Historical linguistics facts for kids

Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:

1. to study changes in particular languages
2. to discover the pre-history of languages, and group them into language families (comparative linguistics)
3. to develop theories about how and why language changes
4. to describe the history of speech communities
5. to study the history of words, etymology.

History and development

Modern historical linguistics dates from the late 18th century. It grew out of the earlier discipline of philology, the study of ancient texts and documents dating back to antiquity.

At first, historical linguistics was comparative linguistics. The focus was on the well-known Indo-European languages, many of which had long written histories. Scholars also studied the Uralic languages, another language family for which less early written material exists.

Since then, there has been linguistic work in non-European languages, such as on the Austronesian languages and various families of Native American languages.

Comparative linguistics is now part of a discipline of historical linguistics. For Indo-European languages, comparative study is now a well-developed field. Most research is being carried out on their later development, such as the development of the modern standard varieties.

Some scholars have done studies attempting to establish super-families. They have, for example, linked Indo-European, Uralic, and other families into Nostratic. The dating of the various proto-languages is difficult; several methods are available for dating, but only approximate results are possible.

Sub-fields of study

Comparative linguistics

Comparative linguistics (originally comparative philology) is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages in order to establish their historical relatedness. Languages may be related through borrowing or by genetic descent, thus languages can change and are also able to cross-relate.

Etymology

Etymology is the study of the history of words: when they entered a language, from what source, and how their form and meaning have changed over time. A word may enter a language as a loanword (as a word from one language adopted by speakers of another language), by combining pre-existing elements in the language, by a hybrid of these two processes, or in several other minor ways.

Dialectology

Dialectology is the scientific study of linguistic dialect, the varieties of a language that are characteristic of particular groups.

Dialectologists are concerned with grammatical features that correspond to regional areas. Thus, they are usually dealing with populations living in specific locales for generations without moving, but also with immigrant groups bringing their languages to new settlements. Immigrant groups often bring their linguistic practices to new settlements, leading to distinct linguistic varieties within those communities. Dialectologists analyze these immigrant dialects to understand how languages develop and diversify in response to migration and cultural interactions.

Phonology

Phonology is a sub-field of linguistics which studies the sound system of a specific language or set of languages. Whereas phonetics is about the physical production and perception of the sounds of speech, phonology describes the way sounds function within a given language or across languages.

Morphology

Morphology is the study of the formal means of expression in a language.

This field studies the internal structure of words as a formal means of expression.

Syntax

Syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing sentences in natural languages.

See also

In Spanish: Lingüística histórica para niños