time – French and Spanish didn’t branch off

from Latin at the same time– Not all people spoke the same version of

Latin when other languages branched off

• The process of languages branching off happens incredibly slowly

• Languages can influence each other

Language Change

• Languages don’t have to die, but they do have to change.

• Language change is – Natural—part of being human – Inevitable—can’t be stopped– Continuous—always happening– Neutral—not bad or good– Influenced by social factors– Influenced by psychological factors

Language Change

• Similarities between human language and whale sounds– All whales sing the same song one year,

and a new one the next year.– Songs evolve: Songs from consecutive

years are more alike than songs separated by several years. We are probably programmed by nature to change our language

Language Change

• Language has not declined from perfection (i.e., earlier forms of language were not better than later forms).

• Languages that survive are not superior to languages that die out

• Languages that survive are not simpler than languages that die out– Gaelic is dying out because the people

who speak it are less powerful than English speakers, not because it’s “more complicated” than English

Language Change

• Living Language: A language that is still spoken in the present day

• Endangered Language: A language that is at risk of falling out of use as speakers die or shift to speaking other languages

• Dead Language: A language that has no native speakers

Language Change

• Languages die when children stop learning them and the last native speakers die– Scots Gaelic: Spoken in Nova Scotia until

1940s• People stopped teaching their children and the

language died by the 1970s.– Yupik (Alaska native language)

• In 1990s, all tribal people knew the language• Now, only people 20+ know the language• No children learn the language

– Mohawk (parts of Canada and NY)• Declining, but still spoken by some children

Language Change

• Some languages die due to genocide– Tasmanians killed by European invaders wiped

out several languages• Most languages die because speakers

integrate with the larger, more powerful group– Greenland: Kalaallisut is taught alongside

Danish, but speakers have less use for Kalaalisut

– Turkey: Kurds are forbidden to print or teach their language

– USA: Native American language speakers punished for not speaking English at boarding schools.

Language Change

• Ancient Greek and Latin did not die like these languages– Ancient Greek morphed into modern Green– Latin morphed into Italian, French, Portuguese,

and Spanish• In the US, only 194 languages remain of

the 100s of native languages. – Only 33 of these languages are spoken by

children • Linguists estimate that 50%-90% of the

world’s languages will die by the end of this century.

Language Change

• Why does it matter when a language dies?– Groups lose their identities– Feels like a symbol of defeat– People lose the spiritual, cultural, and

intellectual traditions of their groups• Prayers, poetry, myths, ceremonies,

conversational styles, humor, traditions• These traditions are replaced by the

traditions of the dominant group– Scientists can’t study early civilizations

or cognition as easily.

Language Change

• Can we stop languages from dying?• http://www.endangeredlanguages.co

m/• http://www.hrelp.org/• Homework: Go to one of these

websites and spend a little time learning about endangered languages. Come back to class and discuss what you found.