Genealogical classification
(The first half of the lecture will consist of a video screening. There is a handout that helps you organise some of the information in the video.)
Ethnologue,
the largest survey of languages today, first attempted a world-wide review in
1974 where 5,687 languages in referred to. The present edition gives a listing
of 6,912 languages. (Click here to go
to the Ethnologue website.) If we may be a little sceptical about
some of these numbers (we might prefer to think of some of these ‘languages’ as
different varieties or dialects of a language), there are still very many
languages in the world. How did language itself arise in the human species?
If we compare the human species to other
animals, it is clearly significant that the human brain is relatively larger
than that of other animals. Early Homo erectus in Africa (from about 1.7 to 1 million years
BC) averaged 900 cc in brain size, but later Homo erectus specimens from
500,000 BC average 1,100–1,200 cc (cm³). Today, the average brain size is 1,400
cc. If we assume a correlation a correlation between brain size and
intelligence, we might then say that language arose with increased intelligence.
(The truth of the matter must be more complex than this though. People with
small brains such as nanocephablic dwarfs still have language.)
Secondly, bi-pedalism (standing upright) must have been a factor as well. The hands are freed up for other actions, such as carrying, which in turn frees up the mouth from needing to perform this function. The development of a resonating chamber of about 1½ inches (4 centimetres) above the larynx allowed for the development of various speech sounds.
Did language arise independently in different locations (this view is known as polygenesis)? Or are all languages ultimately evolved from a common ancestor (this view is known as monogenesis)?
We can do a small-scale study based on the instruction leaflet found in an Ikea self-assembled item of furniture.
FOLLOW ME!
Svenksa [‘Swedish’]
VIKTIGT “FOLLOW ME” =
MONTERINGSANVISNING
Kontrollera först innehållet. Vad som ingår ser du längst ner på nästa
side. Om något saknas eller du får problem, kontakta ditt varuhus.
English
IMPORTANT “FOLLOW ME” = ASSEMBLY INSTRUCTIONS
First check the contents. There is a list of contents on the left of the
other side. If anything is missing, or you have a problem, contact your store.
Deutsch [‘German’]
WICHTIG “FOLLOW ME” =
MONTIERANLEITUNG
Zuerst den Inhalt kontrollieren. Was dazu gehört, sehen Sie ganz links auf
der nächsten Seite. Sollte etwas fehlen oder sollten Probleme auftreten, setzen
Sie sich bitte mit Ihrem Einrichtungshaus in Verbindung.
Français [‘French’]
IMPORTANT “FOLLOW ME”
= INSTRUCTIONS DE MONTAGE
Commencez par contrôler le contenu en le comparant à liste page suivante, à
l’extrême gauche. Si quelque chose manquait ou que vous aviez un problème,
contactez votre magasin.
Nederlands [‘Dutch’]
BELANGRIJK “FOLLOW
ME: = MONTEAGEAANWIJZING
Kontroleer eerst de inhoud. Uiterst links op de volgende bladzijde staat
alles opgesomd. Als er iests ontbreekt of als je problemen krijgt, neem dan
kontakt op met het woonwarenhuis.
Español [‘Spanish’]
¡IMPORTANTE! “FOLLOW
ME” - INSTRUCCIONES DE MONTAJE
Verifica primero el contenido. En la página siguiente, a la izquierda,
encontrarás la descripción del contenido. Monta el mueble siguiendo el orden
numérico y las indicaciones de los dibujos. Si algo hace falta o si tienes
dificultades, llama a tu tienda distribuidora. Al cabo de unas dos semanas
debes apretar nuevamente todos los herrajes.
Italiano [‘Italian’]
IMPORTANTE! “FOLLOW
ME” = INSTRUZIONI DI MONTAGGIO
Controlla prima il contenuto. Il contenuto é segnato a sinistra nella
pagina seguente. Monta il mobile secondo l’ordine del disegno. Se manca
qualcosa o se sorgono dei dubbi, chiama il punto vendita. Ristringere tutte le
viti dopo alcune settimane.
Based on this we can say a little about:
- grammar (a bit)
- lexis (more)
- pronunciation (not much)
|
English |
words similar to English in other
languages |
other similar words with the same
meaning |
|
important |
important (Fr), importante (Sp),
importante (It) |
viktigt (Sw), wichtig (Ge) |
|
assembly |
|
monterings- (Sw), montier- (Ge), montage
(Fr), monteage- (Du), montaje (Sp), montaggio (It) |
|
instructions |
instructions (Fr), instrucciones (Sp),
instruzioni (It) |
anvisning (Sw), anleitung
(Ge), aanwijzing (Du) |
|
check |
verifica (Sp) |
kontrollera (Sw),
kontrollieren (Ge), contrôler (Fr), kontroleer (Du), controlla (It) |
|
first |
först (Sw), eerst (Du) |
primero (Sp), prima (It) |
|
contents |
contenu (Fr), contenido (Sp),
contenuto (It) |
innehållet (Sw), Inhalt (Ge),
inhoud (Du) |
1. Consider the words for ‘important’, ‘instructions’,
‘first’ and ‘contents’
- Group A – French, Spanish and Italian
- Group B – Swedish, German and Dutch
- English seems problematic?
2. Consider the arrangement ‘assembly instructions’ or ‘instructions for assembly’
- Group A languages seem to prefer the noun + prepositional phrase construction
- Group B languages seem to prefer the noun + noun construction.
- from the point of view of the grammar of the noun phrase, English resembles the Group B languages more than the Group A languages
How come?
(a) Hypothesis I: These were originally different languages, but because of contact between the different speakers, they were influenced by one another’s lexical items and grammatical structures.
(b) Hypothesis II: These were originally one language, only they
gradually became different. Perhaps people migrated, and the language changed
in different ways: lexically, grammatically and phonologically.
Hypothesis I = centripetal force (convergence)
Hypothesis II = centrifugal force (divergence).
Figure 1
- Cheating: the number one
in the various languages:
- en (Sw), un (Fr), ein
(Ge), uno (Sp), un (It) and een (Du).
- cf. onru (Tamil), hitotsu
or ichi (Japanese), moja (Swahili), satu (Malay), yi
(Mandarin Chinese) and yat (Cantonese Chinese).
we can imagine a common source for
the ‘original’ Group A and Group B languages.
- Group B languages are usually called the Germanic or Teutonic group of languages
- Other existing Germanic languages include Afrikaans (sometimes
called
- The Group A languages are commonly called the Romance (= vernacular) languages.
- These were originally all local or vernacular spoken versions of
Latin (‘vulgar Latin’) used throughout the
- This group is called the Italic group of languages.
- Other existing Italic (Romance) languages include Catalan
(spoken mainly in some parts of
The Germanic, the Italic group and other groups of languages form a larger family of languages. They call this the Indo-European family of languages
Whilst many had been aware
of the similarities between and therefore the common source of the Romance languages
(French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, etc.), it took a British judge Sir
William Jones who was stationed in India to cast the net much wider and noticed
similarities between apparently very different languages. He made systematic
comparisons of the lexis and the grammar of languages like Greek, Latin,
English and Sanskrit in an orderly fashion. This provided strong evidence for
the existence of a so-called family of Indo-European languages, with an
ultimate common source that was now extinct.
This is what he had to say:
The
Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more
perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely
refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in
the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been
produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them
all three, without believing them to have spring from some common source,
which, perhaps, no longer exists: there is a similar reason, though not quite
so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothick and the Celtick, though
blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanscrit, and
the old Persian might be added to this family, if this were the place for
discussing any question concerning the antiquities of Persia.
This eventually gave rise to a way of classifying languages, known as the genetic classification or the genealogical classification. The main metaphor that has been employed for talking about languages this way is the metaphor of the family tree (introduced by the German linguist Schleicher who thought of language as an organism that could grow and decay). This method compares different languages and use as many written remains that are available. Clearly, this kind of method of research would be more successful in places where more written records were available. Where there are gaps in the tree, reconstruction is possible (indicated by an asterisk below) by comparing cognate forms.
The table above shows that Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese and
Catalan are ‘sister languages’, derived from the parent language Latin. We can
extend the diagram and show ‘daughter languages’ for Sanskrit and Gothic for
example as well. The name given to the ‘common source’ is Proto-Indo-European
or PIE. It is thought to have been spoken before 3000 BC and to have split up
into different languages, so that by 2000 BC many of the linguistic differences
had been established.
PIE speakers would seem to have lived in the steppe region of southern
There are no written records of PIE, which suggests that PIE was not a
written language. PIE sounds therefore have had to be reconstructed. (Some
suggest that PIE was a development from an even earlier language, sometimes
called Nostratic;
here is a transcript of a programme ‘In
Search of the First Language’. [If you go either of the links, click on
your browser’s Back button to return here.]) If we examine the table above, it
is clear that cognate words are pronounced differently in the various languages
in the same family. When we examine a sufficient number of words, we will
notice that the changes are not haphazard but often quite systematic. The
19th-century German philologist Jakob Grimm (1785–1863) worked out a sound law,
known as Grimm’s law or ‘the first sound-shifting’, of how some Germanic
consonants diverged from that of PIE. This is illustrated in the table below.
|
Aspirated voiced stops |
|
Voiced stops |
|
Voiceless stops |
|
Voiceless fricatives |
|
bh |
à |
b |
à |
p |
à |
f |
|
dh |
à |
d |
à |
t |
à |
T |
|
gh |
à |
g |
à |
k |
à |
h |
Examples of words that show Grimm’s law include the following.
|
Change illustrated |
Latin |
Greek |
Sanskrit |
Gothic |
(Old) English |
|
p à f |
pedem |
poda |
padam |
fotus |
foot |
|
p à f |
pecus |
– |
pacu |
faihu |
feoh ‘cattle, money’ |
|
p à f |
piscis |
– |
– |
fisks |
fish |
|
t à T |
tres |
treis |
trayas |
þrir |
three |
|
t à T |
tenuis |
tanaos |
tanu |
þunnr |
thin |
|
t à T/D |
tu |
tu |
tvam |
þu |
thou |
|
d à t |
decem |
deka |
daca |
taihun |
ten |
|
d à t |
videre |
oida |
veda |
witan |
to wit |
When you’re ready to take the quiz
based on this topic, go to the IVLE
page and click on ‘Assessment’ on the left, and then on ‘beginnings’.