The Biblical view of
language change:
The Tower of Babel
Babel
Genesis 11
1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a
plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
3 And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them
thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.
4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may
reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad
upon the face of the whole earth.
5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children
of men builded.
6 And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one
language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from
them, which they have imagined to do.
7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not
understand one another's speech.
8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the
earth: and they left off to build the city.
9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there
confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD
scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
Babel doesn’t really explain
the obvious correspondences
Babel doesn’t really explain
the obvious correspondences
L
pater
pedpiscpecus
per
OE
fæder
fót
fisc
féoh
for
OI
faðir
fótr
fiskr
fé
fyrr
Neogrammarians
1789 William Jones's paper for the Asiatic Society in
Calcutta:
The Sanskrit language, whatever may be its antiquity, is of
a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more
copious than the Latin; yet bearing to both of them a
stronger affinity, both in the roots of the verbs and the forms
of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by
accident; so strong that no philologer could examine the
Sanskrit, Greek and Latin, without believing them to have
sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no
longer exists. There is a similar reason, though not quite so
forcible, for supposing that Gothic [=the Germanic
languages] and Celtic had the same origin with the
Sanskrit.(Quoted in Robins 1967:134))
Neogrammarians
• Rasmus Kristian Rask 1787-1832:
Undersögelse om det gamle Nordiske eller
Islandske Spogs Oprindelse. Copenhagen
1818.
– Noted crucial correspondences between
'Thracian' (Indo-European) & 'Gothic' (ProtoGermanic)
Neogrammarians
• Jakob Ludwig Karl Grimm 1785-1863
Deutsche Grammatik I-IV 1822-37
• (Darwin: Origin of Species 1859)
• Friederich Karl Brugmann, Grundriss der
vergleichenden Grammatik der
indogermanischen Sprachen, 5 vol.
1886-93
Neogrammarians
What was the Neogrammarian theory of
language change?
Neogrammarians
What was the Neogrammarian theory of
language change?
Languages change systematically,
not randomly
Systematic language change
Relationships between languages are
obviously systematic to some degree:
Systematic language change
The Neogrammarians were particularly struck
with the correspondences of the consonants in
the Germanic and Romance language groups:
Systematic language change
They maintained that these relationships
were essentially systematic, and that most
of the present European languages had
evolved from a common ancestor, known
as Indo-European.
The following slides show typical representations of the
Indo European “family tree”:
Copied from: http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/language.html
http://www.linguatics.com/indoeuropean_languages.htm
Centum and Satem
• Latin and Avestan for “100”
• Possibly an early split
Indo-European
k
k
kentum group
Latin centum
>s
French cent > English cent
Gernanic hundTry Deborah Anderson on http://popgen.well.ox.ac.uk/eurasia/htdocs/anderson.html
s
satem group
Sanskrit śatám
Russian sto
Lithuanian šimtas
Germanic
North
Germanic
East
Germanic
West
Germanic
Germanic
North
Germanic
East
Danish
Swedish
East
Germanic
West
Norwegian
Icelandic
today:
Mainland
Norwegian
Danish
Swedish
Atlantic
Icelandic
Faroese
West
Germanic
Germanic
North
Germanic
East
Germanic
Gothic
(extinct)
Wulfilas
4th cent.
West
Germanic
Germanic
North
Germanic
High
German
German
Saxon
East
Germanic
Dutch
West
Germanic
Anglo-Frisian
Platdeutch Dutch Frisian
Flemish
Afrikaans
English
Germanic
North
Germanic
Italic
West
Germanic
Latin
High Saxonand
German Dutch
Norse
(Danish,
Norwegian)
AngloFrisian
English
French
First Germanic Consonant Shift
=
Grimm’s Law
English Icelandic German etc.
First Germanic Consonant Shiftsummary
Indo-European
Germanic
First series
p t k kw
f þ h hw
Second series
b d g gw
p t k kw
Third series
bh dh gh
ghw
b d g gw
Thus the two basic neogrammarian
concepts were:
1. The idea of a language family tree
2. The idea that sound laws are without exception
•
Early criticism: there are exceptions everywhere!
Some correpsondences were systematic:
dens
decem
duo
edo
digit
Indo Germanic d
remains d in Latin,
becomes t in
Germanic
(Second series)
tooth
ten
two
eat
token
Others were not systematic:
dare
deus
dux
dexter
dolor
give
god
leader
right
pain
(No correspondence with d in these words!
Sometimes the correspondence was too close:
dolor
dux
domus
dexter
dies
(d should not reappear as d!)
dole
duke
domestic
dexterous
day
The Neogrammarian thesis was that when sounds
do not match, there were four main reasons:
1. words change their meaning
– caput ~ chef ~ tête
– deus~Tiw ~ Týr
– domus~timber
The Neogrammarian thesis was that when sounds
do not match, there were four main reasons:
1. words change their meaning
2. langages borrow words from each other
(loans)
•
Loans entering a language after a sound-change
has ceased are not effected by it.
dntdent-
donttunþtóþ
dent
tooth
dentist
dandelion
tönn
The Neogrammarian thesis was that when sounds
do not match, there were four main reasons:
1. words change their meaning
2. langages borrow words from each other
–
(loans)
3. analogy
analogy
• Words take on each others’
characteristics
IE:
*kwetwer, *penkwe
Latin: quattuor, quinque
pinque
French: quatre, cinque
féower, fíf
four, five
hwéower
whour
The Neogrammarian thesis was that when sounds
do not match, there were four main reasons:
1. words change their meaning
2. langages borrow words from each other
–
(loans)
3. analogy
4. exceptions also systematic
– further rules
• Problem: the unvoiced stops p,t,k
sometimes became f,þ,h as expected, but
sometimes also became voiced to β,ð,z
Verner’s Law:
• The change in the first series was normal if it
occurred in a stressed syllable in IE (as in 'bhratar,
t>þ)
• but following an unstressed syllable (pi'tar) the
change was to a voiced fricative t>ð (>d in OE)
Subsequent development has levelled the
difference between father and brother in English
and Ice. What about German?
• Verner’s Law accounted for one of the
problems faced by Grimm’s law, and thus
supported the Neo-Grammarian
contention that sound-changes were
regular and without exception.
exceptions ...
• So the Neogrammarian idea that sound
laws are systematic and without exception
is correct as long as we are not dealing
with semantic shift, loans, analogy, and
any number of other chance factors.
Which if you think about it, simply means that if you
ignore the exceptions, and you will find there are no
exceptions.
language tree?
• Many of the exceptions, then, work against
the idea of a language tree ...
... obviously, we have to look for other
effects ....
trees or waves?
• Family tree model
• Wave theory
see: http://www.hi.is/~peturk/KENNSLA/11/TOPICS/01neogrammarians.html
trees or waves?
• Family tree model
• Wave theory
see: http://www.hi.is/~peturk/KENNSLA/11/TOPICS/01neogrammarians.html
The Wave Model
Algeo, Problems p. 87
trees or waves?
• Family tree model
• Wave theory
• Interaction
– Substratum effect
– Relexification
– Cohabitation
see: http://www.hi.is/~peturk/KENNSLA/11/TOPICS/01neogrammarians.html
Interaction
Contact between languages:
• Equality or inequality?
• Different levels of social development?
• Power relationships?
– Economic, political, military?
• Prestige?
see: http://www.hi.is/~peturk/KENNSLA/11/TOPICS/01neogrammarians.html
trees or waves?
• Family tree model
• Wave theory
• Interaction
– Substratum effect
– Relexification
– Cohabitation
see: http://www.hi.is/~peturk/KENNSLA/11/TOPICS/01neogrammarians.html
Interaction
• Substratum effect
The subaltern adopts the language of the
rulers:
– Latin developed differently in Italy, France and
Spain ....
– Irish pronunciation of English
see: http://www.hi.is/~peturk/KENNSLA/11/TOPICS/01neogrammarians.html
Interaction
• Substratum effect
• Relexification
– The subaltern classes keep their own
language
– Prestige: vocabulary moves from the high
prestige language to the low-prestige
language
– England during and after the Norman
occupation
see: http://www.hi.is/~peturk/KENNSLA/11/TOPICS/01neogrammarians.html
It has been said that only about 20% of
Old English vocabulary has survived to
the present day. In some ways this is true;
but we should remember that the words
that have survived are usually the
commonest ones, and that most of the
structural words of Modern English are still
Anglo-Saxon. Let's look at this paragraph
again, this time underlining all the words
that survive from Old English
It has been said that only about 20% of
Old English vocabulary has survived to
the present day. In some ways this is true;
but we should remember that the words
that have survived are usually the
commonest ones, and that most of the
structural words of Modern English are still
Anglo-Saxon. Let's look at this paragraph
again, this time underlining all the words
that survive from Old English
So although it may be true that, on a
dictionary count, 80% of the old English
vocabulary has been replaced by French
or Latin words, we can see that in the text
above, over 80% of the forms are still
native English. Many of the new French or
Latin words have English endings or are
combined with English morphemes:
survived, underlining.
Interaction
• Substratum effect
• Relexification
• Cohabitation
– If a Norse immigrant marries an English
native, what language will their children
speak?
– extensive intermarriages (we’ll come back to
this......)
see: http://www.hi.is/~peturk/KENNSLA/11/TOPICS/01neogrammarians.html