Language is COMPOSITE.
Various aphasias point to composite language in the brain.
Spoken language is different from writing.
For most of linguistic history, we know only the history of written language.
Written language is much more stable than spoken.
--ni
the
gh digraph represents a once-spoken sound.Words encode social systems from the past. We raise animals in English but eat in French because Saxon peasants once raised animals only for the tables of Norman overlords, as Walter Scott pointed out in Ivanhoe:
pork porc pig
veal veau calf
mutton mouton sheep
beef boeuf cow
poulty poulet bird
|
Word changes reflect social changes, as in the breakdown of the system of familiar and polite pronouns in English: |
tu Usted
tu vous
du Sie
thou you
you y'all youse you'uns you guys you (plural)
The etymology and course of changes a word has gone through can epitomize an entire civilization's attitudes toward things as basic as individual identity:
"person"
per sona persona = mask
character representative
parson
person = role, occupation, social niche
changed from representative to self
"in person"
personality
type of personality "split personalities"
"pas de personne ici" --there's no-one there--
personne = nobody
synchronic = at a single point in time
diachronic = through time
Languages are like SPECIES
tend to "speciate" over time, to break into new languages as groups of speakers lose contact with one another.
isolated language groups tend to remain conservative--
Languages are VARIABLE, not just diachronically, but synchronically--
What causes language change? Why do languages change? Why does variability become, over time, mutual unintelligibility?
Drift; the "hidden hand"; contact/ creolization; creative innovation; imprecise learning (by children or immigrants);
law of minimal effort
hoc die = "today"
hodie
oggi hoy hui
au jour d'hui
aujourd'hui
au jour d'aujourdhui