The quicksand that is historical linguistics

Language. Yeah. We all speak them. We need them. But when you really get right down to it, what a mysterious (even divine) thing they are. I'm not gonna get all Noam Chomsky and start talking about semantics and perceived meaning and the like. But at the same time, what an utterly amazing vehicle to communicate information, ideas and feelings. They are sounds, after all. Just sounds- noises, if you will. Try saying a word, any word. "Cat". "Cat". "Cat". After a while, do you notice how strange the word sounds? Suddenly, you're mind begins to divorce the aural component from the actual meaning. And then it just seems meaningless. And yet there is a meaning inherent in the word. That may not seem amazing by itself, but putting words in sentences is not simply a matter of stringing meaningful sounds together (even following a syntax- which is, again, a whole other subject). As any of you who’ve ever studied another language can attest to, even knowing the literal meaning of every single word in a sentence does not give understanding of the sentence as a whole (“We had to knock off early.”). There is a whole underlying meaning that is conveyed by the sentence that goes far beyond the literal meaning of each word. In this case, it’s the ‘whole being greater than the sum of it’s parts.’ Yes, I said I wasn’t going to do this, so I’ll stop there. I might write more at another time regarding this.

Also amazing is how languages evolve, how they change over time. For the past 5 years or so, I have been playing with historical linguistics- the study of languages, their evolution, and their reconstruction. The further into this field I get (though I will always be a dilettante, I know. I lack the self discipline to really learn this stuff in detail), the more amazed I am at what is going on. Later on, I will talk about some of the really cool reconstructions that this field has afforded. More than that, these reconstructions actually provide us a window into cultures that existed thousands of years ago and left no writing at all! Think about that for a minute. Language reconstruction can give us clues to the day to day life, religion, societal structure, and, believe it or not, the poetry of a people who’ve left no actual writing (or even much in the way of archeological artifacts.) What an amazing piece of detective work, yet in the context of what we know, especially regarding the separation of the languages at Babel, the glimpses are simply astounding. As I said, I’ll get to that in a later post.)

But linguistic studies provide a lens through which to view even modern day speech. For example, little things we (sometimes humorously) notice about a language are in fact clues to how English is evolving even today. Take, for example, what is sometimes called (in politically correct speech) African American Vernacular. (Even more politically correct educators tried to call it Ebonics back in the 90's). The quintessential example: "Let me ask you a question" is pronounced "Let me ax you a question." Ax for ask? Really? But what is going on here?

Look at it again this way. "Ask". "Aks". Note the transposition of the last two letters, s and k. This is, in fact, a very very common thing in language evolution. Take a simple example: the Spanish word hablar (to speak) comes from the Latin word fabulare (to tell stories or fables- ‘fables’, of course, itself coming from that latin word). But fabulare is the source of another Spanish word, palabra (word, saying). Note something here. I'm going to x out all the irrelevant letters so its clearer:

fabulare- xxBxLxxx

hablar- xxBLxx

palabra- xxLxBxx

Note the order of the b and the l. The original Latin word's order is retained in the word hablar. However, the word palabra has the l and the b transposed. In the same vein, the "ask" and "aks" is a standard linguistic evolution of the work, where the sk is transposed into ks. (And of course, a whole lot of other things are going on here too. The 'u' in fabulare is dropped. This interior dropping- called syncope- happens in English too. For example, say the word "probably," in an every day manner. Chances are sometimes you will say "prob-AB-Bly" and sometimes you will say "probly". Vowels, especially between two of the same consonants, have a way of disappearing. And the "f" in fabulare went 2 routes in Spanish. F very often will become a p. These kinds of changes are written "f>p". But "f" also has a fricative sound to it very similar to the "h" and so sometimes the f>h. There is a whole science with very consistent rules about this and where and when this happens. Sometimes, as in case just given, the rules kind of make sense. And sometimes they don't. But the key thing is that the rule shows a consistency for all proposed changes. As it happens, I've forgotten why the f went one route or the other. It's enough, for me, that it made sense. I’ll get into more of these rules another time. Suffice it to say, though, that once you see some of the rules, pater, father, and pader, or pedis, pada, and foot all descending from the same Proto IndoEuropean (PIE) word, *Ph₂ter and *ped, respectively, actually makes sense. [ed: "Ph₂" is not an "f". The "h₂" is what is called a laryngeal consonant- an "h" way in the back of the throat, but with the vowel "a" shape of the mouth. The are two other PIE laryngeals as well: one with an "o" shape and one with a glottal stop.])

All in all, then, it happens to be a pretty cool example, I think, of how English is evolving. Left to itself (and without the homogenizing effect of the media) African American Vernacular would become its own language in just a few hundred years. And then look at all the different kinds of English there are and think about- I mean really visualize this- how words are pronounced. In British English "ir" (as in bIRd) has no "r" sound in it. None whatsoever. It's hard to write how it sounds without beginning to use the IPA phonetic alphabet (again, something I may touch on at another time). The "r" is just a relic, like our "k" in "knight" or the "gh" in "thought". Eventually, it will get dropped even in writing. Or think of South African or Australian or New Zealander English. Or even in this country, visualize southern, New York, Bostonian (where you "pahk the cah" and say it's "wicked assome") accents and see how very different the words really are. Writing masks the fact that these languages are evolving. (For many cool charts showing the differing pronunciations of numbers in all the English dialects, see http://rjschellen.tripod.com/EnglishNums.htm. The whole site has a number of cool charts showing the linguistic evolution of the numbers 1-10 from proto Indo European all the way down to all its modern daughter languages.)

Those kinds of dialectical differences are exactly what caused English to form from West Germanic 1600 years ago, with the movement of some West Germanic speakers to Britain. At that time, the differences between the West Germanic spoken in Europe and that in Britain were nearly non-existent. But once the speakers were physically separate, the languages begin their natural divergence. In addition to the normal linguistic evolution, there are other influences. Right away you get some influence of the Celtic languages like Brittonic, Pict, and Gaelic languages, though not as much as you’d think. Throw in a huge amount of Latin and Greek from the educated clerics and rulers. Can't forget about the Danish conquest of the British Isles in the 800, which added quite a few Norse words (‘steak’ anyone?). Then you have the Norman invasion of 1066, led by William the Conqueror, which resulted in a number of Old French words entering the language- most of them clearly within domain of governance. After 1600 years, you have a language that is very different from German.(A more detailed and interesting account of this can be found here: http://www.grsampson.net/QBirthOfEng.html)

Because the Bible has been translated regularly throughout the last 2000 years, it provides an unparalleled glimpse of these changes. Here’s a cool example of a scripture, Matthew 6:9-13 (The Lord’s Prayer), in the various stages of English during that time (beginning with Old English, 550-1100).

a few notes:

ð=”th” as in “they”

þ=”th” as in “thin”

Old English (c 1000- The West Saxon Gospels):

Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum; si þin nama gehalgod, to-becume þin rice; gewurþe ðin willa on eorðan swa swa on heofonum. Urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us to dæg, J forgyf us ure gyltas swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum. J ne gelaéd þu us on costnunge ac alys us of yfele soþlice.

Middle English (1380- Wycliff’s Translation)

Oure fadir that art in heuenes, halewid be thi name; thi kyndoom come to; be thi wille don in erthe as in heuene: gyue to us this dai oure breed ouer othir substaunce; and forgyue to us oure dettis, as we forgyuen to oure gettouris; and lede us not in to temptacioun, but delyuere us fro yuel.

Early Modern English (1602- The Geneva Bible)

Our Father which art in heauen, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdome come. Thy will be done euen in earth, as it is in heauen.Giue vs this day our daily bread.And forgiue vs our debts, as we also forgiue our debters.And lead vs not into tentation, but deliuer vs from euil

A couple of cool things to note. If you look at the old English, you can already see some recognizable words. “Fæder” [father], “eart” [are], “heofonum” [heaven] “þin nama” [thy(ne) name], “þin rice” [thy(ne) kingdom-reign, rule- this comes from the same root as the Latin ‘rex’], “eorðan” [earth], “to dæg” [today], “forgyf us ure gyltas” [forgive us our guilts], “soþlice” [truly, soothly- as in soothsayer- truthsayer]. And note how very German the oldest looks, with all the ge’s that show up in front of the verbs. ‘Hallowed’ is gehalgod, ‘work your will’ is ‘gewurþe ðin willa’, ‘lead’ is gelaéd. And notice, too, the verb inflections. This is something that English has, for the most part lost. We don’t really conjugate verbs. For example, “I eat”, “you eat”, “they eat”, “we eat”. The only time the verb changes is for “he, she, it eats”. But Old English still shows some conjugations, as in “forgyf” [(you) forgive] and “we forgyfað” [we forgive].

Anyway, it’s an amazing subject. For anyone interested I would recommend starting (and getting lost in) sites like the following (as well as many others):

http://www.grsampson.net/Q_PIE.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_studies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_languages

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_language

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipa

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_sound_laws (in particular, note the roots near the bottom.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimm's_law

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-Europeans