Questions tagged [historical-linguistics]
The diachronic study of language and its evolution.
579
questions
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1answer
75 views
Number of tones in Cantonese vs. Mandarin and final stops
The emergence of tones in Chinese languages (and actually most tonal languages) is, roughly speaking, due to the loss of final consonnants of syllables at an earlier stage of the language. In ...
7
votes
1answer
103 views
Why are sound changes regular?
Say, there is a word that used to be pronounced [ten] but gradually shifted to [tin]. I get it. There is always variety in how people pronounce words. Throw in some population dynamics, and the median ...
6
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0answers
74 views
What kind of features support the claim that Slavic languages are closer to Germanic languages than to Indo-Iranian languages?
Inspired by this answer to a different question, I ask what kind of features justify a claim that Balto-Slavic languages are closer to Germanic languages than to Indo-Iranian languages.
The features ...
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votes
1answer
76 views
Semitic and Hebrew etymology
Semitic has historically been used to describe ancient languages spanning from Oman to Morocco through Egypt and Somalia. Today, Antisemitic is different to it's etymology, it doesnt refer to berber ...
2
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1answer
80 views
Status of Nordwestblock / Ancient Belgian hypothesis
What is the status of the Nordwestblock or Ancient Belgian hypothesis right now?
This hypothesis was proposed independently by two authors in the 1960ies (Kuhn and Gysseling) and is about an ...
1
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1answer
109 views
Term for when speakers of L1, over time, pronounce words in their language like phonetically similar words found in the more dominant L2?
I am looking for the name of the following phenomenon:
Speakers of Language 1 transplant a given word to a new environment in which Language 2 is the dominant language spoken in the area.
Language 2 ...
2
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1answer
49 views
Are Turkish aorist (wide-tense) verbs originally finite or nonfinite?
There are countless examples in Turkish of third person aorist forms in -A/Ir or -mAz (negative form) which are employed as nouns:
gelir (income), gider (spending), yazar (writter)
or adjective
su ...
11
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1answer
211 views
Why is reconstructed PIE so typologically unusual?
I'm probably not the first to notice that a large number of features of reconstruct Proto-Indo-European are typological irregularities. The most famous of these probably being the voiceless/voiced/...
1
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1answer
76 views
Popular book(s) recommendation for start learning Linguistics keeping an interest in the Indus Valley script in mind
Recently, I have gathered enough interest in the subject Linguistics. As I came to know that Indus Valley scripts are among the last remaining undeciphered scripts of the ancient world, I gained more ...
3
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2answers
279 views
Where is the Slavic homeland, according to linguists, and how do they know that?
UPDATE: After posting the question, I found out, to my great disappointment, that Manhunt Unabomber is only loosely based on real events, so I'm rephrasing the question:
Where is the Slavic homeland, ...
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1answer
75 views
What does @ mean? [closed]
What does ā@ā sign mean in phonology or historical linguistics?
I saw ā*@ā in the context of restriction.
2
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1answer
120 views
What does the double colon sign (::) mean in phonology?
What does the :: sign mean in phonology or historical linguistics?
Here's an example I saw:
yeri :: yatu
3
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2answers
91 views
Decipherment challenge
I am not a linguist, but I'm looking for examples of decipherment competitions when multiple linguists have tried to independently translate the same script. I know only this one:
Rawlinson, H., ...
3
votes
2answers
102 views
How do Agglutinative Features/Languages develop out of Fusional Features/Languages?
Does anyone know about the development of agglutinative languages out of fusional languages, or, more precisely, agglutinative features out of fusional features? I am thinking in particular about the ...
6
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1answer
161 views
Are dative governing verbs in IE languages mainly inherited from PIE, or later developed within each IE language?
Some typical dative governing verbs in many IE case-inflecting languages are "help", "give" etc.. Are they mainly inherited from PIE or are they developed within each language? If ...
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0answers
31 views
a-stem genitive singular in NW Germanic languages
This is a classic problem and I'm not sure I expect a good answer to it, but it's worth it anyway. The question is partly about what appears to be some specious reasoning around Verner's Law forms and ...
0
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0answers
105 views
Why can “however” be used independently, when “but” cannot?
According to Purdue OWL, there are two kinds of words that can be used as connectors at the beginning of independent clauses: coordinating conjunctions (so, yet, but, and) and independent marker words ...
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2answers
90 views
Where does the Afro branch of the Semitic language originate? [closed]
I require information to help solve a problem.
The problem i am trying to solve, is the problem of the Semitic language.
Semitic language
Semitic languages
The Semitic languages, previously also ...
1
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1answer
69 views
Are there geographic or cultural patterns in surname etymologies?
I was reading in Wikipedia that the origins of European surnames can be classified into categories like patronymics, occupational, toponymics and nicknames.
If this classification is old or incomplete ...
2
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2answers
134 views
I have read that in Mishnaic Hebrew, some pronounced the 6th letter as waw/w and some as vav/v What is the evidence of this?
I have read that in Mishnaic Hebrew, some pronounced the 6th letter as waw/w and some as vav/v What is the evidence of this?
I see it mentioned here https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/%D7%95-vav-...
0
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0answers
55 views
What's the name of the effect where linguistic diversity is far more pronounced in a language's homeland?
I've always just used the term "homeland effect" for this, but websearches suggest that that is not actually its name and probably something I made up at some point.
What I'm talking about ...
4
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2answers
256 views
Is Ruki sound law a Satem “Rhotacism”
Is Ruki sound law a Satem variant of "Rhotacism"
English PIE Russian
ear hāį¹ws ŃŃ
Š¾ /Ćŗxo/
sear *shāews- ŃŃŃ
Š¾ /sĆŗxo/
deer *dŹ°Ć©ws Š“ŃŃ
/dux/
alder hāĆ©lis- Š¾Š»ŃŃ
Š° /olŹ¹xĆ”/
their ??? ŃŠµŃ
/tex/
2
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1answer
207 views
Spelling of monotonous [closed]
All, I am just curious why 'monotonous' is spelled as moĀ·ānotĀ·āoĀ·ānous and not as
mono.tonus following the Greek origin of the word as mono + tone. Mono and tone could be spelled alone and actually ...
2
votes
2answers
175 views
Why do Chinese and Hindi have more terms for relatives than English does?
I was thinking about labels we assign family members (like cousin, grand mother etc.) and it struck me that in my native language of Hindi, we have different labels for maternal and paternal family ...
17
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3answers
3k views
Are there any languages that have a pronoun which is only used to refer to royalty?
I can recall reading an article years ago which claimed that some languages have unused "royal" pronouns. That is, these pronouns were only used to refer to royalty as a show of respect or ...
6
votes
1answer
381 views
Was it ever common to pronounce “wife's” as “wives”?
Spelling, in principle, should reflect pronunciation, but I've also read that the opposite can happen, and that the pronunciation of a word already in circulation can be changed by altering/...
0
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0answers
47 views
Quantification of rate of sound change in multiple languages
This question from over four years ago never got a definitive answer, perhaps because no 'rankings' of sound change rates existed at that time. I would like to revive it (in particular for sound ...
2
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0answers
25 views
Historical development from adjective to concrete noun to more abstract noun
I'd really appreciate any knowledge or advice on further reading about the following. Excuse my naivete- I am at the start of this investigation.
I'm studying an historical corpus and I have found a ...
1
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1answer
158 views
Etymology of ćććć
Since it's written in Hiragana, I presume it is likely not a recent loan word. However, its pronounciation bears resemblance to "č»²č½", a Mandarin word meaning wheel--similar to ćććć's meaning ...
4
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1answer
104 views
Origin of the Ų§ that ends the past tense of Arabic verbs for ŁŁŁ ?
Arabic has a lot of intricate (finicky) qualities, but one of the things that's very nice about it is that spelling is usually phonemic (with the consonants and long vowels, anyway).
But the ŁŲ§ at the ...
15
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3answers
5k views
Does the letter p in a word mean that the word is not Germanic?
In Germanic languages, the p sound in Proto-Indo-European became f. I have wondered if the p sound means that the word does not come from a Germanic source. This is because words that have p in them ...
4
votes
2answers
144 views
u and v distinction in Slavic languages
Prepositon "in" in Slavic languages ("in" as "in the house") :
v - Czech
Š² - Russian (a Cyrillic v)
u - Serbo-Croatian
v - Slovak
v - Slovenian
w - Polish
Š² - Bulgarian (...
3
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2answers
146 views
Reduced complexity in contemporary languages?
Not by education or professionally related to linguistics. It is my amateur observation that ancient languages seem more complex than their modern counterparts. For example ancient greek versus modern ...
6
votes
3answers
530 views
Is a final -u in Semitic languages known outside of Akkadian?
Consider Akkadian bÄtu vs. Hebrew bayit (×Ö¼Ö·×Ö“×Ŗ) (meaning "house") and Akkadian daltu vs. Hebrew delet (×Ö¼Ö¶×Ö¶×Ŗ) (meaning "door"). Are these endings known outside of Akkadian? If so, when did they ...
3
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2answers
91 views
Are two words cognate if they ultimately come from the same root but have different roots in more recent languages?
For example, Spanish corteza and French Ć©corce (bark) both ultimately come from PIE *(s)ker- but they have different Latin roots (cortex and scortea). Does that stop them from being cognate?
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44 views
Influence of foreign vocabulary on tendency of English to lose inflections, become more analytic
The question is whether pressures to adapt to or incorporate foreign languages have tended to push English in a more analytic, less synthetic or inflected direction over the time from Middle English ...
3
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0answers
140 views
Why does “also” in German and in English denote different things?
There are some words in the German language that may seem to be familiar to a native English speaker, but in the end, it turns out that they are so-called "false friends" and have different meanings.
...
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3answers
121 views
Have any linguists studied/described a language that was totally foreign to them?
Have any linguists studied/described a language that was totally foreign to them? ie the linguist has totally no idea of what the utterances and writing of a language mean.
How did they do it - ...
1
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0answers
268 views
What's the origin of the word “br” in Yemeni Arabic?
Hello everyone
What's the etymology of "ber ŲØŲ±", which means "moonlight" in Yemeni?
The nearest words I can find in an Egyptian dictionary and in Amharic refer to light, but in ...
6
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1answer
88 views
How do we know that Sumerian determinatives were not pronounced?
I've read the following in Edzard's "Sumerian Grammar" from 2003:
Determinatives: these are signs which precede or follow words or names in order to specify them as belonging to semantic groups. ...
1
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1answer
333 views
What's the relationship between Old English and Germanic?
I read a line in the book "The Germanic vocabulary of Old English has not survived particularly well into the current period". This really confused me a lot. Isn't English a branch of Germanic ...
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1answer
113 views
What is the relationship of Proto-Indo-European, Indo-European, Proto-Germanic and Germanic?
I know that Indo-European is the name of a family of languages that includes nearly all the major tongues of Europe and several outside Europe, such as Persian and Hindi. Germanic is a sub-category of ...
6
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2answers
248 views
“She” and “they” in West Germanic languages
In English, the third person singular feminine subject pronoun (she) and the third person plural subject pronoun (they) are phonetically different. However, they are phonetically the same in some West ...
3
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0answers
36 views
vocabulary and notation for syntactic changes
As a layman I have picked up the terminology and notation for changes in phonology. But I know very little about diachronic changes in syntax other than that they happen: things like shift from SOV ...
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48 views
Why is “woman” in “the woman teacher” an adjunct while “literature” in “the literature teacher” a complement?
Is it because we cannot say "teacher of woman" but we can say "teacher of literature"?
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32 views
Is it correct for the rules of this voice alternations?
I'm a graduate student from Korea. I'm doing some practice about assimilation but I don't know if it is correct.
Here is the question:
"cat" and "cats"
"dog" and "dogs"
"hen" and "hens"
And this is ...
5
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2answers
281 views
Is agnosticism the current orthodoxy regarding linguistic macrofamilies?
I'm asking this very much much as a interested layman. As I understand things, the academic linguistics community, by and large, views macrofamily hypotheses - Nostratic, Altaic, etc - rather poorly.
...
2
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1answer
109 views
Similarities between Proto-Austronesian and Chinese?
Proto-Austronesian was a language that was spoken about 5,000 years ago near Taiwan. I am just curious about, partly because of the geographic connection, if Chinese is related to the Austronesian ...
0
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0answers
79 views
Is there credible evidence for Proto-Indo-Uralic? [duplicate]
Proto-Indo-Uralic is possibly an ancient language that was spoken around ten thousand years ago. I have heard that this has evidence but it hasnāt been proven. So, is there any real evidence (...
8
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1answer
224 views
Any reasons for unexplained centumization in Balto-Slavic?
Indo-Iranian and Balto-Slavic languages are called satem languages, because in them the Proto-Indo-European palatovelars *įø±, *Ēµ, and *ĒµŹ° developed into sibilants or affricats, usually into [s]/[z]- or ...
