Understanding Language Variation and Change This resource has
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Understanding Language Variation and Change This resource has been created by the Case in Diachrony project and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share. Alike 3. 0 licence
How do languages come to be different? When you’re first learning a new language, you’ll notice a lot of things that seem different from English Even a familiar European language like Spanish can be quite different in some ways
How do languages come to be different? English Spanish I eat salted nuts Yo como nueces saladas When we see her, Mother gives her water Cuando nosotros la vemos, Madre le da agua
How do languages come to be different? English Spanish I eat salted nuts Yo como nueces saladas When we see her, Mother gives her water Cuando nosotros la vemos, Madre le da agua • In Spanish, subject pronouns (words like I and we) are optional • They’re only used to give extra emphasis (e. g. when WE see her).
How do languages come to be different? English Spanish I eat salted nuts (Yo) como nueces saladas When we see her, Mother gives her water Cuando (nosotros) la vemos, Madre le da agua
How do languages come to be different? English Spanish I eat salted nuts (Yo) como nueces saladas When we see her, Mother gives her water Cuando (nosotros) la vemos, Madre le da agua • Spanish has gender agreement • Adjectives have special feminine endings for feminine nouns (as here), and masculine endings for masculine nouns
How do languages come to be different? English Spanish I eat salted nuts (Yo) como nueces saladas When we see her, Mother gives her water Cuando (nosotros) la vemos, Madre le da agua
How do languages come to be different? English Spanish I eat salted nuts (Yo) como nueces saladas When we see her, Mother gives her water Cuando (nosotros) la vemos, Madre le da agua • Spanish has more cases • There is one word for her as a direct object (accusative) and another word for her as an indirect object (dative)
How do languages come to be different? English Spanish I eat salted nuts (Yo) como nueces saladas When we see her, Mother gives her water Cuando (nosotros) la vemos, Madre le da agua
How do languages come to be different? English Spanish I eat salted nuts (Yo) como nueces saladas When we see her, Mother gives her water Cuando (nosotros) la vemos, Madre le da agua • Spanish word order is sometimes different • Both these pronouns come before the verb, while in English they follow it
How do languages come to be different? How did English and Spanish come to be so different? Going back in time can help us find the answers
Old English Old Spanish I eat salted nuts (Yo) como nueces saladas When we see her, Mother gives her water Cuando (nosotros) la vemos, Madre le da agua
A. D. 1000 Old English Old Spanish Ic ete sealtena hnyte (Yo) como nuezes saladas Hwonne we seoth heo, Modor giefth hire waeter Cuando (nos) la vemos, Madre le da agua
A. D. 1000 Old English Old Spanish Ic ete sealtena hnyte (Yo) como nuezes saladas Hwonne we seoth heo, Modor giefth hire waeter Cuando (nos) la vemos, Madre le da agua • Spanish has changed much less than English since this time
A. D. 1000 Old English Old Spanish Ic ete sealtena hnyte (Yo) como nuezes saladas Hwonne we seoth heo, Modor giefth hire waeter Cuando (nos) la vemos, Madre le da agua
A. D. 1000 Old English Old Spanish Ic ete sealtena hnyte (Yo) como nuezes saladas Hwonne we seoth heo, Modor giefth hire wæter Cuando (nos) la vemos, Madre le da agua • English now has gender agreement as well • Hnyte ‘nuts’ is a feminine noun, so sealtena ‘salted’ has a feminine ending
A. D. 1000 Old English Old Spanish Ic ete sealtena hnyte (Yo) como nuezes saladas Hwonne we seoth heo, Modor giefth hire wæter Cuando (nos) la vemos, Madre le da agua
A. D. 1000 Old English Old Spanish Ic ete sealtena hnyte (Yo) como nuezes saladas Hwonne we seoth heo, Modor giefth hire wæter Cuando (nos) la vemos, Madre le da agua • English also has a separate dative case • hire is used only for indirect objects; for direct objects heo is used instead.
A. D. 1000 At this period, English and Spanish are still very different We can go even further back and see what happens
A. D. 1000 Old English Old Spanish Ic ete sealtena hnyte (Yo) como nuezes saladas Hwonne we seoth heo, Modor giefth hire waeter Cuando (nos) la vemos, Madre le da agua
A. D. 200 Ingvaeonic Latin (Late) Ik etu saltana hnuti (Ego) comedo nuces salatas Hwannae we sehath hiu, Moder gefith here waetaer Quando (nos) illa videmus, Mater illi dat aqua
A. D. 200 Ingvaeonic Latin (Late) Ik etu saltana hnuti (Ego) comedo nuces salatas Hwannae we sehath hiu, Moder gefith here waetaer Quando (nos) illa videmus, Mater illi dat aqua • This language was never written down; we have had to reconstruct it using evidence from modern languages • It was probably spoken around the coast of Germany and the Netherlands, when the Anglo-Saxons still lived on the Continent
A. D. 200 Ingvaeonic Latin (Late) Ik etu saltana hnuti (Ego) comedo nuces salatas Hwannae we sehath hiu, Moder gefith here waetaer Quando (nos) illa videmus, Mater illi dat aqua
A. D. 200 Ingvaeonic Latin (Late) Ik etu saltana hnuti (Ego) comedo nuces salatas Hwannae we sehath hiu, Moder gefith here waetaer Quando (nos) illa videmus, Mater illi dat aqua • There has been much more change on this side • Some syllables that were dropped in Spanish are now visible
A. D. 200 Let’s go back even further
A. D. 200 Ingvaeonic Latin (Late) Ik etu saltana hnuti (Ego) comedo nuces salatas Hwannae we sehath hiu, Moder gefith here waetaer Quando (nos) illa videmus, Mater illi dat aqua
500 B. C. Proto-Germanic Latin (Old) (Ek) eto saltanoz hnutunz (Ego) edo nuces salsas Hwan (wiz) sehwamaz siu, Moder gebidi ezai wator Quom (nos) eam videmus, Mater ei dat aquam • You can now see some older pronouns that were replaced by other pronouns later • This sort of replacement is one of the things that makes languages grow further apart
500 B. C. Proto-Germanic Latin (Old) (Ek) eto saltanoz hnutunz (Ego) edo nuces salsas Hwan (wiz) sehwamaz siu, Moder gebidi ezai wator Quom (nos) eam videmus, Mater ei dat aquam
500 B. C. Proto-Germanic Latin (Old) (Ek) eto saltanoz hnutunz (Ego) edo nuces salsas Hwan (wiz) sehwamaz siu, Moder gebidi ezai wator Quom (nos) eam videmus, Mater ei dat aquam • This is another language that was never written down
500 B. C. Proto-Germanic Latin (Old) (Ek) eto saltanoz hnutunz (Ego) edo nuces salsas Hwan (wiz) sehwamaz siu, Moder gebidi ezai wator Quom (nos) eam videmus, Mater ei dat aquam
500 B. C. Proto-Germanic Latin (Old) (Ek) eto saltanoz hnutunz (Ego) edo nuces salsas Hwan (wiz) sehwamaz siu, Moder gebidi ezai wator Quom (nos) eam videmus, Mater ei dat aquam • These pronouns are now optional too, like in Spanish and Latin
500 B. C. Proto-Germanic Latin (Old) (Ek) eto saltanoz hnutunz (Ego) edo nuces salsas Hwan (wiz) sehwamaz siu, Moder gebidi ezai wator Quom (nos) eam videmus, Mater ei dat aquam
500 B. C. Proto-Germanic Latin (Old) (Ek) eto saltanoz hnutunz (Ego) edo nuces salsas Hwan (wiz) sehwamaz siu, Moder gebidi ezai wator Quom (nos) eam videmus, Mater ei dat aquam • You can see that some of the endings are starting to look much more similar in each language
500 B. C. Proto-Germanic Latin (Old) (Ek) eto saltanoz hnutunz (Ego) edo nuces salsas Hwan (wiz) sehwamaz siu, Moder gebidi ezai wator Quom (nos) eam videmus, Mater ei dat aquam
500 B. C. Proto-Germanic Latin (Old) (Ek) eto saltanoz hnutunz (Ego) edo nuces salsas Hwan (wiz) sehwamaz siu, Moder gebidi ezai wator Quom (nos) eam videmus, Mater ei dat aquam • At this stage, the endings of each word make its role in the sentence clear • First person singular verb (subject is always ‘I’) • Accusative (must be object, not subject)
500 B. C. Proto-Germanic (Ek) eto saltanoz hnutunz ek saltanoz hnutunz eto ek saltanoz saltanos ek eto hnutunz … Latin (Old) (Ego) edo nuces salsas ego salsas nuces edo ego salsas ego edo nuces … • This means that you can put the words in any order without changing the basic meaning • Over time the order became more rigid and different languages developed different rules for which order to use
500 B. C. You can see that two languages that are very different today look more and more alike the further back we go How far back would we need to go to find just one language?
500 B. C. Proto-Germanic Latin (Old) (Ek) eto saltanoz hnutunz (Ego) edo nuces salsas Hwan (wiz) sehwamaz siu, Moder gebidi ezai wator Quom (nos) eam videmus, Mater ei dat aquam
4000 B. C. Indo-European (Egoh) hedmi knums saltehms Kwom (wei) ehm weidehmos, Mahters esmei dedehti wodr
4000 B. C. Indo-European (Egoh) hedmi knums saltehms Kwom (wei) ehm weidehmos, Mahters esmei dedehti wodr • This language was spoken before the invention of writing. • Most languages in Europe descend from it, as do many in the Middle East and South Asia.
4000 B. C. Indo-European (Egoh) hedmi knums saltehms Kwom (wei) ehm weidehmos, Mahters esmei dedehti wodr • It looks very different from languages spoken today, but you can see that some words look more like English and others more like Spanish. • Other words haven’t changed much in either language.
4000 B. C. Indo-European (Egoh) hedmi knums saltehms Kwom (wei) ehm weidehmos, Mahters esmei dedehti wodr • All the differences that you’ll find between English and Spanish have been produced by the types of changes that we’ve seen, starting from this one point.
4000 B. C. Indo-European (Egoh) hedmi knums saltehms Kwom (wei) ehm weidehmos, Mahters esmei dedehti wodr
A. D. 2020 Old English Old Spanish I eat salted nuts (Yo) como nueces saladas When we see her, Mother gives her water Cuando (nosotros) la vemos, Madre le da agua