Ancient Languages
Historical linguistics (also called diachronic linguistics) is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:
- to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages
- to reconstruct the pre-history of languages and determine their relatedness, grouping them into language families (comparative linguistics)
- to develop general theories about how and why language changes
- to describe the history of speech communities
- to study the history of words, i.e. etymology.
Read more about Ancient Languages: History and Development, Evolution Into Other Fields, Conservative, Innovative, Archaic
Famous quotes containing the words ancient and/or languages:
“The mouth of the drowned dog. After long rain the land
Was sodden as the bed of an ancient lake,
Treed with iron and birdless.”
—Ted Hughes (b. 1930)
“The less sophisticated of my forbears avoided foreigners at all costs, for the very good reason that, in their circles, speaking in tongues was commonly a prelude to snake handling. The more tolerant among us regarded foreign languages as a kind of speech impediment that could be overcome by willpower.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
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