Linguistics, Historical

Linguistic Change

No language stands still so long as it is spoken, and every language is the product of change. Linguistic change is cumulative and, for the most part, gradual enough to escape our attention as it occurs. Typically, [Page 1484]the cumulative effect of linguistic changes makes itself felt after a span of centuries. The longer the span, the greater the changes that are accumulated.

External Change

One way in which languages change is through the influence of other languages or external change. Such influence is most obvious in the borrowing of words that may arise from contact brought about by navigation, trade, cultural exchange, political dominance, conquest, and so on. The study of linguistic borrowing is often called “areal linguistics.”

The two principal strategies of lexical borrowing are loanwords and loan translations. A loanword is a word of foreign origin that is adapted at least partly in sound or grammar to the native ways of speaking. The English word macaroni, for instance, was borrowed from Italian (maccheroni). In loan translation, the parts of a foreign expression are translated, producing a new idiom in the native language, as in the French gratte-ciel and the Spanish rascacielos. Both are derived from the English word skyscraper and formed after the metaphor of “scraping the sky” to convey the idea of a very tall building. Such forms are a kind of calque in which the internal structure of a foreign expression is maintained but the morphemes are nativized.

Loanwords often have a life that cuts across the boundaries between languages. A case in point is the English word chess, which was borrowed from Old French during the 13th century. But the word originated in Persian and was adopted as a loanword by Arabic and then by Latin from Arabic. The Medieval Latinscaccus, in turn, gave the Old French esches (singular eschec). Thus, the etymology of chess reaches from Persian through Arabic, Latin, and Old French to English.

The distribution of loanwords is a subject of serious study because it bears on the nature of contact between two languages during a particular historical stage. Consider what happened after the Norman Conquest of 1066, which made French the language of the official class in England. It is small wonder that many English words having to do with government, administration, nobility, law, military and religious affairs, and so on are of French origin. But when the English cow, sheep, pig, and calf were served at the table, they became the French beef, mutton, pork, and veal, respectively. French names were also given to the culinary processes whereby the meats were prepared for Normans' consumption.

Phonological and syntactic borrowing occurs less freely than does lexical borrowing. This is because a phonological or syntactic system consists of an integrated sum of rules, and the modification of one rule may have serious consequences elsewhere in the system. But there are known examples of phonological and syntactic borrowing. Old English (450–1100), for instance, did not have phonemes such as /v/ (vase), /z/ (zeal), and /∆/ (they). It was with the introduction of loanwords from French as well as Latin that these three sounds eventually achieved phonemic status during the Middle English period (1100–1450). A well-known case of syntactic borrowing is the restricted use of the infinitive by the languages of the Balkan Peninsula (Albania,Bulgarian, Greek, and Romania). This shared trait is attributable to mutual borrowing instead of genealogical relationship that is quite indirect among them.

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