1. Why English is considered as a Changing Language?

Jawab: Because if English hadn't changed since say 1950, english language wouldn't
have words to refer to modems, fax machines, or cable TV. As long as the needs of
language users continue to change, so will the language. The change is so slow that
from year to year we hardly notice it, except to grumble every so often about the
‘poor English’ being used by the younger generation! However, reading
Shakespeare's writings from the sixteenth century can be difficult. If you go back a
couple more centuries, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales are very tough sledding, and if
you went back another 500 years to try to read Beowulf, it would be like reading a
different language.
2. How many variety of sound change occurred in the history of English?
Jawab: The 44 Phonemes in English
3. What are the differences between conditioned and unconditioned change in sound
change?
Jawab: unconditioned changes take place irrespective of the phonological context in
which the sound-changes may occur or be found. Conditioned changes are more
restricted and affect the occurrences of some sounds which happen to be in particular
contexts.
4. What are the characteristics of the First Germanic Consonant Shift?
Jawab: Strong evidence for the unity of all the modern Germanic languages can be
found in the phenomenon known as the first Germanic sound shift or consonant shift
(also called Grimm's law ), which set the Germanic subfamily apart from the other
members of the Indo-European family. Consisting of a regular shifting of consonants
in groups, the sound shift had already occurred by the time adequate records of the
various Germanic languages began to be made in the 7th to 9th cent. According to
Grimm's law, certain consonant sounds found in the ancient Indo-European languages
(such as Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit) underwent a change in the Germanic tongue. For
example, the sounds p, d, t, and k in the former became f, t, th, and h respectively in
the latter, as in Latin pater, English father; Latin dent, English tooth; and Latin cornu,
English horn.
5. What are the characteristics of the Great Vowel Shift?
Jawab: The causes of the Great Vowel Shift have been a source of intense scholarly
debate, and, as yet, there is no firm consensus. The greatest changes occurred during
the 15th and 16th centuries. Some scholars have argued that the rapid migration of
peoples from northern England to the southeast following the Black Death caused a
mixing of accents that forced a change in the standard London vernacular. Others
argue that the influx of French loanwords was a major factor in the shift. Yet others
assert that because of the increasing prestige of French pronunciations among the
middle classes (perhaps related to the English aristocracy's switching from French to
English around this time), a process of hypercorrection may have started a shift that
unintentionally resulted in vowel pronunciations that are inaccurate imitations of
French pronunciations. An opposing theory states that the wars with France and
general anti-French sentiments caused hypercorrection deliberately to make English
sound less like French.