Language change

1. Language change • All spoken languages change • Some change faster than others

2. 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

3. continued • Classical Arabic – Muslims • Pali – Buddhists • Sanskrit – Hindus • Coptic – Egyptian Christians • Often used on special occasions but not understood

4. continued • Often such languages are part of speech community • Even non- or semi- speakers insist they are used on certain occasions

5. 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?

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

7. Ideas about language change • Decline – ignorance and laziness before 1786 • Family tree – descent with modification

8. mother • 1. Ineny • 2. Mutter • 3. Ma • 4. Um • 5. Ina • 6. Madre • 7. Mere

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

10. 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 Key

11. 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

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

13. 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

14. continued • 19th century – • Words, structures, forms spread like waves • Unpopular until late 20th century • But explains PNG and Australia • now “punctuated equilibrium”

15. Why do languages change? Wrong Ideas • Running up German mountains • Noisy factories in Northern England • Stiff Chinese tongues

16. Structural changes • Why did Nemo’s father say “jangan sentuh punggung”?

17. continued • Language is a system • – one change leads to another – • Vowel shifts in England, US Northern Cities, China and English speaking southern hemisphere

18. continued • Australian front vowels are moving up • Central vowels are moving down • Boat becomes Buutt

19. Phonological • Glottal fricatives deleted • Consonant clusters reduced • Diphthongs monophthongised

20. 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

21. Sociolinguistic change • Provides an adequate exalanation • Languages change because of the relationship between social groups

22. 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

23. 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

24. 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’

25. 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

26. 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

27. Continued • older form, centralised /aI/ used by fishermen – dying out • ‘light’ pronounced /l@It/ ‘layeet’ • ‘house’ /h@us/ ‘heyoose’

28. 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

29. 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

30. 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

31. 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

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

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