Language change
Language
change as Historical Linguistics phenomenon refers to variation over time in a
language's phonetic, morphological, semantic and syntactic, features. It is the
phenomenon by which permanent alterations are made in the features and affects
all areas of language use over time. One of the best and successful
investigations in linguistics is on the issue of language and understanding
that it as a dynamic (not static) phenomenon since it passes through changes.
All natural languages with native speakers tend to change over and such changes
are neither the results of neither moral corruption nor intellectual
deterioration of the communities except dead ones like Latin, Sanskrit and
Attic Greek. The change in language is due to a number of reasons as follows;
Geographical division
of the speakers plays a great role for language change. As the groups of
speakers who had once spoken the same natural language spread out, they tend to
lose communication with each other especially when are bounded by other
geographical or social barriers. As the result of such a communication lost,
the homogeneity in terms of language use also perished since they tend to use
language differently. For example, the English speakers spread out through
Europe lead to the change of English language as each group went its own way,
underwent its own changes and thus differ each other.
Language contact also
influences the so called language change. Language contact refers to the state
whereby the speakers of one language frequently interact with those of another
language. The language change in this factor is due to linguistic borrowing since
the contact languages affect each other by taking language components like
grammar, sound and lexicon. As the result of such borrowing the language
changes from its origin way to another way in phonetic, morphological, semantic
as well as syntactic features. For example due to English speakers’ interaction
with other languages speakers worldwide, borrowed many words like safari and
ugali from Swahili, moccasin and tomahawk from Amerindian and so forth.
Another factor of
language change is articulatory simplification. This happens when the speakers
try to find out on the simple ways of articulating the words in their language
something that lead to diverge from the origin ones. This is concerned with
deletion and insertion processes. Deletion is the process of omitting a consonant
sound in a complex cluster to make it simple to articulate. On other hand
insertion is the process of adding vowel sound in a word to break up a complex
cluster. Consider these examples bellow;
i) Deletion of a consonant
[fifӨs] [fifs] ‘fifths’
ii) Insertion of a vowel
[ӕӨlijt] [ӕӨlӘjt] ‘athlete’
In
that two processes lead to the change of the words articulation ways
(phonetically) in the given language hence language change.
Moreover language
change is caused by the pronunciation of spelling in language. Since in some
languages, the written form of a word differ significantly the way it is
pronounced, new pronunciation can arise which seems to reflect more closely to
the spelling of the word. A good example is in English language in a word
‘often’. Though in Early English this word was pronounced with a [t] as [oftӘn]
but in the Modern English is not. A voiceless stop has been subsequently lost
resulting in pronunciation [ofӘn] hence language change. Another case in this
point is the pronunciation of [s] in words like ‘assume’ and ‘consume’.
Although in Early English such words were pronounced with an [s], sound change resulted in
pronunciation with [ʃ] hence to be pronounced as [ɑʃʊə] and [conʃʊm] in Modern
English.
The last but not
list is cognitive factor that lead to the change of language grammar. In this
point the issues are in Analogy and Reanalysis. Analogy refers to the speakers’
preference of regular patterns over the irregular ones. It typically involves
the extension or generalization of regularity on the basis of inference that if
elements are alike in some respects, they should be alike in others as well. In
this, both phonological and semantic characteristics can serve as basis of
analogy. For instance children can create forms like ‘*goed’ as compared to
‘played’. On the other hand Reanalysis as morphologically based changes
involves the attribution of an internal structure to a word which was not
formerly broken into component morphemes (words). Good example is the word
‘hamburger’ that originally was referred to a type of meat patty as derived
from the name of Germany city ‘Hamburg’. This word later reanalyzed as
consisting of two component morphemes ‘ham’ and ‘burger’. The latter morpheme
has since appeared in many new forms like ‘fishburger’ and ‘chickenburger’ as
well as in free morpheme ‘burger’.
Generally language change inescapable since language
is a dynamic phenomenon as it allows continuous modification so as to meet the
communication needs of its users. In such a case as linguists there is a need
to carry out several studies so as to come with more reasons behind that
influence language change. Not only that but also linguists should engage much
in more issues related to language development and growth as well as
interferen
REFERENCES
Archson, J. (1976). The Articulate Mammal: An Introduction to Psycholinguistics. London:
Hutchinson and Co.
Dawnson, H.C & Phelam, M. (2016). Language files: Materials for An
Introduction to Language
and Linguistics (12th
Edition). Columbus: The Ohio State University Press.
Nancy, B.(2013). Language,
Culture and Communication: The
Meaning Message (7th Ed).
Boston: Pearson.
O’Grady, W. et al. (1997). An Introduction to Contemporary Linguistics (3RD
Edition). Boston:
Bedford.
Comments
Post a Comment