Chapter 8, Language Change

language change - the structural evolution of a language over time; some languages die out (i.e., Manx, Tocharian) and other languages emerge as a consequence of cumulative changes in phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics; here are two sources of language change:

internal change - adjacent sounds often affect each other over a period of centuries, eventually producing new contrasts and new phonemes in the language

external change - sounds, morphemes, words, syntax, and discourse from another language can affect the evolution of the variety spoken in a community

substrate influence - the conquered language, over which the conquering language is overlaid, affects the superposed tongue; the US may have won the war with Mexico in 1848, but Spanish has definitely influence the English of the southwest US; lariat, lasso, chaps, sombrero, taco, enchilada, hombre, salsa, chile, and dozens of place names are now a common part of southwest US English

Spanish has no glottal stop, the sound heard in the Cockney pronunciation of "bottle." Guaraní, however, does have this sound. Paraguayan speakers of Spanish use a glottal stop much more frequently because of this influence.

Standard Spanish Phonetic	[i-e!-so-e!-su!-ne-he!m-plo]
Paraguayan Spanish Phonetic	[i-/e!-so-/e!s-/u!n-/e-he!m-plo]
Spanish Orthographic	"y eso es un ejemplo"
Gloss	"and that is an example"

superstrate influence - the conquering language that subjugates the conquered language, affects the dominated tongue; English has influenced very much the Spanish spoken in the United States; vocabulary is one of the most noted areas, as shown below

Standard Spanish	Chicano Spanish	English
los frenos	las brekas	the breaks
la comida	las grocerías	the groceries
la solicitud	la aplicación	the application
el parabrisas	el güínchil	the windshield
almorzar	lonchar	to each lunch
recoger	colectar	to collect
la cerveza	la biringa	the beer
máquina de escribir	taipiadora	typewriter

etymology - the science of tracing the origin of words

intergenerational language shift - The successive loss of the traditional language by younger generations; below is a typical pattern of intergenerational language shift in immigrant communities

First generation - Immigrants are dominant in their home language and know language of host country to varying degrees.

Second generation - Children of immigrants who are born in or who move to the host country before the age of 16 are often fluent bilinguals.

Third generation - Children of bilinguals may learn the traditional language, often as"passive bilinguals," understanding the traditional language but speaking it with difficulty and being dominant in the host language

Fourth generation - Children of passive bilinguals have no competence in the traditional language, except phrases and isolated words. Third or fourth generation Jews know phrases and words in Yiddish, but cannot speak Yiddish. Some have become a part of general English:

bubkes - something worthless or trivial

chutzpa - brazen nerve, effrontery

dreck - junk (a vulgar word also referring to excrement)

goy - a Gentile, anyone who is not a Jew

kibbitz - to comment while watching a game

kvetch - to fret, complain, gripe

meshuggener - crazy man (meshuggeneh - crazy woman)

nebech - an ineffectual person; a sad sack

pisher - a bed wetter, an inconsequential person: "So call me pisher."

ongepotchket - unesthetically decorated

schlemiel - a simpleton

schmooze - a friendly, heart-to-heart talk

schmeggege - a maladroit, untalented type

schmuck - a detestable type (vulgar, refers to male genitalia)

tsatske - an inexpensive, unimportant item

(Examples and spelling taken from The Joys of Yiddish, by Leo Rosten.)

language death - the disappearance of a language; there are two distinct kinds

a. the complete loss of a language variety as a consequence of shift to another language by the last speech community to use the language variety; Manx, a Celtic language, "died" in 1974 when the last native speaker of that language died.

b. the disappearance of a language as a consequence of language evolution; Latin is often called a "dead" language, but in a sense, the language never died, since the language has been spoken continuously since Roman times; Latin, did, however, evolve into a family of related, mutually unintelligible tongues now called the Romance Languages (the name refers to the Romans, not to the romantic nature of the speakers of those languages!)

language attrition - The gradual loss of ability in a language, typically occurring at the individual level by immigrants who no longer use their native tongue

language maintenance - The continued use by a speech community of its traditional language despite the presence of another, usually socially dominant language.

lexical diffusion - the gradual spread of a phoneme throughout the words of a language or throughout a speech community

Oberwart - The use of Hungarian (H) and German (G) in this Austrian community near Hungary shows a diglossic pattern, but there is also evidence of intergenerational language shift. Hungarian is used more by older individuals and in private settings. As the implicational scale shows, language choice depends on the generation to which one belongs as well as on the social context, defined here by role and place.

Implicational Scale

Vertical dimension

Use of H in a given situation implies anyone older will use H. (H implies H below.)

Use of G implies anyone younger will use G. (G implies G above.)

Horizontal dimension

Use of H in a public domain implies H will be used in private domains. (H implies H to the left.)

Use of G in a private domain implies G will be used in public domains. (G implies G to the right.)

The Second Sound Shift - A series of sound changes that lead to the division between Low German (as well as Dutch, English, and Frisian) and High German. These changes probably occurred through a gradual process of lexical diffusion from one group to another, as the new sounds became associated with an expression of solidarity in the speech community. Thus, while there is a phonetic basis (an internal source) for the changes, there is also a social basis (an external source) that allows the changes to become permanently incorporated into the language. Note that the second sound shift did not affect Low German, from which English was eventually derived.

The Second Sound Shift (from Proto-Germanic to Old High German)
Low ® High	High German	Low German	English
p ® f~ pf	Pfad	pad	path
t ® s~ ts	heiss	heit	hot
k ® x~ kx	ich	ik	Ic (Old English)
b ® p	Pach (Bavarian)	bäk	brook
d ® t	Tür	dör	door
g ® k	kenug (Bavarian)	genuch	enough