TSL 3101 INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS IPG KDRI

y Languages evolved. y From Europe to India

a single ancestor / mother called Proto-Indo-European. y Historical linguistics.

y 1786

the year of the beginning of historical linguistics. y Sir William Jones presented a paper primarily on culture, religion and people of India at the Royal Asiatic Society in Culcutta. y Jones discussed Sanskrit (languages of India are descended) and the commonalities among Sanskrit, Greek, Latin and Gothic. y Significantly, Jones postulated that these languages must have come from a common source language Proto-Indo-European.

y Jones s lecture put forth the idea to form the basis for

the comparative method of linguistics. y Comparative method a technique of linguistic analysis that compares lists of related words in a selection of languages (Denham & Lobeck, 2010). y Cognates words descended from a common ancestor (e.g. father Latin pater ; French p re ; Spanish padre ). y This similarity suggests all these words come from a common root (Latin) and same language family (Italic).

y However, father in English is similar to German

vater ( v is pronounced as f ). y This proposes that English and German are related and come from the Germanic language family. y Another proof fish in Latin pisces, French poisson and Spanish pescado. In German fisch and Danish fisk both are the Germanic language. y p in Italic and f in Germanic a regular sound correspondence. This shows that Italic and germanic might descend from a common root i.e. Proto-IndoEuropean family.

y Proto-Indo-European is only one of about a hundred

language families nearly 7,000 languages spoken and signed in the world today. y The Indo-European languages most widely studied and more than half of world s population treat an Indo-European language as their first/second language.

y Other examples:
Sanskrit Pita Padam Bhratar Bharami Sanah Greek Pater Poda Phrater Phero Henee Latin Pater Pedem Frater Fero Senex Gothic Fadar Fotu Brothor Baira Sinista English Father Foot Brother Bear Senile PIE roots PaterPedBhraterBherSenMEANING

Father Foot Brother Carry Old

y Several other scholars made significant contributions

to historical linguistics and the comparative method:

y Rasmus Rask (1787

1832) Danish linguist; worked out many relationships among the Indo-European languge family. y Jacob Grimm (1785 1863) Grimm s law, a sound shift that took place in the Germanic languages, distinguishing from the non-Germanic Indo-European languages; certain sounds occurred in Latin & Sanskrit, unlikely, certain other sounds occurred in Germanic.

The Indo-European Language Family Tree

By Jack Lynch, Rutgers Newark

y Dominated Western Europe around 400 BCE. y The people migrated to British Isles 2,000 years ago. y When Germanic tribes arrived, they pushed the

Celtic-speaking people into Wales, Ireland & Scotland, and to Brittany in France. y These languages still exist (Manx, Irish, Welsh, Scottish); others are extinct (Cornish, Gaulish, Cumbrian, Pictish, Galatian).

y Italic language family

also known as Latin or

Romance. y Italian and Portuguese the most like the original Latin). y Others Spanish, French, Romanian, RhaetoRomansch (Switzerland) Ladino (spoken by Jews from Spain, exiled in the 15th century & now live in Turkey and Israel), Walloon (a variety of French in Belgium), Sardinian (in Sardegna, the largest island in Mediterannean), Canadian French, Catalan (the northern part of Spain), Provencal (the south of France). y Extinct Dalmatian, Oscan, Faliscan, Sabine and Umbrian.

y Modern Greek

the only language still spoken from the Hellenic branch. y Ancient Greek one of the oldest languages of the Indo-European family. y Mycenaean was spoken about 1,300 BCE. y The main varieties of Greek Doric, Faliscan, Sabine and Umbrian.

y Lithuanian (in Lithuania) and Latvian (in Latvia)

two languages of the Baltic family still spoken. y They diverged from each other around 800 CE and likely continued as mutually intelligible dialects until 15th century.

y The Slavic languages

spoken in Eastern Europe, closely related to Baltic language family. y These two languages form a single branch the BaltoSlavic family. y The Slavic languages include Bulgarian, Russian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Slovene, Macedonian, Bosnian, Ukrainian, Byelorussian, Kashubian (in Poland) and Sorbian (in parts of eastern Germany).

y The languages of Iranian subfamily

descended from Ancient Persian (literary language of the Persian Empire & one of the great classical languages alongside Greek, Latin and Sanskrit). y Farsi (also known as Persian, Iranian, or Dari) currently the most widely spoken (in Afghanistan and Iran). y Kurdish spoken by Kurds in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. y Baluchi used in Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

y Pashto y y y

spoken in Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan. Ossetian used in the Democratic Republic of Georgia. Tadzhik spoken in Tadzhikistan and northen Afghanistan. The languages of the Indic branch of the Indo-Iranian family are spoken primarily in India; descended from Sanskrit, the classical language of Hinduism. Hindi and Urdu are similar. However:
y Hindi

spoken by Hindus and written in Sanskrit writing system (Devanagari writing of the gods ). y Urdu spoken by Muslims and written in Arabic script.

y Armenian is a language, not a family. y The only surviving language of what was once a larger

family. y Spoken in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan. y Extinct Dacian, Thracian, Phrygian.

y Similar to Armenian

sole survivor of what once a larger language subfamily. y Also known as Shqip. y Illyric and Mesapian used to be spoken in parts of Italy; extinct.

y Germanic was probably spoken shortly before the y y

y y

beginning of Christian era. Those who spoke Germanic did not write the language. Written records in Germanic began only 300 CE with a few Scandinavian inscriptions; the earliest written records in English are from 700 CE. Proto-Germanic is to German, Dutch, the Scandinavian languages and English. Gradually, Proto-Germanic divided into North Germanic, West Germanic & East Germanic.

FAMILY

SAMPLING OF MEMBERS

MAIN AREAS WHERE SPOKEN

Uralic Altaic Sino-Tibetan MalayoPolynesian Iroquoian Afro-Asiatic Dravidian

Hungarian, Finnish, Siberian, Mordvin Turkish, Uzbek, Mongolian, Korean, Japanese Mandarin, Cantonese Malay, Indonesian, Maori, Hawaiian Mohawk, Seneca, Huron Arabic, Hebrew Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada

Europe Europe, Central Asia, Mongolia, Far East Asia Island nations of SEA & the Pacific Ocean, continental Asia, Madagascar North America North Africa, Middle east India

y Account called Ecclesiastical History of the English

People ( Historia ecclesiastica gentisAnglorum ) written in Latin by a monk named Bede (730 BC). y Celtic people lived in the British Isles for many centuries before Julius Caesar s invasions in 54 55 BC. y Contact with Romans continued 100 years later, the Romans were firmly established in Britain several hundred years of occupation. y Despite, the British Celts continued to use own languages.

y 449 BC

the Anglo-Saxon (now Germany)adventure warriors landed in the British Isles. y In the course of the next hundred years, more Angles, Saxons & Jutes , and Frisians came they were believed to possess mutually intelligible dialects of a single Germanic language. y About a century and a half later - descendants of these people began to think of themselves and their speech as English (englisc). y The name of a single tribe was adopted as a national name, Engle, and the land of Angles was Englalond.

y 449 to 1100

the Old English period. y End of the 6th century the time St. Augustine to convert everyone living in the British Isles to Christianity, the English controlled nearly all of England. y English did not simply absorb the Celts the Celtic languages are still spoken in the borderlands.

y 1066

The Normans from the northern part of france invaded and conquered England (the Battle of Hastings). y French-speaking rulers in power French gradually became the language of the land until the 2nd half of the 14th century. y English remained entrenched as the language of the commoners. y The variety of English spoken from around 1,100 to 1,500 is called Middle English.

y William the Conqueror & Duke of Normandy

vanquished the Anglo-Saxon king, Harold Godwineson, at Hastings French became the language of the nobles, but English remained the language spoken by the English peasants. y 1204 King John of England lost all the Norman s lands to French (King Philip II). This broke the political ties between England and France, and thus, interests in and connections to France waned. y These two incidents did not affect the widely used of English as the language spoken in England.

y In fact, the off-and-on battle for power between

French and England (1337 1453) known as the Hundred Years War resulted in further separation between the two countries and their languages. y The Black Death (bubonic plague) in 1348 by 1351, it had killed two-third of Europe s population and onethird of England s. As a result, the English peasants moved to towns gained higher pay and positions in economy. English language gained in prestige. y End of 14th century, everyone spoke English.

y 1500 y y y y

1800 Early Modern English. English literature Shakespeare s writing & King James s version of the Bible. Differences in phonology, morphology and syntax. Printing press books and pamphlets had been introduced and become widespread. Writers Elyot, Spenser, Thomas, Shakespeare, More, Sydney - improved English by introducing new words and defending the English language and its literature. One major event the separation of the English Church from Rome in 1536 led to a rise of English language status.

y Reading assignment:
y CHAPTER 11 OF THE REFERENCE BOOK.

Reference: Denham, Kristin & Lobeck, Anne. (2010). Linguistics for Everyone : An Introduction. Massachussetts: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.