Historical linguistics, also termed diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of
language change over time. Principal concerns of historical linguistics include:
# to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages
# to reconstruct the pre-history of languages and to determine their relatedness, grouping them into
language families
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in hi ...
(
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
Etymology ()The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed throughout time". is the study of the history of the Phonological chan ...
Historical linguistics is founded on the
Uniformitarian Principle, which is defined by linguist
Donald Ringe as:
History and development
Western modern historical
linguistics
Linguistics is the science, scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure ...
dates from the late-18th century. It grew out of the earlier discipline of
philology, the study of ancient texts and documents dating back to
antiquity.
At first, historical linguistics served as the cornerstone of
comparative linguistics, primarily as a tool for
linguistic reconstruction
Linguistic reconstruction is the practice of establishing the features of an unattested ancestor language of one or more given languages. There are two kinds of reconstruction:
* Internal reconstruction uses irregularities in a single language t ...
.
["Editors' Introduction: Foundations of the new historical linguistics." In]
''The Routledge Handbook of Historical Linguistics''
Routledge, 2015, p. 25. Scholars were concerned chiefly with establishing language families and reconstructing unrecorded
proto-languages
In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unattest ...
, using the
comparative method
In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor and then extrapolating backwards t ...
and
internal reconstruction
Internal reconstruction is a method of reconstructing an earlier state in a language's history using only language-internal evidence of the language in question.
The comparative method compares variations between languages, such as in sets of c ...
.
The focus was initially on the well-known
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
, many of which had long written histories; scholars also studied the
Uralic languages
The Uralic languages (; sometimes called Uralian languages ) form a language family of 38 languages spoken by approximately 25million people, predominantly in Northern Eurasia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian (w ...
, another Eurasian language-family for which less early written material exists. Since then, there has been significant comparative linguistic work expanding outside of European languages as well, such as on the
Austronesian languages and on various families of
Native American languages
Over a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families (including a large numbe ...
, among many others. Comparative linguistics became only a part of a more broadly-conceived discipline of historical linguistics. For the Indo-European languages, comparative study is now a highly specialized field.
Some scholars have undertaken studies attempting to establish super-families, linking, for example, Indo-European, Uralic, and other families into
Nostratic
Nostratic is a controversial hypothetical macrofamily, which includes many of the indigenous language families of Eurasia, although its exact composition and structure vary among proponents. It typically comprises Kartvelian, Indo-European and U ...
. These attempts have not met with wide acceptance. The information necessary to establish relatedness becomes less available as the time increases. The time-depth of linguistic methods is limited due to chance word resemblances and variations between language groups, but a limit of around 10,000 years is often assumed. The dating of the various proto-languages is also difficult; several methods are available for dating, but only approximate results can be obtained.
Diachronic and synchronic analysis
In linguistics, a synchronic analysis is one that views linguistic phenomena only at a given time, usually the present, but a synchronic analysis of a historical language form is also possible. It may be distinguished from diachronic, which regards a phenomenon in terms of developments through time. Diachronic analysis is the main concern of historical linguistics. However, most other branches of linguistics are concerned with some form of synchronic analysis. The study of language change offers a valuable insight into the state of linguistic representation, and because all synchronic forms are the result of historically-evolving diachronic changes, the ability to explain linguistic constructions necessitates a focus on diachronic processes.
Initially, all of modern linguistics was historical in orientation. Even the study of modern dialects involved looking at their origins.
Ferdinand de Saussure's distinction between
synchronic and diachronic linguistics is fundamental to the present day organization of the discipline. Primacy is accorded to synchronic linguistics, and diachronic linguistics is defined as the study of successive synchronic stages. Saussure's clear demarcation, however, has had both defenders and critics.
In practice, a purely-synchronic linguistics is not possible for any period before the invention of the
gramophone, as written records always lag behind speech in reflecting linguistic developments. Written records are difficult to date accurately before the development of the modern
title page
The title page of a book, thesis or other written work is the page at or near the front which displays its title, subtitle, author, publisher, and edition, often artistically decorated. (A half title, by contrast, displays only the title of a w ...
. Often, dating must rely on contextual historical evidence such as inscriptions, or modern technology, such as
carbon dating, can be used to ascertain dates of varying accuracy. Also, the work of
sociolinguists
Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any or all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and society's effect on language. It can overlap with the sociology of l ...
on linguistic variation has shown synchronic states are not uniform: the speech habits of older and younger speakers differ in ways that point to language change. Synchronic variation is linguistic change in progress.
Synchronic and diachronic approaches can reach quite different conclusions. For example, a
Germanic strong verb like English ''sing – sang – sung'' is
irregular when it is viewed synchronically: the
native speaker's brain processes them as learned forms, but the derived forms of regular verbs are processed quite differently, by the application of productive rules (for example, adding ''-ed'' to the basic form of a verb as in ''walk – walked''). That is an insight of
psycholinguistics, which is relevant also for
language didactics, both of which are synchronic disciplines. However, a diachronic analysis shows that the strong verb is the remnant of a fully regular system of internal vowel changes, in this case the
Indo-European ablaut
In linguistics, the Indo-European ablaut (, from German ''Ablaut'' ) is a system of apophony (regular vowel variations) in the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE).
An example of ablaut in English is the strong verb ''sing, sang, sung'' and it ...
; historical linguistics seldom uses the category "
irregular verb
A regular verb is any verb whose conjugation follows the typical pattern, or one of the typical patterns, of the language to which it belongs. A verb whose conjugation follows a different pattern is called an irregular verb. This is one instanc ...
".
The principal tools of research in diachronic linguistics are the
comparative method
In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor and then extrapolating backwards t ...
and the method of
internal reconstruction
Internal reconstruction is a method of reconstructing an earlier state in a language's history using only language-internal evidence of the language in question.
The comparative method compares variations between languages, such as in sets of c ...
. Less-standard techniques, such as
mass lexical comparison
Mass comparison is a method developed by Joseph Greenberg to determine the level of genetic relatedness between languages. It is now usually called multilateral comparison. The method is rejected by most linguists , though not all.
Some of the to ...
, are used by some linguists to overcome the limitations of the comparative method, but most linguists regard them as unreliable.
The findings of historical linguistics are often used as a basis for hypotheses about the groupings and movements of peoples, particularly in the prehistoric period. In practice, however, it is often unclear how to integrate the linguistic evidence with the
archaeological
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
or
genetic evidence. For example, there are numerous theories concerning the homeland and early movements of the
Proto-Indo-Europeans
The Proto-Indo-Europeans are a hypothetical prehistoric population of Eurasia who spoke Proto-Indo-European (PIE), the ancestor of the Indo-European languages according to linguistic reconstruction.
Knowledge of them comes chiefly from ...
, each with its own interpretation of the archaeological record.
Sub-fields of study
Comparative linguistics
Comparative linguistics (originally comparative
philology) is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages in order to establish their historical relatedness. Languages may be related by
convergence
Convergence may refer to:
Arts and media Literature
*''Convergence'' (book series), edited by Ruth Nanda Anshen
*Convergence (comics), "Convergence" (comics), two separate story lines published by DC Comics:
**A four-part crossover storyline that ...
through
borrowing or by genetic descent, thus languages can change and are also able to cross-relate.
Genetic relatedness implies a common origin or
proto-language
In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unattes ...
. Comparative linguistics has the goal of constructing
language families
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in hi ...
, reconstructing proto-languages, and specifying the changes that have resulted in the documented languages. To maintain a clear distinction between
attested language and reconstructed forms, comparative linguists will prefix an asterisk to any form that is not found in surviving texts.
Etymology
Etymology
Etymology ()The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed throughout time". is the study of the history of the Phonological chan ...
is the study of the
history
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...
of
word
A word is a basic element of language that carries an semantics, objective or pragmatics, practical semantics, meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of w ...
s: when they entered a language, from what source, and how their form and meaning have changed over time. A word may enter a language as a
loanword
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because th ...
(as a word from one language adopted by speakers of another language), through
derivational morphology
Morphological derivation, in linguistics, is the process of forming a new word from an existing word, often by adding a prefix or suffix, such as For example, ''unhappy'' and ''happiness'' derive from the root word ''happy.''
It is different ...
by combining pre-existing elements in the language, by a hybrid of these two processes called
phono-semantic matching
Phono-semantic matching (PSM) is the incorporation of a word into one language from another, often creating a neologism, where the word's non-native quality is hidden by replacing it with Phonetics, phonetically and semantically similar words o ...
, or in several other minor ways.
In languages with a long and detailed history, etymology makes use of
philology, the study of how words change from culture to culture over time. Etymologists also apply the methods of
comparative linguistics to reconstruct information about languages that are too old for any direct information (such as writing) to be known. By analyzing related languages with a technique known as the
comparative method
In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor and then extrapolating backwards t ...
, linguists can make inferences about their shared parent language and its vocabulary. In that way,
word roots that can be traced all the way back to the origin of, for instance, the
Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in hist ...
have been found. Although originating in the philological tradition, much current etymological research is done in
language families
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in hi ...
for which little or no early documentation is available, such as
Uralic
The Uralic languages (; sometimes called Uralian languages ) form a language family of 38 languages spoken by approximately 25million people, predominantly in Northern Eurasia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian (w ...
and
Austronesian.
Dialectology
Dialectology Dialectology (from Greek , ''dialektos'', "talk, dialect"; and , '' -logia'') is the scientific study of linguistic dialect, a sub-field of sociolinguistics. It studies variations in language based primarily on geographic distribution and their ass ...
is the scientific study of linguistic
dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of Linguistics, linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety (linguisti ...
, the varieties of a language that are characteristic of particular groups, based primarily on geographic distribution and their associated features. This is in contrast to variations based on social factors, which are studied in
sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any or all aspects of society, including cultural Norm (sociology), norms, expectations, and context (language use), context, on the way language is used, and society's effect on languag ...
, or variations based on time, which are studied in historical linguistics. Dialectology treats such topics as divergence of two local dialects from a common ancestor and
synchronic variation.
Dialectologists are concerned with grammatical features that correspond to regional areas. Thus, they are usually dealing with populations living in specific locales for generations without moving, but also with immigrant groups bringing their languages to new settlements.
Phonology
Phonology
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
is a sub-field of linguistics which studies the
sound
In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid.
In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the ...
system of a specific language or set of languages. Whereas
phonetics
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...
is about the physical production and
perception
Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system ...
of the sounds of speech, phonology describes the way sounds function within a given language or across languages.
An important part of phonology is studying which sounds are distinctive units within a language. For example, the "p" in "pin" is
aspirated, but the "p" in "spin" is not. In English these two sounds are used in
complementary distribution
In linguistics, complementary distribution, as distinct from contrastive distribution and free variation, is the relationship between two different elements of the same kind in which one element is found in one set of environments and the other ele ...
and are not used to differentiate words so they are considered
allophones
In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in '' ...
of the same
phoneme
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...
. In some other languages like
Thai
Thai or THAI may refer to:
* Of or from Thailand, a country in Southeast Asia
** Thai people, the dominant ethnic group of Thailand
** Thai language, a Tai-Kadai language spoken mainly in and around Thailand
*** Thai script
*** Thai (Unicode block ...
and
Quechua
Quechua may refer to:
*Quechua people, several indigenous ethnic groups in South America, especially in Peru
*Quechuan languages, a Native South American language family spoken primarily in the Andes, derived from a common ancestral language
**So ...
, the same difference of aspiration or non-aspiration differentiates words and so the two sounds (or
phones
A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into ele ...
) are therefore considered two distinct phonemes.
In addition to the minimal meaningful sounds (the phonemes), phonology studies how sounds alternate, such as the /p/ in English, and topics such as
syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "bu ...
structure,
stress
Stress may refer to:
Science and medicine
* Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition
* Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...
,
accent, and
intonation.
The principles of phonological theory have also been applied to the analysis of
sign language
Sign languages (also known as signed languages) are languages that use the visual-manual modality to convey meaning, instead of spoken words. Sign languages are expressed through manual articulation in combination with non-manual markers. Sign l ...
s, but the phonological units do not consist of sounds. The principles of phonological analysis can be applied independently of
modality
Modality may refer to:
Humanities
* Modality (theology), the organization and structure of the church, as distinct from sodality or parachurch organizations
* Modality (music), in music, the subject concerning certain diatonic scales
* Modaliti ...
because they are designed to serve as general analytical tools, not language-specific ones.
Morphology
Morphology
Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to:
Disciplines
* Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts
* Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...
is the study of the formal means of expression in a language; in the context of historical linguistics, how the formal means of expression change over time; for instance, languages with complex inflectional systems tend to be subject to a simplification process.
This field studies the internal structure of words as a formal means of expression.
Words as units in the lexicon are the subject matter of
lexicology. While words are generally accepted as being (with
clitics) the smallest units of
syntax, it is clear that, in most (if not all) languages, words can be related to other words by rules. The rules understood by the speaker reflect specific patterns (or regularities) in the way words are formed from smaller units and how those smaller units interact in speech. In this way, morphology is the branch of linguistics that studies patterns of word-formation within and across languages, and attempts to formulate rules that model the knowledge of the speakers of those languages, in the context of historical linguistics, how the means of expression change over time. See
grammaticalisation.
Syntax
Syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing
sentences
''The Four Books of Sentences'' (''Libri Quattuor Sententiarum'') is a book of theology written by Peter Lombard in the 12th century. It is a systematic compilation of theology, written around 1150; it derives its name from the '' sententiae'' ...
in
natural languages. The term ''syntax'' is used to refer directly to the rules and principles that govern the sentence structure of any individual language, as in "the
syntax of Modern Irish". Modern researchers in syntax attempt to
describe languages in terms of such rules. Many professionals in this discipline attempt to find
general rules that apply to all natural languages in the context of historical linguistics, how characteristics of sentence structure in related languages changed over time. See
grammaticalisation.
Rates of change and varieties of adaptation
Studies in historical linguistics often use the terms "
conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...
" or "innovative" to characterize the extent of change occurring in a particular language or dialect as compared with related varieties. In particular, a ''conservative'' variety changes relatively less than an ''innovative'' variety. The variations in plasticity are often related to the socio-economic situation of the language speakers. An example of an innovative dialect would be
American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lan ...
because of the vast number of speakers and the open interaction its speakers have with other language groups; the changes can be seen in the terms developed for business and marketing, among other fields such as technology.
The converse of an innovative language is a conservative language, which is generally defined by its static nature and imperviousness to outside influences. Most but not all conservative languages are spoken in secluded areas that lack any other primary language speaking population.
Neither descriptive terms carries any value judgment in linguistic studies or determines any form of worthiness a language has, compared to any other language.
A particularly-conservative variety that preserves features that have long since vanished elsewhere is sometimes said to be "
archaic". There are few examples of archaic language in modern society, but some have survived in
set phrase
Set, The Set, SET or SETS may refer to:
Science, technology, and mathematics Mathematics
*Set (mathematics), a collection of elements
*Category of sets, the category whose objects and morphisms are sets and total functions, respectively
Electro ...
s or in nursery rhymes.
Evolutionary context
In terms of evolutionary theory, historical linguistics (as opposed to research into the
origin of language) studies
Lamarckian
Lamarckism, also known as Lamarckian inheritance or neo-Lamarckism, is the notion that an organism can pass on to its offspring physical characteristics that the parent organism acquired through use or disuse during its lifetime. It is also calle ...
acquired characteristics of languages.
[
]
See also
*
Comparative method
In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor and then extrapolating backwards t ...
*
Etymological dictionary
An etymological dictionary discusses the etymology of the words listed. Often, large dictionaries, such as the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' and ''Webster's'', will contain some etymological information, without aspiring to focus on etymology.
E ...
*
Genetic linguistics
Comparative linguistics, or comparative-historical linguistics (formerly comparative philology) is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness.
Genetic relatedness i ...
*
Glottochronology Glottochronology (from Attic Greek γλῶττα ''tongue, language'' and χρόνος ''time'') is the part of lexicostatistics which involves comparative linguistics and deals with the chronological relationship between languages.Sheila Embleton ( ...
*
Grammaticalization
*
Historical dictionary
A historical dictionary or dictionary on historical principles is a dictionary which deals not only with the latterday meanings of words but also the historical development of their forms and meanings. It may also describe the vocabulary of an earl ...
*
Language families
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in hi ...
*
Lexicostatistics
Lexicostatistics is a method of comparative linguistics that involves comparing the percentage of lexical cognates between languages to determine their relationship. Lexicostatistics is related to the comparative method but does not reconstruct a ...
*
List of languages by first written accounts
This is a list of languages arranged by age of the oldest existing text recording a complete sentence in the language. It does not include undeciphered scripts, though there are various claims without wide acceptance, which, if substantiated, ...
*
Mass lexical comparison
Mass comparison is a method developed by Joseph Greenberg to determine the level of genetic relatedness between languages. It is now usually called multilateral comparison. The method is rejected by most linguists , though not all.
Some of the to ...
*
Paleolinguistics
Paleolinguistics is a term used by some linguists for the study of the distant human past by linguistic means. For most historical linguists there is no separate field of paleolinguistics. Those who use the term are generally advocates of hypothes ...
*
Proto-language
In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unattes ...
*
Real-time sociolinguistics Real-time sociolinguistics is a sociolinguistic research method concerned with observing linguistic variation and change in progress via longitudinal studies. Real-time studies track linguistic variables over time by collecting data from a speech c ...
*
Wave model
In historical linguistics, the wave model or wave theory (German ''Wellentheorie'') is a model of language change in which a new language feature (innovation) or a new combination of language features spreads from its region of origin, affecting ...
Citations
General and cited sources
*
* Kortmann, Bernd: ''English Linguistics: Essentials'', Anglistik-Amerikanistik, Cornlesen, pp. 37–49
*
Further reading
*
Raimo Anttila, ''Historical and Comparative Linguistics'' (2nd ed.) (John Benjamins, 1989)
*
Karl Brugmann
Karl Brugmann (16 March 1849 – 29 June 1919) was a German linguist. He is noted for his work in Indo-European linguistics.
Biography
He was educated at the universities of Halle and Leipzig. He taught at the gymnasium at Wiesbaden and at Lei ...
,
Berthold Delbrück
Berthold Gustav Gottlieb Delbrück (; 26 July 1842 – 3 January 1922) was a German linguist who devoted himself to the study of the comparative syntax of the Indo-European languages.
Early life
Delbrück was born in Putbus. He studied at the un ...
, ''
'' (1886–1916).
* Theodora Bynon, ''Historical Linguistics'' (Cambridge University Press, 1977)
*
Henry M. Hoenigswald
Henry Max Hoenigswald (17 April 1915 – 16 June 2003) was a German scholar of linguistics, who in 1939 escaped to the United States where he had a long and productive academic career as a scholar of historical linguistics at the University of ...
, ''Language change and linguistic reconstruction'' (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press 1960).
* Richard D. Janda and Brian D. Joseph (Eds), ''The Handbook of Historical Linguistics'' (Blackwell, 2004)
* Roger Lass, ''Historical linguistics and language change''. (Cambridge University Press, 1997)
*
Winfred P. Lehmann
Winfred Philip Lehmann (June 23, 1916August 1, 2007) was an American linguist who specialized in historical, Germanic, and Indo-European linguistics. He was for many years a professor and head of departments for linguistics at the University of ...
, ''Historical Linguistics: An Introduction (Second Edition)'' (Holt, 1973)
* April McMahon, ''Understanding Language Change'' (Cambridge University Press, 1994)
* James Milroy, ''Linguistic Variation and Change'' (Blackwell, 1992)
* A. C. Partridge, ''Tudor to Augustan English: a Study in Syntax and Style, from Caxton to Johnson'', in series, ''The Language Library'', London: A. Deutsch, 1969; 242 p. SBN 233-96092-9
* M.L. Samuels, ''Linguistic Evolution'' (Cambridge University Press, 1972)
*
R. L. Trask
Robert Lawrence Trask (10 November 1944 – 27 March 2004) was an American–British professor of linguistics at the University of Sussex, and an authority on the Basque language and the field of historical linguistics.
Biography
Born in Ol ...
(ed.), ''Dictionary of Historical and Comparative Linguistics '' (Fitzroy Dearborn, 2001)
*
August Schleicher
August Schleicher (; 19 February 1821 – 6 December 1868) was a German linguist. His great work was ''A Compendium of the Comparative Grammar of the Indo-European Languages'' in which he attempted to reconstruct the Proto-Indo-European languag ...
: ''Compendium der vergleichenden Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen.'' (Kurzer Abriss der indogermanischen Ursprache, des Altindischen, Altiranischen, Altgriechischen, Altitalischen, Altkeltischen, Altslawischen, Litauischen und Altdeutschen.) (2 vols.) Weimar, H. Boehlau (1861/62); reprinted by Minerva GmbH, Wissenschaftlicher Verlag,
*
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Historical Linguistics