OVERVIEW OF

LINGUISTIC
 Linguistics is the scientific study of human
language. It tries:
• first, to observe languages and to describe them accurately,
• then, to find generalizations within what has been described,
• finally, to draw conclusions about the general nature of human
language

Linguistics overlaps and (ideally) cooperates with: psychology,

sociology, anthropology, philosophy, logic, mathematics, computer
science, speech pathology, acoustics, music, cryptanalysis, etc.
 Applied linguistics attempts to make practical use of the knowledge
derived from general linguistic research – in order, for example, to:

• improve the ways in which a student’s native language is

taught
• help people learn foreign language more efficiently
• write better dictionaries
• improve therapy for people with language problems
• search the Internet more efficiently and successfully
 OVERVIEW OF LINGUISTICS
Every human knows at least one language, spoken or signed. Linguistics
is the science of language, including the sounds, words, and grammar
rules. Words in languages are finite, but sentences are not. It is this
creative aspect of human language that sets it apart from animal
languages, which are essentially responses to stimuli.
Linguistics is the study of language - how it is put together and how it
functions. Various building blocks of different types and sizes are
combined to make up a language. Sounds are brought together and
sometimes when this happens, they change their form and do interesting
things. Words are arranged in a certain order, and sometimes the
beginnings and endings of the words are changed to adjust the meaning.
Then the meaning itself can be affected by the arrangement of words
and by the knowledge of the speaker about what the hearer will
understand. Linguistics is the study of all of this. There are various
branches of linguistics which are given their own name, some of which
are described below. Linguists are people who study linguistics.
Important subfields of linguistics include:
Phonetics - the study of how speech sounds are produced and perceived
Phonology - the study of sound patterns and changes
Morphology - the study of word structure
Syntax - the study of sentence structure
Semantics - the study of linguistic meaning
Pragmatics - the study of how language is used in context Historical
Linguistics - the study of language change
Sociolinguistics - the study of the relation between language and society
Computational Linguistics - the study of how computers can process human
language
Psycholinguistics - the study of how humans acquire and use language
Who founded linguistics?
Linguist Ferdinand de Saussure
The Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913) is widely
acknowledged as the key figure in this refocusing of interest, and
as the founding father of modern linguistics. Saussure began his
career in the Indo-European historical-comparative tradition,
within which he made a seminal contribution.
Also Noam Chomsky is known as the father of modern linguistics.
Back in 1957, Chomsky, with his revolutionary book “Syntactic
Structures,” laid the foundation of his non-empiricist theory of
language.
Who founded linguistics?
Linguist Ferdinand de Saussure
The Swiss linguist Ferdinand de
Saussure (1857–1913) is widely
acknowledged as the key figure in
this refocusing of interest, and as
the founding father of modern
linguistics. Saussure began his
career in the Indo-European
historical-comparative tradition,
within which he made a seminal
contribution.
Also Noam Chomsky is known as the
father of modern linguistics. Back in 1957,
Chomsky, with his revolutionary book
“Syntactic Structures,” laid the foundation
of his non-empiricist theory of language.
 VIDEOS

1. OVERVIEW OF LINGUISTIC

2. HISTORY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE

HISTORY OF
ENGLISH
LANGUAGE
English language, West Germanic language of the Indo-European language
family that is closely related to the Frisian, German, and Dutch (in Belgium
called Flemish) languages.
English originated in England and is the dominant language of the United
States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and
various island nations in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.
It is also an official language of India, the Philippines, Singapore, and
many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including South Africa. English is
the first choice of foreign language in most other countries of the world,
and it is that status that has given it the position of a global lingua franca. It
is estimated that about a third of the world’s population, some two billion
persons, now use English.
 What is the origin of the English language?
English is a West Germanic language that originated from the Anglo-Frisian
dialects and was brought to Britain by Germanic invaders (8th and 9th
centuries AD). One second invasion took place by the Normans of the 11th
century, who spoke Old Norman and developed an English form of this.

Who invented English language first?

The earliest forms of English, collectively known as Old English, evolved from
a group of West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by
Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century and further mutated by Norse-
speaking Viking settlers starting in the 8th and 9th centuries.
 What are the types of English
language?
Most speakers have some understanding that British English,
American English, Canadian English, and even South African
English all exist and have some differences. But you may be
surprised by the many other English-based languages and
dialects that exist and are in use today.
English is a part of indo-european language, specifically a part of the
germanic familly also know as proto-germanic. In the early 5th century the
roman empire who ruled over england for 400 years withdraw their hold
over the islands. Jutes, Angles, and Saxons are germanic tribes, they
ventured onto the island and slowly replaced the celtic and romano british
culture that had been dominant in the area. The island was divided into
two parts the celtic on the north while the area we now know as england
which is the southern part where the germanic tribes immigrated became
culturaly germanic.
These germanic tribes eventually developed a common cultural identity
called Anglo-saxons.
The Anglo-saxons in their many kingdoms spoke the language we now
know as old english. The first major influx of change to english came with
the viking invasions in the 8th century onward, norman from norway and
denmark came invaded the northern part of england and even set up a
kingdom of their own called the danelaw, these vikings spoke a language
called old norse which is the ancestor of modern scandinavian languages, its
influence on english was mostly vocabulary.

In 1066 William the bastard later known as William the conqueror invaded
and successfully conquered the england with his norman army. These
norman which now rules the england spoke a dialect of old french which
came to be the language of the royal court while old english continued to be
the language of the peasantry, after around 100 years of norman ruling
england the two language began to merge creating what we call the middle
With this influx of french words as well as the simplification of the
grammar rules of old english, middle english is one step closer to
the language that we know today.
In the 15th century a phenomenon known as the great vowel shift
started occuring which propelled english into its early modern
version. This vowel shift affected all english pronunciation in quite
dramatic ways. Basically english long vowels started becoming
shorter, also there were many consonant that became
unpronounced which we now call silent letters, a good example if
this changed is in the word knife, in middle english it was
pronounced as kneef but after the vowel shift the K became silent
and the long vowel E was replaced by I and became shorter.
With this changes around 200 years the english language became what we
call early modern english.
Early modern english is understandable to modern english speakers but the
word choice is quite different from how we speak making it sometimes
difficult to comprehend.

Basically english long vowels started becoming shorter, also there were
many consonant that became unpronounced which we now call silent letters,
a good example if this changed is in the word knife, in middle english it was
pronounced as kneef but after the vowel shift the K became silent and the
long vowel E was replaced by I and became shorter.
 THAT'S ALL FOR TODAY
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