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Unit 5
Language Change, History, and Classification

Overview

Unit 5 deals with the processes and explanations for changes in language, the results of language variation and contact, and the comparative and historical study of languages. It also examines some of the ways in which linguists apply their knowledge of sound and meaning to the study of the changes that occur within languages, and to some of the differences between languages.

It is important to keep the process that results in language change separate and distinct from the types of classification used to identify language types. To help you to accomplish this differentiation, a section on language variation and contact is placed between the discussion of the processes of change and the classification of languages. A similar anthropological distinction separates culture from behaviour. Culture, in this case, is the map or plan for behaviour, and human behaviour is the concrete result of applying that map. Distinctions of this kind have been made throughout this course and, while it may seem odd to start with change and then move to the historical and comparative studies, it helps keep the process and typology separated and somewhat distinct.

Objectives

After completing this unit, you should be able to

  1. define the following terms
    • sound correspondences
    • analogy
    • internal reconstruction
    • diglossia
    • isolate
    • pidgin
    • lingua franca
    • creole
    • Sprachbund
    • comparative reconstruction
    • cognate
    • proto-language
  2. give three linguistic explanations for change in language.
  3. describe three types of sound change, two types of lexical change, and three types of semantic change.
  4. explain how the boundaries between languages and dialects are established.
  5. describe the uses of linguistic evidence for the history of language and people, and for archaeology.
  6. describe how languages change, and give possible reasons for such changes.
  7. give reasons for the existence of lingua francas, pidgins, and creoles.
  8. identify five world areas and the major linguistic groups that inhabited each of these areas in 1500.
  9. identify the major, contemporary Native language families of Canada and place them on a map.
  10. compare the principles of language classification and biological classification.
  11. compare Powell’s, Sapir’s, and Greenberg’s classification of Native North American languages.
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