1.

Introduction

Language change is the phenomenon whereby phonetic, morphological, semantic,

syntactic, and other features of language vary over time. All languages change
continually. At any given moment the English language, for example, has a huge variety
within itself: descriptive linguists call this variety synchronic variation. From these
different forms comes the effect on language over time known as diachronic change. Two
linguistic disciplines in particular concern themselves with studying language change:
historical linguistics and sociolinguistics. Historical linguists examine how people in the
past used language and seek to determine how subsequent languages derive from
previous ones and relate to one another. Sociolinguists study the origins of language
changes and want to explain how society and changes in society influence language.

1. economy: Speakers tend to make their utterances as efficient and effective as

possible to reach communicative goals. Purposeful speaking therefore involves a
trade-off of costs and benefits.
o the principle of least effort: Speakers especially use economy in their
articulation, which tends to result in phonetic reduction of speech forms.
See vowel reduction, cluster reduction, lenition, and elision. After some
time a change may become widely accepted (it becomes a regular sound
change) and may end up treated as a standard. For instance: going to
[ˈɡoʊ.ɪntʊ] → gonna [ˈɡʌnə], with examples of both vowel reduction [ʊ]
→ [ə] and elision [nt] → [n], [oʊ.ɪ] → [ʌ].
2. analogy
3. language contact
4. the medium of communication
5. cultural environment: Groups of speakers will reflect new places, situations, and
objects in their language, whether they encounter different people there or not.

Rudi Keller discusses language change in the context of evolutionary process: "the
historical evolution of language"

Types of language change

All languages change constantly, and do so in many and varied ways. Each generation
notes how other generations "talk funny".

Marcel Cohen details various types of language change under the overall headings of the
external evolution[2] and internal evolution of languages.[3]
Lexical changes

The study of lexical changes forms the diachronic portion of the science of
onomasiology.

The ongoing influx of new words in the English language (for example) helps make it a
rich field for investigation into language change, despite the difficulty of defining
precisely and accurately the vocabulary available to speakers of English. Throughout its
history English has not only borrowed words extravagantly from other languages but has
re-combined and recycled them to create new meanings, whilst losing some old words.

Dictionary-writers try to keep track of the changes in languages by recording (and,

ideally, dating) the appearance in a language of new words, or of new usages for existing
words. By the same token, they may tag some words as "archaic" or "obsolete".

Phonetic and phonological changes

Main articles: sound change and phonological change

The concept of sound change covers both phonetic and phonological developments.

The sociolinguist William Labov recorded the change in pronunciation in a relatively

short period in the American resort of Martha’s Vineyard and showed how this resulted
from social tensions and processes.[4] Even in the relatively short time that broadcast
media have recorded their work, one can observe the difference between the "marked"
pronunciation of the newsreaders of the 1940s and the 1950s and the more neutral,
"unmarked" pronunciation of today. The greater acceptance and fashionability of regional
accents in media may[original research?] also reflect a more democratic, less formal society —
compare the widespread adoption of language policies.

The mapping and recording of small-scale phonological changes poses difficulties,

especially as the practical technology of sound recording dates only from the 19th
century. So written texts provide the main (indirect) evidence of how language sounds
have changed over the centuries . But note Ferdinand de Saussure's work on postulating
the existence and disappearance of laryngeals in Proto-Indo-European as an example of
other methods of detecting/reconstructing sound-changes within historical linguistics.

Spelling changes

The modern obsession with spelling in the West originated in relatively recent times.
[citation needed]
Differences in spelling often catch the eye of a reader of a text from a previous
century. The pre-print era had fewer literate people: languages lacked fixed systems of
orthography, and the handwritten manuscripts that survive often show words spelled
according to regional pronunciation and to personal preference.
The development of the printing press in the 15th century, however, presented printers
with dilemmas of standardisation: texts from the fifteenth through to the seventeenth
centuries show many internal inconsistencies, with the same word often spelled
differently within the same text. Writers contributed to the variety: famously,
Shakespeare spelled his own name in many different ways. Additionally, typesetters
sometimes selected various spellings based on typographical criteria, such as aiming for
uniform line-lengths when assembling type pieces on a composing stick. As typesetters
found it easier to make one of the lines of type longer than to make the other lines
shorter, word lengths tended to standardize on the longer spellings.

Modern English spellings do not result from a single consistent system; rather, they show
evidence of previous pronunciations which changed over time. For example, the spelling
of words such as "night" hints at an older pronunciation, the "gh" representing a sound
similar to that conveyed by "ch" in the Scottish pronunciation of loch. Other examples
include the "k"-sound once pronounced in words like "knee" or "knight", and the "ch" in
"chicken" or "cheese", which English-speakers once pronounced as 'k'.

One could regard many of the conventions of English spelling as stuck in the 15th
century: William Caxton (died ca. 1492) chose the East Midland dialect (specifically the
London variety) of English as the basis for his first printed English-language work in
1476. He had to discriminate against many synonyms used in other areas of England
(such as East Anglia, Northumberland and Mercia). For example, Caxton's public found
the Southern word "eyren" mutually unintelligible with the Northern equivalent, "egges"
(modern English: "eggs").

Semantic changes

Main article: Semantic change

The appearance of a new word marks only the beginning of its existence. Once generally
adopted as part of the language, the meanings and applications it has for speakers can
shift dramatically, to the point of causing misunderstandings. For example, "villain" once
meant a peasant or farmhand, but has come to imply a criminal individual in modern
English. This exemplifies a word that has undergone pejoration, which means that a
negative association has become attached to it. Conversely, other words have undergone
amelioration, where a more positive meaning prevails. Thus, the word 'wicked' (generally
meaning 'evil'), as of 2009 means 'brilliant' in slang or in a colloquial context.

Other ways of semantic change include narrowing and broadening. Narrowing a word
semantically limits its alternative meanings. For example the word "girl" once meant 'a
young child' and "hound" (Old English hund) referred to any dog, whereas as of 2009 it
demotes a particular type of canid. Examples of words that have been broadened
semantically include "dog" (which once referred to a particular breed).

Syntactic change
Main article: Syntactic change

If one regards a language as vocabulary cast into the mould of a particular syntax (with
functional items maintaining the basic structure of a sentence and with the lexical items
filling in the blanks), syntactic change no doubt plays the greatest role in modifying the
physiognomy of a particular language. Syntactic change affects grammar in its
morphological and syntactic aspects and is seen[by whom?] as gradual, the product of chain
reactions and subject to cyclic drift.[5] The view of creole languages as the product of
catastrophism is heavily disputed[by whom?]. Altintas, Can, and Patton (2007) introduce a
systematic approach to language change quantification by studying unconsciously-used
language features in time-separated parallel translations. For this purpose, they use
objective style markers such as vocabulary richness and lengths of words, word stems
and suffixes, and employ statistical methods to measure their changes over time.

Language Change

In some ways, it is surprising that languages change. After all, they are passed down
through the generations reliably enough for parents and children to communicate
with each other. Yet linguists find that all languages change over time—albeit at
different rates. For example, while Japanese has changed relatively little over 1,000
years, English evolved rapidly in just a few centuries. Many present-day speakers
find Shakespeare’s sixteenth century texts difficult and Chaucer’s fourteenth
century Canterbury Tales nearly impossible to read.

Why They Change

Languages change for a variety of reasons. Large-scale shifts often occur in response to
social, economic and political pressures. History records many examples of language
change fueled by invasions, colonization and migration. Even without these kinds of
influences, a language can change dramatically if enough users alter the way they speak
it. Frequently, the needs of speakers drive language change. New technologies, industries,
products and experiences simply require new words. Plastic, cell phones and the Internet
didn’t exist in Shakespeare’s time, for example. By using new and emerging terms, we all
drive language change. But the unique way that individuals speak also fuels language
change. That’s because no two individuals use a language in exactly the same way. The
vocabulary and phrases people use depend on where they live, their age, education level,
social status and other factors. Through our interactions, we pick up new words and
sayings and integrate them into our speech. Teens and young adults for example, often
use different words and phrases from their parents. Some of them spread through the
population and slowly change the language.
Types of Change

Three main aspects of language change over time: vocabulary, sentence structure and
pronunciations. Vocabulary can change quickly as new words are borrowed from other
languages, or as words get combined or shortened. Some words are even created by
mistake. As noted in the Linguistic Society of America's publication Is English
Changing?, pea is one such example. Up until about 400 years ago, pease referred to
either a single pea or many peas. At some point, people mistakenly assumed that the
word pease was the plural form of pea, and a new word was born. While vocabulary can
change quickly, sentence structure—the order of words in a sentence—changes more
slowly. Yet it’s clear that today’s English speakers construct sentences very differently
from Chaucer and Shakespeare’s contemporaries (see illustration above). Changes in
sound are somewhat harder to document, but at least as interesting. For example, during
the so-called “Great Vowel Shift” 500 years ago, English speakers modified their vowel
pronunciation dramatically. This shift represents the biggest difference between the
pronunciations of so called Middle and Modern English (see audio clips in "Paths of
Change")

Agents of Change

Before a language can change, speakers must adopt new words, sentence structures and
sounds, spread them through the community and transmit them to the next generation.
According to many linguists—including David Lightfoot, NSF assistant director for
social, behavioral and economic sciences—children serve as agents for language change
when, in the process of learning the language of previous generations, they internalize it
differently and propagate a different variation of that language.

Linguists study language change by addressing questions such as these:

• Can we trace the evolutionary path of a language?

• How do language changes spread through communities?
• How do historical circumstances influence language change?
• What is the relationship between language learning and change?
References
• Altintas, K., Can, F., Patton, J. M., "Language change quantification using time-
separated parallel translations." Literary & Linguistic Computing. Vol. 22, No. 4
(November 2007), pp. 375–393.
• Coates, Jennifer (1993). Women, men, and language: a sociolinguistic account of
gender differences in language. Studies in language and linguistics (2 ed.).
Longman. pp. 228. ISBN 9780582074927. http://books.google.com/books?
id=aFFsAAAAIAAJ. Retrieved 2010-03-30.
• Labov, William (1994, 2001), Principles of Linguistic Change (vol.I Internal
Factors, 1994; vol.II Social Factors, 2001), Blackwell.
• Wardhaugh, R. (1986), An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, Oxford/ New York.
• Wittmann, H. (1983),