Historical linguistics The birth, evolution, and death of languages

RankLanguagePopulation (in millions) % of world’s pop. 1Chinese (Mandarin) English Spanish Bengali Hindi Portuguese Russian Japanese German Chinese (Wu) Javanese Korean French Vietnamese Telegu 661.1

Polygenesis vs. monogenesis Monogenesis prevails in biological evolution Polygenesis prevails in cultural evolution: independent invention Polygenesis seems to prevail in remote language origins

Causes of language change Random Drift Phonetic Assimilation Language contact: –Borrowing –Interference in acquisition of second language Institutionalization of formerly aberrant forms.

Change in animal systems? Little evidence that call systems of other primates evolve through time –Data about the past are skimpy. –Linked to genes. Genetic evolution slower than cultural evolution Whales: the possible exception

Language families No evidence for one common ancestor language But languages can be grouped into families The role of Sanskrit in the discovery of the Indo-European family

Indo-European family Probably originated in north-central Europe Associated with “Aryan” warriors who were to conquer Europe, India, and parts of Asia No literary remains No archeological site can be firmly linked. Has been hypothetically reconstructed

Branches of Indo-European Italic: Latin and Romance languages Slavic: Russian, Polish etc/ Celtic: Irish, Gallic, Welsh, Breton Germanic: German, English, Swedish, et.al. Indo-Iranian: Hindi, Bengali, Farsi, Pashto

Map of Celtic Languages Today

European language distribution, present

Indo-European Expansion

Indo-European languages in times past

Indo-European languages around the world

Language Families in Europe

Indo-European branches in Europe today