Vocabulary
· Dialect:
The term dialect (from the
Greek word
διάλεκτος, dialektos)
refers to a variety of a language
that is characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The
term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also
be defined by other factors, such as social class. A dialect that is associated
with a particular social class
can be termed a sociolect.
A dialect is distinguished by its
vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation . Where a distinction can be made only
in terms of pronunciation, the term accent is
appropriate, not dialect (although in common usage, "dialect"
and "accent" are usually synonymous).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect
Saussure proposed that language as a system of signs be
studied as a complete system at any given point in time.
Like chess, the
important part of language is how pieces move and the positions of all pieces
relative to one another. The shape of each piece is only important in that its
potential can be recognized.
A synchronic
relationship is one where two similar things exist at the same time. Modern American
English and British English have a synchronic relationship.
Diachrony is the change
in the meaning of words over time.For example in the way that 'magic' meant
'good' in youth culture for a period during the 1980s (and, to a lesser extent,
beyond).
It is thus the study of
language in terms of how it visibly changes in usage. It is based in the
dictionary meaning of words.
A diachronic
relationship is where related things exist separated by time. 12th century
English and 21st century English have a diachronic relationship.
http://changingminds.org/explanations/critical_theory/concepts/synchrony_diachrony.htm
·Sound Change
Sound change includes any processes of language change that affect
pronunciation (phonetic change)
or sound system structures (phonological change). Sound change can
consist of the replacement of one speech sound
(or, more generally, one phonetic feature) by another, the
complete loss of the affected sound, or even the introduction of a new sound in
a place where there previously was none. Sound changes can be environmentally conditioned, meaning
that the change in question only occurs in a defined sound environment, whereas
in other environments the same speech sound is not affected by the change. The
term "sound change" refers to diachronic changes, or changes in a
language's underlying sound system over time; "alternation," on the other
hand, refers to surface changes that happen synchronically
and do not change the language's underlying system (for example, the -s
in the English plural
can be pronounced differently depending on what letter it follows; this is a
form of alternation, rather than sound change).
Sound change is usually assumed
to be regular, which means that it is expected to apply mechanically
whenever its structural conditions are met, irrespective of any
non-phonological factors (such as the meaning of the words affected). On the
other hand, sound changes can sometimes be sporadic, affecting only one
particular word or a few words, without any seeming regularity.
For regular sound changes, the
somewhat hyperbolic
term sound law is sometimes
still used. This term was introduced by the Neogrammarian school in the 19th century
and is commonly applied to some historically important sound changes, such as Grimm's law. While real-world sound changes often admit
exceptions (for a variety of known reasons, and sometimes without one), the
expectation of their regularity or "exceptionlessness" is of great heuristic value, since it allows historical linguists
to define the notion of regular
correspondence (see: comparative method).
Each sound change is limited in
space and time. This means it functions within a specified area (within certain
dialects) and
during a specified period of time. For these (and other) reasons, some scholars
avoid using the term "sound law" — reasoning that a law should
not have spatial and temporal limitations — replacing the term with phonetic rule.
Sound change which affects the
phonological system, in the number or distribution of its phonemes, is covered more fully at phonological change.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_law
·Saussure:
Ferdinand de Saussure (26 November 1857 – 22 February 1913) was a Swiss linguist whose ideas laid a foundation for many
significant developments in linguistics in the 20th century.
Saussure is widely considered the 'father' of 20th-century linguistics, and his
ideas have had a monumental impact on literary and cultural theory and
interpretation.
Biography
Ferdinand Mongin de Saussure,
born in Geneva
in 1857, showed early signs of considerable talent and intellectual ability.
After a year of studying Latin, Greek,
Sanskrit, and a variety of courses at the University of Geneva, he commenced
graduate work at the University of Leipzig in 1876. Two years
later at 21 years Saussure studied for a year at Berlin, where
he wrote his only full-length work, Mémoire sur le système primitif des
voyelles dans les langues indo-européenes (Thesis on the Primitive Vowel
System in Indo-European Languages). He returned to Leipzig and was awarded his
doctorate in 1880. Soon afterwards he relocated to Paris, where he
would lecture on ancient and modern languages. He taught in Paris for 11 years
before returning to Geneva in 1891. Saussure lectured on Sanskrit and
Indo-European at the University of Geneva for the remainder of his life. It was
not until 1906 that Saussure began teaching the Course of General Linguistics
that would consume the greater part of his attention until his death in 1913.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_de_Saussure
·Indo-European Languages:
The Indo-European languages
are a family
of several hundred related languages
and dialects, including most major languages of Europe,
the Iranian plateau
(Southwest Asia), Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent (South Asia). It is composed of 449 languages and
dialects, according to the 2005 SIL estimate,
about half (219) belonging to the Indo-Aryan sub-branch. "Indo"
refers to the Indian subcontinent, as the language group geographically extends
from Europe in the west to India in the east. The languages of the
Indo-European group are spoken by approximately three billion native speakers,
the largest number of the recognised families of languages. (The Sino-Tibetan family has the
second-largest number of speakers.)
History of the Indo-European
Theory
Suggestions of similarities
between Indian and European languages began to be made by European visitors to
India in the 16th century. In 1583 Thomas Stephens, an English Jesuit
missionary in Goa, noted
similarities between Indian languages, specifically Konkani,
and Greek and Latin. These observations were included in a letter to his
brother which was not published until the twentieth century.
The first account to mention
Sanskrit came from Filippo Sassetti
(born in Florence, Italy in 1540 AD), a Florentine merchant who traveled to the
Indian subcontinent and was among the first European observers to study the
ancient Indian language, Sanskrit.
Writing in 1585, he noted some word similarities between Sanskrit and Italian
(e.g. devaḥ/dio
"God", sarpaḥ/serpe "serpent", sapta/sette "seven", aṣṭa/otto "eight", nava/nove
"nine").However, neither Stephens' nor Sassetti's observations led to
further scholarly inquiry.
In 1647 Dutch
linguist and scholar Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn noted
the similarity among Indo-European languages, and supposed
the existence of a primitive common language which he called "Scythian". He included in his hypothesis Dutch, Greek,
Latin, Persian,
and German,
later adding Slavic,
Celtic
and Baltic languages.
However, the suggestions of Van Boxhorn did not become widely known and did not
stimulate further research.
The hypothesis re-appeared in
1786 when Sir William Jones first lectured on
similarities between four of the oldest languages known in his time: Latin, Greek, Sanskrit,
and Persian.
It was Thomas Young who first used the term Indo-European
in 1813, which became the standard scientific term (except in Germany) through
the work of Franz Bopp,
whose systematic comparison of these and other old languages supported the
theory. Bopp's Comparative Grammar, appearing between 1833 and 1852,
counts as the starting-point of Indo-European studies as an academic
discipline.
Proto-Indo-Europeans
The Proto-Indo-European language
(PIE) is the common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans.
The classical phase of Indo-European comparative linguistics leads from Franz Bopp's Comparative Grammar (1833) to August Schleicher's 1861 Compendium
and up to Karl Brugmann's
Grundriss
published from the 1880s. Brugmann's junggrammatische
re-evaluation of the field and Ferdinand de Saussure's development of
the laryngeal theory
may be considered the beginning of "contemporary" Indo-European
studies. The generation of Indo-Europeanists active in the last third of the
20th century (such as Calvert Watkins,
Jochem Schindler
and Helmut Rix) developed a better understanding of
morphology and, in the wake of Kuryłowicz's 1956 Apophonie,
understanding of the ablaut. From the 1960s, knowledge of
Anatolian became certain enough to establish its relationship to PIE. Using the
method of internal reconstruction an earlier stage,
called Pre-Proto-Indo-European, has been
proposed.
PIE was an inflected language, in which the
grammatical relationships between words were signaled through inflectional
morphemes (usually endings). The roots of PIE are basic morphemes carrying a lexical
meaning. By addition of suffixes,
they form stems, and by addition of desinences (usually endings), these form grammatically
inflected words (nouns or verbs). The hypothetical Indo-European verb system is complex
and, like the noun, exhibits a system of ablaut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_languages