Blog #8: Historical Linguistics
Blog #8: Historical Linguistics
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Introduction:
Historical linguistics sounds more complicated than it is, I promise! It's just a fancy way of talking about the history of linguistics, and the study of that specific topic. How did languages change over time? WAIITTT! The study of linguistics changes? *audible gasp* I know, it's crazy, but stay with me here.
Before moving on, today's sources are "Historical Linguistics introduction" by Dr. Mohsin Khan, "What Is Historical Linguistics?" by Richard Nordquist, and "Why does diachronic linguistics matter?" by David Mortensen. As always, I'm an extremely picky person, and these sources were not just run of the mill first-results-choices. Nordquist is an old friend to this blog, so upon finding his article on historical linguistics in page 3 or 4 of the Google search results, I picked him up as a reliable source. Dr. Mohsin Khan was a more obscure source in later pages of Google, primarily because her presentation is in a slideshow format, but her credentials are too much to pass up here. Finally, Mortensen's article was something I had stumbled across in page 1 or 2 of the "Historical linguistics explained" search results, and from one blog to another, I just had to use it as a source.
Summary:
Historical linguistics is the "development" of languages over time; using a tool called "the comparative method" to determine the relationships between languages and how they evolved, there's a lot to digest here (Nordquist). Described as a difficult study, historical linguistics involves comparing "insufficiently" recorded languages to one another, as well. According to Nordquist, this also requires considering historical context and how that may have shaped a given language. There is much uncertainty involved, with gaps in history contributing to this issue. As society and humans changed over time, so did the various languages. Factors such as language borrowing, which is exactly what it sounds like, and assimilation are believed to have also played a role in some of these changes.
Mortensen adds that historical linguistics are not necessarily "practical," but it is a field of study that is valuable in knowing "human history" and culture. Arguing that historical linguistics has "scientific implications," Mortensen believes that biases towards one language may have impacted another language, and thus "borrowing" and assimilation occurred. This would, in turn, mean that the original language has been changed. While that would make some sense, this obviously is not proven or backed by research.
Khan, on the other hand, notes how Old English has been changed to Modern English as we now know it, as well as Old French into Modern French. Noting that historical linguistics has been studied since the 18th century, it is very likely that cultural contact between "speakers of different languages" influenced "language development" and evolution (Khan). Seeing as how historically, colonizers would impose their predominant language upon people for their own benefit, exploration, or colonial gain, this makes the most logical sense. However, the problem with this theory is that multiple languages may also just evolve from a "parent" language. For example, Korean has a complicated origin, but most generally agree it was born from Mandarin among other languages, and borrowed heavily from Chinese to form Korean as the language it is now. Immigration is another potential contributor to languages evolving. Needless to say, there is much that is unknown about the history of many, many languages. While some have a mostly distinguishable timeline that can be tracked and understood, others are much more complicated.
Critical Analysis:
Nordquist, as usual, is a consistent, reliable source that provides some general information on historical linguistics, such as its complicated history. He likens it to being the dark ages of linguistics. Thoughtco has been a steady source in these blog entries, as has Nordquist. The strength of this source is that it explains the terms and concept of historical linguistics in simple terms, it's not using complex jargon or written for a strictly academic audience like so many other sources are. Perhaps that is also its weakness, but I believe that most scholarly or general articles on the internet use this terminology and speak in a manner in which not everyone can understand.
Moreover, Mortensen's "Why does diachronic linguistics matter?" is short and not extremely informative, which is a significant weakness in this source. However, it does add to some of what I've written about in this entry, such as the biases languages may have. Khan's "Historical linguistics introduction" slideshow is weakened as a source by the fact that it is a slideshow presentation, not an article, let alone a scholarly article. However, I would argue that it gains some credibility from the fact that its author has a PhD. Additionally, Khan's presentation has over 11 slides, and actually does offer some insightful information, much of which I cited in this blog entry, such as how colonization and cultural contact affected languages over time historically.
Connection to Coursework:
In chapter 7, "The History of English", from our textbook Introduction to Language Studies, we learned how English derived from Latin and German before later becoming Olde English and the weird vowels and sounds that were very different than modern English. Chapter 7—which, by the way, was a very fun and interesting chapter to me (especially the subheadings)—then discusses Middle English, the vowel shift, and the timeline of Modern English. Honestly, this was my favorite chapter. So, having learned about the history of English and fresh off having completed my Korean language presentation, I wondered about the history of all languages. That's probably too much to write and learn about, but historical linguistics seems about the right scope to continue and write about for a blog post.
Personal Reflection:
To be frank, this entire blog has just been a way for me to learn about certain subjects I've never truly been taught or am just generally curious with. To that end, historical linguistics has satisfied that curiosity in this learner. Yet, at the same time, given that much is unknown about the history of some languages, and how and why they evolved over time, I find this an interesting subject that hopefully one day can be better understood. Truly, when we can learn more about ancient, dead languages or even current languages with complicated origins, we can find some very interesting historical facts and information. Besides being an English major, I also enjoy history, so the mix of these two elements is enlightening. I hope linguists keep exploring the topic. As a teacher, there is not really a place to explain the history of languages, but it is a subject I could vaguely tell someone about. Just the general premise and some of the possible reasons for why languages changed. Still, it's something not everyone will be aware of.
Citations
Khan, Mohsin. “Historical Linguistics Introduction.” Slidesbare, Scribd, 25 June 2020,
Mortensen, David. “Why Does Diachronic Linguistics Matter?” ChangeLing Lab, 7 Aug. 2024,
Nordquist, Richard. “An Introduction to Historical Linguistics.” Thoughtco, 12 Feb. 2020,
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