words

Angles: Angles is a modern English word for a Germanic-speaking people who took their name from the cultural ancestral region of Angeln, a modern district located in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of annals in Old English chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The annals were created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alfred the Great. Multiple manuscript copies were made and distributed to monasteries across England and were independently updated. In one case, the chronicle was still being actively updated in 1154.

Briton: A member of one of the Brittonic-speaking peoples originally inhabiting all of Britain south of the Firth of Forth, and in later times spec. Strathclyde, Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany, before and during the Roman occupation. Cf. BRETT n.1.

Celtic: Hist. and Archæol. Of or belonging to the ancient Celtæ and their presumed congeners.

Deviant: Something that deviates from normal.

Families of Language: Different languages can be systematically compared and depending on the number and kind of similiraties, the relationship between them can be established. (for example similarities between sanscrit and european language)

Historical (or diachronic) : used of the study of a phenomenon (especially language) as it changes through time; "diachronic linguistics"

Indo-European language: include some 443 languages and dialects spoken by about three billion people, including most of the major language families of Europe and western Asia, which belong to a single superfamily. Contemporary languages in this superfamily include Bengali, English, French, German, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish (each with more than 100 million native speakers).

Jute: were a Germanic people who, according to Bede, were one of the three most powerful Germanic peoples of the time. They are believed to have originated from Jutland (called Iutum in Latin) in modern Denmark, Southern Schleswig (South Jutland) and part of the East Frisian coast.

Lexical diffusion: lexical diffusion is both a phenomenon and a theory. The phenomenon is that by which a phoneme is modified in a subset of the lexicon, and spreads gradually to other lexical items.

Non-professional attitude: phrase used when a speaker uses incorrect grammatical expressions or structures.

Protolanguage: A proto-language is a language which was the common ancestor of related languages that form a language. The German term Ursprache (derived from the prefix Ur-"primordial" and Sprache "language") is occasionally used as well. In most cases, the ancestral protolanguage is not known directly and it has to be reconstructed by comparing different members of the language family via a technique called the comparative method.

Romanization: Assimilation to Roman customs or models.

Saxon: One of a Germanic people which in the early centuries of the Christian era dwelt in a region near the mouth of the Elbe, and of which one portion, distinguished as Anglo-Saxons (see ANGLO-SAXON) conquered and occupied certain parts of South Britain in the 5th and 6th centuries, while the other, the Old Saxons (med.L. Antiqui Saxones, Beda; OE. Ealdseaxe) remained in Germany. Often, like Anglo-Saxon, applied indiscriminately to all the Germanic peoples that settled in Britain. Also, an Englishman who is presumed to be descended from this people.

Scare quotes: In spoken conversation, a stand-in for scare quotes is a hand gesture known as air quotes or finger quotes, which indicates irony. Scare quotes is a term for a particular use of quotation marks. In this application the quotation marks are placed around a single word or phrase.

Shibboleth: is any distinguishing practice which is indicative of one's social or regional origin. It usually refers to features of language, and particularly to a word whose pronunciation identifies its speaker as being a member or not a member of a particular group.

Synchronic analysis: is one which views linguistic phenomena only at one point in time, usually the present, though a synchronic analysis of a historical language form is also possible. This may be distinguished from a diachronic analysis, which regards a phenomenon in terms of developments through time.

Vernacular: Using a language or dialect native to a region or country rather than a literary, cultured, or foreign language b: of, relating to, or being a nonstandard language or dialect of a place, region, or country c: of, relating to, or being the normal spoken form of a language.

Wave theory: language change usually starts in restricted context within a certain community like a wave caused by a stone dropped into the watter. This change then spreads successively to further contexts and social groups until it's realized in all contexts and with all speakers.