RYAN_SLIDES

Planned Work Schedule

  • MTA Maintenance Notice:

    • No trains between Flatbush Av and Franklin Av from February 18-21.

    • Free shuttle buses provided.

The History of Language

  • Age of Language:

    • Spoken language: 40,000 to 150,000 years old.

    • Written language: ~5,000 years old.

      • Development:

        • Sumerian pictographs into cuneiform (~3000 BCE).

Language Change Misconceptions

  • Misconception that writing equals language.

    • Consideration of primary vs. secondary forms.

Myths about Writing and Language

  • Separating Language and Writing:

    • Writing is a representation but not the language itself.

    • Languages with histories (Tamil, Hebrew, Chinese) are not inherently older.

    • Codified forms of ancient languages (Latin, Greek) remained stable while spoken forms evolved.

    • Similar scripts do not imply language relationship (e.g., Latin and Greek).

Language as a Living Organism

  • Nature of Languages:

    • Languages evolve similarly to biological species—continuously changing over time.

    • Contact with other languages influences changes.

    • Complaints about language degradation are historic (e.g., Romans forgetting Latin).

Diachrony and Synchrony in Linguistics

  • Two Approaches:

    • Diachronic: Studies changes over time (e.g., Old English to Modern English).

    • Synchronic: Examines language at a specific point (e.g., AAE influence on Gen Z).

Historical Linguistics

  • Focus on diachronic change and genetic language relationships—akin to biology.

The Comparative Method in Linguistics

  • Historical linguists identify genetic relationships through:

    • Regular Sound Correspondence:

    • Examples:

      • English foot /fʊt/ and Italian piede /pjɛde/

      • Words like father, feather, nephew illustrate correspondence across languages.

Sound Change Directionality

  • Sound Change Mechanics:

    • Proto-Indo-European changes affecting various languages:

      • *f> Italic, Hellenic, and Indo-Aryan /p/, while Germanic kept /f/.

Conditioning in Sound Change

  • Types of Sound Change:

    • Unconditioned: Occurs without specific contexts (e.g., PIE *p > Proto-Germanic *f everywhere).

    • Conditioned: Changes depend on phonetic environment (e.g., /k/ changes in Spanish before front vowels).

Divergence vs. Convergence in Languages

  • Divergence: Different languages evolve from a common ancestor.

  • Convergence: Languages begin to share features due to contact (e.g., phonological similarities).

  • Example languages: Vietnamese, Burmese, and Thai showing convergence features.

Outcomes of Language Contact

  • Key Outcomes:

    • Language Shift: Transition to another language (often leading to death of the original).

    • Lexical Borrowing: Inclusion of words from one language to another.

    • Structural Convergence: Shared grammatical features due to prolonged contact.

    • Language Formation: Development of Pidgins and Creoles.

Language Shift and Death

  • Language abandonment may either lead to complete extinction or coexistence without loss.

    • Historical examples (Minoan to Greek: death).

    • Quechua to Spanish: shift without death.

Lexical Borrowing

  • Influences from direct contact include:

    • English has 30% French origin from the Norman Conquest.

    • Via literary or prestigious languages too (Latin to English, Middle Chinese to Korean).

Classes of Borrowed Words

  • Least likely to be borrowed:

    • Numbers, kinship terms, pronouns, body parts, and natural world words.

  • Important for comparative linguistics analysis.

Calques and Semantic Loans

  • Calques: Literal translations of phrases (e.g., English skyscraper to Italian grattacielo).

  • Semantic Loans: Adaptations of meanings (e.g., computer mouse in Finnish).

Structural Convergence and Contact

  • Result of Prolonged Contact:

    • Phonological: E.g., tones in Vietnamese.

    • Syntactic: Changes in language orders due to contacts.

Language Formation: Pidgins & Creoles

  • Pidgin Development: Needed for communication without a common language.

  • Creoles: Evolved pidgins with native speakers; functional languages, representing colonial histories.

Creole Case Study: Haitian Creole

  • Origins: French contact with enslaved populations in the 17th-18th centuries.

    • Vast French lexicon (90%) with distinct grammar influenced by West African languages.

Structural Characteristics of Creoles

  • Commonalities across creoles include lack of gender marking and regular morphology.

  • Example comparisons illustrate significant differences in structure and development.

Critiques of Creole Exceptionalism

  • Debate on whether creoles represent fundamentally different structures than non-creoles.

  • Critics argue that categorical differences are exaggerated and rooted in colonial biases.