LANGUAGE

CHANGE
 Why does language change?

• needs of the language users change

• New technology
• New products
• New experiences
 THEORIES
•The Classical Theory
•The Comparative Method
 The Classical Theory

• Recurrent correspondences between

the sounds of languages
• Sound Laws
 Indo-European languages (Germanic
consonant shift)
• Voiceless stops to voiceless fricatives (Sanskrit:
trayas-English: three)
• Voiced stops to voiceless stops (Skrt.: dvau- Eng:
Two)
• Voiced aspirates to plain voiced stops in
Germanic (Skrt: bhratar-Eng. Brother)
 THE COMPARATIVE METHOD

• Languages are related means that they

represent changed forms of a single parent
language or “protolanguage”
• Reconstruct or define the words and grammar
of a protolanguage by projecting backwards
from its daughters
• Romance languages (French, Spanish,
Italian etc. )- LATIN
• Russian, Polish, Czech – PROTO-
SLAVIC
• Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic- PROTO-
SEMITIC