Language Change
Change happens continually to languages, but not usually at a constant rate, with its cumulative effect producing splits into dialects, languages and language families. It is generally thought that morphology changes slowest and phonology the quickest. As change happens, less and less evidence of the original language remains. Finally there could be loss of any evidence of relatedness. Changes of one type may not affect other types, for example sound changes do not affect cognancy. Unlike biology, it cannot be assumed that languages all have a common origin and establishing relatedness is necessary. In modelling it is often assumed for simplicity that the characters change independently but this may not be the case. Besides borrowing, there can also be semantic shifts and polymorphism.
Read more about this topic: Quantitative Comparative Linguistics
Famous quotes containing the words language and/or change:
“Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire.”
—Roland Barthes (1915–1980)
“It is not impossible, of course, after such an administration as Roosevelt’s and after the change in method that I could not but adapt in view of my different way of looking at things, that questions should arise as to whether I should go back on the principles of the Roosevelt administration.... I have a government of limited power under a Constitution, and we have got to work out our problems on the basis of law. Now, if that is reactionary, then I am a reactionary.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)