Questions tagged [language-change]
The phenomenon whereby a language's grammar and lexicon change over time.
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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
133 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-...
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0answers
247 views
Are there any studies on some English passive verb constructions currently being replaced by new intransitive senses?
In the past couple of years I've noticed a new trend in younger generations of native English speakers, at least in American English and Australian English. But I can't find it discussed anywhere on ...
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 ...
3
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1answer
69 views
What's the name of the process in which a word acquires new meanings?
I am almost sure there is a proper name for that but I forgot. It would be the opposite of semantic bleaching...
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2answers
1k views
Why do the same phonological changes happen in multiple unrelated languages?
For example, a lot of languages have a historical [y] sound which eventually merged with [i] in different language families. This happened in Greek, Vulgar Latin, Icelandic and Faroese as well as ...
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2answers
1k views
When did Spanish develop perfect aspect?
Latin and many other Romance languages do not have perfect aspect, but Greek has perfect aspect and Iberia was a land for Ancient Greek colonies.
So how and when Spanish integrates perfect aspect into ...
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1answer
176 views
Is language change universal, ongoing, and arbitrary?
Learning that arbitrariness from Saussure means there is no logical connection between the sound of morpheme and its meaning. But can we brain storm about this topic a little bit?
When it comes to ...
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2answers
270 views
What does Eastern Aramaic have to say about “(definite) articles are acquired, not lost”?
The current answers on Definite/indefinite articles vs. inflections agree that (definite) articles are acquired by languages, not lost.
I'm wondering what Eastern Aramaic has to say about this. ...
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1answer
100 views
Is the emergence of a new quotative a syntactic innovation?
I am not sure on what level the emergence of a new quotative is classified. Is it syntax?
My question concerns a variety of English. There are several quotatives commonly used in English, such as ā...
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1answer
130 views
Are consonants more stable than vowels?
I was trying my hand at an exercise to distinguish the different SƔmi dialects (the exercise was used in the 2020 version of the Dutch Linguistics Olympiad). It gives nine words in all nine dialects ...
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2answers
5k views
Why does Spanish tend to swap letters in words?
I can't remember the source, but I recall hearing that Spanish (my native tongue) tends to swap letters in words (accidentally). Examples
Latin diabolo becomes diablo(o). (perhaps this is a non-...
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3answers
221 views
Etymological Fallacy
What is actually wrong with using Etymology to infer a word's meaning?
I mean other than semantics( or more subtle meaning, nuance) of what other use could studying etymology be.
I cannot see the ...
3
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1answer
191 views
When turned “to hear” into “to belong” in Germanic Languages?
In most Germanic languages the verbs for āto hearā and āto belong [to]ā are the same or very closely related.
It seems a plausible explanation, that in practice belonging to someone (G. gehƶren) meant ...
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2answers
166 views
How can a word for 'the act of Xing', semantically shift to mean 'the thing Xed'?
I don't grasp this Reddit comment.
An example of (3) might be this (from a 15th-century will):
I now the seid John Smyth, for diu[er]se causez and consyderacyonys shevyd vnto me, will ordeyne and ...
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1answer
297 views
Absense of cases in Bulgarian
Nowadays, Bulgarian and Macedonian are the only Slavic languages where the system of cases isn't developed. Bulgarian and Macedonian are very close to each other, but are considered to be 2 ...
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0answers
111 views
Which factors influence the linguistic conservatism of a language, and to what extent?
Presumably the number of speakers is a factor, as a language cannot change if nobody speaks it (is this even true in absolute?)1, but it does not necessarily follow that more speakers results in ...
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3answers
150 views
From Old French -iss into English -ish
I have read this information on the word perish:
"mid-13c., from periss- present participle stem of Old French perir"
And this comment is below a question of mine on English Language & Usage ...
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3answers
425 views
Does a polyglot think in every language he speaks or only in the mother-tongue?
some teachers say if you want to speak English , think in English.Since language and thought are different as is evident from the answers to the question* Are language and thought the same?*how can ...
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1answer
998 views
Why can linguists decide which use of language is correct and which is not?
Often we are hearing that such-and-such spelling, phraseology, etc is incorrect. Person X made a grammar error, pronunciation error, orthography error, styling error, other sorts of language error.
I'...
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1answer
121 views
Does the study of linguistics help one to be a good speaker and good writer of languages?
Linguistics is the systematic study of languages.
Some people say "What chemistry is to medicine, linguistics is to language."
It is a fact that linguistics helps one to study languages ...
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3answers
575 views
Minimum population for language survival
What is the minimum population required to keep a language alive?
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4answers
2k views
How do accents of a whole town drift?
I've heard it said that accents of towns drift over time. I find this hard to comprehend as how could an accent of a whole town change?
I think it is established that we mainly pick up our accent ...
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3answers
205 views
On an apparent “ masstermization” phenomenon in contemporary informal French: “ il y a de la jolie nana par ici”
I have noticed a tendency to " masstermize" nouns in contemporary informal French, I mean to use nouns as mass terms ( uncountable), though they cannot be strictly used in this way.
What I call " ...
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2answers
141 views
Why do words like thence fall out of use?
It happens sometimes that rather useful words disappear. A word like
thence, for example, is very useful, and has to be replaced if it is
taken out of the language by something less concise (and less ...
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0answers
250 views
Is linguistic change pushed by humor?
Through "meme culture," young people are inventing all sorts of new linguistic constructions purely because they think they sound funny. The interesting thing is that these jokes don't end at a ...
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2answers
115 views
Do grammatically close languages tend to begin to use literal translations of some words in other senses in that other language?
Let's have an English phrase "let's have" and the Czech equivalent "mÄjme". Perhaps, at some point in the past, someone was translating a math textbook and didn't know how to translate "let's have" in ...
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3answers
581 views
Plural form as respect form - based on what?
Many languages use the plural as respected mood for a singular (even English use "you" which is basically a plural form of thu).
Now my question is: based on what those who started to speak in ...
7
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1answer
140 views
How did the complexities of Arabic cardinals arise?
Generally the grammar related to the numbers in Arabic is considered to be the most complicated thing about the language. In fact, it is considered so complicated that many teachers argue that not ...
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2answers
169 views
How do you call a languages tendency to adopt foreign words rather than translate them to their language?
One difference between Mandarin Chinese and Japanese is that the former likes to translate foreign terms, while Japanese prefers to transcribe them to Japanese.
E.g. Basketball:
Mandarin Chinese: ēÆ®ē (...
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3answers
609 views
Are there established linguistic theories which incorporate the concept of “lazy speech”?
Motivation
So on EL&U, I pretty often encounter the claim, under a question of some usage or other, that certain usages are the consequence of "lazy speakers", who "would otherwise" use some (...
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209 views
In “internet Linguistics” theory, does David Crystal include sociolinguistic patterns as affecting language changes?
I'm going to discuss language changes among social sites. I'm using internet linguistics as a theoretical framework, but one of my questions related to social aspect-gender... internet linguistics ...
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1answer
257 views
Differences among Chinese, Tibetan, and Burmese
Is there any research or explanation for the (grammatical, typological) differences among Chinese, Tibetan, and Burmese?
I am thinking of the fact that Chinese is classed as an Analytic, SVO language,...
2
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1answer
104 views
Are names of dishes more prone to name change due to power / language shift?
I am wondering whether names of dishes are generally more prone to change when a power or language shift occurs in a society?
Particularly, I am thinking of the Egyptian cuisine and the current ...
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3answers
1k views
Why did the pronunciation of the rhotic phoneme /r/ change after the 2ndWW in public speech?
For example why did radio presenters roll the r on the BBC before the war and not after? Why did Brecht roll the r extensively? Why did Hitler roll the r extensively? My perspective is from the ...
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4answers
230 views
Which languages have absorbed the most vocabulary from Russian, and which languages have influenced its vocabulary?
I'm a student of formal linguistics and Russian language, my question has been surprisingly hard to google -- I've studied a little Ukrainian, and I've read that its structurally similar to Russian ...
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2answers
2k views
Julius Caesar original name spelling?
Was Julius Caesar originally spelled with and I before "J" was invented? Or was it spelled some other way? If so, how?
I'm curious.
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2answers
64 views
Is there a formal term for when a word begins to be used in a broader sense than the original sense?
For example: "aggressive recruitment", "aggressive cleaning" or "more aggressive guidelines".
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0answers
83 views
Impact of European languages on AmE modality and grammatical moods
American English Use subjunctive more than British English and also they heavily use modal verb "would". Grammatical moods like subjunctive in many European languages like German and Spanish are ...
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2answers
195 views
Are modern chuch Latin and classical Latin different languages?
From a (probably now-deleted comment) elsewhere on SE:
[Church Latin and Classical Latin] are more or less the same languages. Some new words were added and the pronunciation changed over the years,...
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0answers
103 views
Are languages converging in the modern era?
I know this question sounds vague, and there may not be much evidence yet, but I suspect it is falsifiable. The question is, in the modern era (post European imperialism, in particular post-mass-media ...
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6answers
658 views
Have we observed classes changing from open to closed, or vice versa?
Classes of words in languages tend to be either "open" (accepting new members readily) or "closed" (rejecting new members). This distinction is fairly easy to see: compare how readily English accepted ...
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0answers
60 views
Can learning a new language help with speech impairment?
I'm not a linguist, but i can see the connection between speech impairment and language learning.
I'm only asking because I have a slight speech impairment myself (unable to pronounce guttural sounds ...
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0answers
34 views
Terminology for a phrase that changes meaning over time within a closed community
I am looking for the linguistic terminology for the phenomenon of semantic change in a discourse within a closed community. This closed community could be a couple, a company etc.
For example, ...
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1answer
344 views
How are proto-languages dated?
This is something I've been thinking about lately. You look up any reconstructed proto-language, you'll probably find an estimate as to when it was spoken. But how can this number be determined?
From ...
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1answer
760 views
Feminisation of men's language?
I was wondering whether there has been (generally) a feminisation of "men's language". Lakoff's claims in "women's and men's language" are almost half a century old and there have been contradictory ...
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1answer
370 views
Listing the historical change between two languages (phonology)
I have been asked to list the historical change from one language to another, using a list comparing words between the languages. I need to order the rules in chronological order, and knowledge of ...
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0answers
82 views
Is this what English/Mandarin Chinese or other 21st century dominant langauges would eventually do too? (details below)(yup that's opinion based) [closed]
Umbrians, for example, continued to make inscriptions in their language for centuries after Roman annexation. But eventually the power and status of Latin prevailed, particularly after all residents ...
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2answers
48 views
Metrics for word stability?
I'm trying to create a static list of words that can be used for encoding large numbers. The words are selected on a variety of factors and I would like to include a measure of the word's stability ...
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1answer
112 views
What is it called when a word is used based on an extant definition which no longer actually applies? e.g. “dial” with phones
It was difficult to phrase what I mean in an accurate and precise way here.
This is similar to a fossil word, but fossil words are words which have fallen out of general use except where they are ...
