Diachronic (Historical) Linguistics

In the News . . .

• Isolated for six months, scientists in Antarctica began to develop their own accent -- BBC Future (23 February 2024)
  
  
• Cockney accent disappearing among young -- BBCNews (02 November 2023)
  
  
• Lost for words: fears of ‘catastrophic’ language loss due to rising seas - The Guardian (16 January 2023)
  
  
• Keeping the Ojibwe native language alive -- WDIO (11 October 2022)
  
  
• The Rosetta Stone: The real ancient codebreakers -- BBCCulture (26 September 2022)
  
  
• What the Queen's English reveals about a changing world -- BBCFuture (15 September 2022)
  
  
• When did everything become ‘awesome’ and ‘amazing’? I blame the Americans -- The Guardian (01 September 2022)
  
  
• The royal roots of Quebec's French -- BBCTravel (30 August 2022)
  
  
• New Zealand minister defies Ardern in Māori language chocolate bar row -- The Guardian (30 August 2022)
  
  
• The most mispronounced places across Central Texas -- KXAN (15 August 2022)
  
  
• The language that doesn't use 'no' -- BBCFuture (09 August 2022)
  
  
• Russia’s Sami fight to save their language and traditions – photo essay -- The Guardian (07 July 2022)
  
  
• Wagwan? Why are more and more Britons speaking Multicultural London English? -- The Guardian (14 June 2022)
  
  
• Lakota elders helped a white man preserve their language. Then he tried to sell it back to them -- nbcnews (03 June 2022)
  
  
• Ryanair Afrikaans test: South African fury over language quiz -- BBCNews (06 June 2022)
  
  
• Enemy tongue: eastern Ukrainians reject their Russian birth language -- The Guardian (04 June 2022)
  
  
• Chilean indigenous language vanishes as last living Yamana speaker dies -- The Guardian (17 Febraury 2022)
  
  
• Académie Française denounces rise of English words in public life -- The Guardian (16 Febraury 2022)
  
  
• New gender-neutral pronoun likely to enter Norwegian dictionaries -- The Guardian (02 February 2022)
  
  
• Aranese: Spain's little-known language -- BBCTravel (18 January 2022)
  
  
• From respair to cacklefart – the joy of reclaiming long-lost positive words -- The Guardian (26 December 2021)
  
  
• Bringing Attention to the Maori Language, One Song at a Time -- The New York Times (17 October 2021)
  
  
• Europe's language that few speak -- BBCTravel (17 May 2021)
  
  
• Scotland’s little-known fourth "language" [Doric] -- BBCTravel (22 March 2021)
  
  
• How Covid-19 Threatens Native Languages -- The New York Times (24 January 2021)
  
  
• I have lost much of my childhood fluency in te reo Māori – we must fight for its survival -- The Guardian (14 September 2020
  
  
• 'Streetonomics': What our addresses say about us -- BBCNews (12 July 2021)
  
  
• New study pinpoints 1 essential way Neanderthals were like us -- INVERSE (01 March 2021)
  
  
• The Untranslatable Word that Connects Wales -- BBCtravel (15 February 2021)
  
  
• The private language of Venice -- BBCtravel (14 October 2020)
  
  
• Nüshu: China’s secret female-only language -- BBCtravel (01 October 2020)
  
  
• The fragile state of ‘contact languages’ -- BBCFuture (01 September 2020)
  
  
• The fascinating history of the f-word -- BBCreel (04 June 2020)
  
  
• Saving an indigenous language from extinction [Sami] -- BBCNews (12 January 2020)
  
  
• Fake news: French language body urges alternative phrase -- BBCnews (05 October 2019)
  
  
• Prince William given Maori greeting in New Zealand -- BBCNews (29 April 2019)
  
  
• New emperor, new era: How a single word defines Japan -- BBCNews (30 March 2019)
  
  
• Pas de 'fake news' – too many English words rile French defenders -- The Guardian (04 October 2018)
  
  
• Maori Language, Once Shunned, Is Having a Renaissance in New Zealand -- The New York Times (16 September 2018)
  
  
• Google and Disney join rush to cash in as Māori goes mainstream -- The Guardian (28 July 2018)
  
  
• The mysterious origins of Finland’s true name -- BBCtravel (26 February 2018)
  
  
• No, Lebanese is not a “dialect” of Arabic -- Nassim Nicholas Taleb, East Med Project: History, Philology, and Genetics (02 January 2018)
  
  
• How Irish falconry changed language -- BBCtravel (19 January 2017)
  
  
• Considering the Impact of the Emoji: From the World of Language to the World of Public Health -- The Scout Report, October 27, 2017, Volume 23, Number 43
  
  
• Babel's Dawn: A Blog about the Origins of Speech -- Edmund Blair Bolles
  
  [Edmund Blair Bolles (author of books including So Much to Say and Einstein Defiant: Genius versus Genius in the Quantum Revolution is the author of Babel's Dawn, a blog dedicated to the origins of speech. On this blog, Bolles, who authored a book with the same title, regularly posts about new research on the origins of language, alongside his own personal musings. For example, in one post Bolles reports on a study, recently published in Science, about the vocal cords of monkeys and about what this study can tell us about how humans developed language. In another recent entry, Bolles reflects on the fact that all major languages include a transitive clause. And in Bolles's most recent entry (as of this write-up), Bolles discusses the publication of Embodiment in Evolution and Culture, a new book that explores the role of the body and the senses in culture. Babel's Dawn provides readers with a great way to stay up-to-date on research and developments related to linguistics and related fields. -- MMB, The Scout Report, 17 February 2017, Volume 23, Number 7]
  
  
• Why Do We Love to Curse So Much? -- The New York Times (26 September 2016)
  
  
• Do you know the meaning of the dictionary's newest words? -- BBCculture (12 September 2016)
  
  
• Dictionary fans might squee: OED adds new words, because YOLO -- MPRNews (12 September 2016)
  
  
• Humans May Speak a Universal Language, Say Scientists -- Telegraph (12 September 2016)
  
  
• The people who study the meaning of nonsense -- BBCfuture (07 September 2016)
  
  
• Do You Know a Bunji From a Boorie? Meet Our Dictionary’s New Indigenous Words -- Conversation (22 August 2016)
  
  
• Words Stripped of Meaning: A Guide to Linguistic Spam -- Conversation (09 August 2016)
  
  
• Orangutan 'Copies Human Speech' -- BBC News (27 July 2016)
  
  
• How However Almost Kicked But's Butt: Linguistics study -- EurekAlert (20 July 2016)
  
  
• The Magic of "Untranslatable" Words -- Scientific American (12 July 2016)
  
  
• Regional Dialects Are Dying Out – It’s Enough to Get You Blarting -- Guardian (30 May 2016)
  
  
• Anthropologist Follows Trail of Century-Old Hobo Graffiti -- ABC News (30 May 2016)
  
  
• Deep Male Voices Evolved to Intimidate Men, Not Attract Women -- Guardian (26 April 2016)
  
  
• How the Irish lost their words -- BBCtravel (23 May 2016)
  
  
• Spot the real Shakespeare words – and the fakes -- BBCculture (22 April 2016)
  
  
• New Sign Languages Hint at How All Languages Evolve -- Science (22 April 2016)
  
  
• DNA Sat Nav Uncovers Ancient Ashkenaz and Predicts Where Yiddish Originated -- Heritage Daily (20 April 2016)
  
  
• Languages Support Efficient Communication about the Environment: Words for Snow Revisited -- PLoS ONE (13 April 2016)
  
  
• From Pantomime to Sign: How Sign Language Evolves -- Science (08 April 2016)
  
  
• Vanishing Languages, Reincarnated as Music -- New York Times (30 March 2016)
  
  
• French Spelling Changes, 26 Years in the Making, Cause a Fracas -- The New York Times (05 February 2016)
  
  
• Quiz: How well do you know the ‘words of the year’? -- BBCCulture (01 February 2016)
  
  
• New Book Explores Grand Riddles of Human Language -- EurekAlert (01 March 2016)
  
  
• New research into the origins of the Austronesian languages -- ScienceDaily (28 January 2016)
  
  
• The Vocabularist: When plastics stopped being plastic -- BBCNews (20 January 2016)
  
  
• Life or Death for Languages -- ScienceNordic (23 December 2015)
  
  
• Beyond 'he' and 'she': The rise of non-binary pronouns -- BBCNews (07 December 2015)
  
  
• Why Are Jews Called Jews? -- Haaretz (19 October 2015)
  
  
• The Vulgar Tongue: A dictionary of filthy words -- BBCNews (16 September 2015)
  
  
• Linguists use the Bible to develop language technology for small languages -- ScienceDaily (08 September 2015)
  
  
• Unusual ‘Relic Language’ Comes from Small Group of Farmers Isolated for Thousands of Years -- Science (07 September 2015)
  
  
• Ancient DNA cracks puzzle of Basque origins -- BBC News (07 September 2015)
  
  
• At the Origin of Language Structure -- ScienceDaily (27 August 2015)
  
  
• The Most Interesting Thing About That Ancient Spartan Palace Isn't the Palace - It's the Language -- Forbes (26 August 2015)
  
  
• A Picture Of Language: The Fading Art Of Diagramming Sentences -- MPRNews (22 August 2015)
  
  
• Bonobo squeaks hint at earlier speech evolution -- BBC News (04 August 2015)
  
  
• Is This How Language Evolved? -- LiveScience (05 August 2015)
  
  
• Explore This Map of 13 Centuries Worth of English Metaphors -- Smithsonian (15 July 2015)
  
  
• Babbler bird calls 'convey meaning' -- BBC News (30 June 2015)
  
  
• [Australian] Babblers [birds] Speak to the Origin of Language -- Guardian (29 June 2015)
  
  
• Half of All Languages Come From This One Root Tongue. Here’s How It Conquered the Earth -- Smithsonian (16 June 2015)
  
  
• Sisters Fight to Save Ancient African Language from Extinction -- Guardian (09 June 2015)
  
  
• Isolated People in Sweden Only Stopped Using Runes 100 Years Ago -- ScienceNordic (21 May 2015)
  
  
• Fight on to Preserve Elfdalian, Sweden's Lost Forest Language -- ScienceNordic (20 May 2015)
  
  
• 7 lost American slang words -- MPRNews (23 April 2015)
  
  
• Scientific Babel by Michael Gordin Review – The Hunt for a Common Language -- Guardian (02 April 2015)
  
  
• The Rapid Rise of Human Language -- ScienceDaily (31 March 2015)
  
  
• ‘Kúl’, ‘Beibí’, ‘Plís’ and Their Threat to Icelandic Language -- Science 2.0 (31 March 2015)
  
  
• Origins of Indo-European Languages, New Phonological Section Highlight Language Issue -- EurekAlert (20 March 2015)
  
  
• St. Barts Is Like the Galapagos for Linguistic Diversity -- Smithsonian (05 March 2015)
  
  
• Like the Galápagos, only for linguists -- Christian Science Monitor (05 March 2015)
  
  
• Tracing Languages Back to Their Common Ancestors Through the Statistics of Sound Shifts -- Science Daily (19 February 2015)
  
  
• Indo-European languages first emerged circa 6500 years ago on the steppe -- Past Horizons (20 February 2015)
  
  
• New Insights Into Origins of the World's Languages -- Science Daily (18 February 2015)
  
  
• European Languages Linked to Migration from the East -- Nature (12 February 2015)
  
  
• How Languages and Genes Evolve Together -- Atlantic (03 February 2015)
  
  
• Human Language May Have Evolved to Help Our Ancestors Make Tools -- Science (13 January 2015)
  
  
• Guy Fawkes May Be the Root of the Word “Guys” -- Smithsonian (05 November 2014)
  
  
• Languages Are Being Wiped Out By Economic Growth -- Science (02 September 2014)
  
  
• Oceans Apart: Study Reveals Insights Into the Evolution of Languages -- Science Daily (02 September 2014)
  
  
• From Marvellous to Awesome: How Spoken British English Has Changed -- Guardian (26 August 2014)
  
  
• Half The World's Languages May Be Endangered -- Inside Science (20 August 2014)
  
  
• Physicists create tool to foresee language destruction impact and thus prevent it -- Science Daily (25 July 2014)
  
  
• Alice in Wonderland Contributes to Advances in Linguistics -- Science Daily (22 May 2014)
  
  
• The American Language: A Historical Database of English in the U.S. -- Pacific Standard (05 May 2014)
  
  
• Evidence for the Identification of Carabayo, the Language of an Uncontacted People of the Colombian Amazon, as Belonging to the Tikuna-Yurí Linguistic Family -- PLoS ONE (16 April 2014)
  
  
• Family Ties in the Language Jungle: Amazon Language Relationships Revealed -- Science Daily (16 April 2014)
  
  
• Rivers and Mountains Directly Shape Languages -- Discovery News (15 April 2014)
  
  
• Sixty Languages at Risk of Extinction in Mexico—Can They Be Kept Alive? -- National Geographic News (10 April 2014)
  
  
• Where Did ‘Hispanics’ Come From? -- Pacific Standard (02 April 2014)
  
  
• At Risk of Digital Extinction: Europe's Smaller Languages Fight to Survive -- Guardian (26 March 2014)
  
  
• Minority Languages Fight for Survival in the Digital Age (Op-Ed) -- LiveScience (18 February 2014)
  
  
• From 'A' to 'Ampersand', English Is a Wonderfully Curious Language -- Guardian (15 October 2014)
  
  
• Smithsonian Archives Preserve Lost and Dying Languages -- Washington Post (20 January 2014)
  
  
• 'Selfie' is the word of 2013-- MPRNews (31 December 2013)
  
  
• Sexist Language: It's Every Man for Him or Herself -- Guardian (18 October 2013)
  
  
• Are Gender-Neutral Pronouns Actually Doomed? -- Pacific Standard (08 October 2013)
  
  
• Words Are Stupid, Words Are Fun -- Guardian (07 October 2013)
  
  
• Dictionaries Shed Light on Endangered Indigenous Languages -- Guardian (28 August 2013)
  
  
• Language in Books Shows How We Have Grown More Selfish -- Telegraph (07 August 2013)
  
  
• Linguist Finds a Language in Its Infancy -- New York Times (14 July 2013)
  
  
• Fourth of July picnic cost? About $6 per head -- MPRNews (3 July 2013)
  
  
• How the English language changed after American independence -- MPRNews (2 July 2013)
  
  
• Ice Age words in our speech -- Past Horizons (20 May 2013)
  
  
• Could You Talk To A Caveman? Scientists Say It's Possible -- NPR (09 May 2013)
  
  
• English May Have Retained Words From an Ice Age Language -- Science (06 May 2013)
  
  
• Speaking to the Dead -- Past Horizons (15 February 2013)
  
  
• Ancient Languages Reconstructed by Computer Program -- BBC News (12 February 2013)
  
  
• Dickens, Austen and Twain, Through a Digital Lens -- STEVE LOHR, The New York Times (26 January 2013)
  
  
• Ermahgerd! Computer Program Spots Medieval Memes! -- MSNBC (22 January 2013)
  
  
• Physicists Explore the Rise and Fall of Word -- LiveScience (27 December 2012)
  
  
• Drought May Have Killed Sumerian Language -- LiveScience (04 December 2012)
  
  
• Linguist Makes Sensational Claim: English Is a Scandinavian Language -- ScienceDaily (27 November 2012)
  
  
• Catalan: A Language That Has Survived Against the Odds -- Guardian (22 November 2012)
  
  
• Where Have All the Adverbs Gone? And How Did They Go? -- Guardian (19 August 2012)
  
  
• Americans Keen on Britishisms Sneaking Into Their Language -- MSNBC (28 September 2012)
  
  
• Study shows ancient language relationships -- Past Horizons (22 September 2012)
  
  
• Study Shows Ancient Relations Between Language Families -- ScienceDaily (20 September 2012)
  
  
• Stereotypes 'Evolve Like Language', Say Researchers -- BBCNews (05 September 2012)
  
  
• How Language Change Sneaks in -- EurekAlert (04 September 2012)
  
  
• Capacity for language implied by right-handedness in Neanderthals -- Past Horizons (08 September 2012)
  
  
• English language 'originated in Turkey' -- BBCNews (25 August 2012)
  
  
• Mapping The Birthplace Of Modern Languages -- NPR (24 August 2012)
  
  
• A Turkish Origin for Indo-European Languages -- Nature (23 August 2012)
  
  
• Google launches Endangered Language Project -- Ars Technica (21 June 2012)
  
  
• How offensive is the word 'lunatic'? -- BBCNews (08 May 2012)
  
  
• Did Stone Age Cavemen Talk to Each Other in Symbols? -- The Guardian (10 March 2012)
  
  
• Disappearing Languages / Enduring Voices -- National Geographic (17 February 2012)
  • Pictures: See and Hear Last Speakers of Dying Languages -- National Geographic (17 February 2012)
    
    
• Digital Dictionaries Help Save Vanishing Languages -- Discovery News (17 February 2012)
  
  
• Digital Tools Help Document Vanishing Languages -- NPR (17 February 2012)
  
  
• Endangered languages: the full list -- The Guardian (15 April 2011)
  
  

• the study of language across time
  
  
• the study of language change using formal methods that compare shifts over time and across space in formal aspects of language such as phonetics, grammar, and semantics
  
  
• meanings change*
  
  
  • narrowing -- the meaning of a form becomes more restricted in scope
    • meat from Old English mete (food)
    • deer from Old English dëor (beast)
    • garage from a French word denoting any storage place
      
      
  • widening -- the meaning is enlarged
    • barn from Old English bern (a storage place for barley)
    • brand names
      • victrola
      • frigidaire
      • xerox
        
        
  • degeneration -- a form takes an unfavorable meaning, or one which is improper or obscene
    • knave from Old English cnafa ("boy, servant")
    • madam (keeper of brothel) from honorific madam
      
      
  • elevation -- the meaning of a form rises in the social scale, losing an earlier significance
    • knight from Old English cniht (servant, young disciple")
    • marshal from an older French word meaning "a caretaker of horses (mares)"
      
      
  • metaphor -- an earlier metaphorical or marginal meaning becomes nuclear
    • pen from Latin penna (feather)
      
      
• factors making for semantic change are largely undetermined

linguistics index page

*After E.A. Hoebel, Anthroplogy: The Study of Man, 4th ed. (NY: McGraw-Hill, 1972.)

• Ancient Language Mystery Deepens -- BBC News (10 August 2010)
  
  
• Are Dying Languages Worth Saving? -- BBC News (14 September 2010)
  
  
• A Way With Words -- Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett
  
  
• The 'Bumpy Ride' of Linguistic Change -- ScienceDaily (21 June 2010)
  
  
• The Cool Twists of Language -- Guardian (21 November 2011)
  
  
• Endangered Languages: The Full List -- Guardian (15 April 2011)
  
  
• English language has doubled in size in the last century -- Telegraph (16 December 2010)
  
  
• Evolving English: Podcasts -- The British Library
  
  
• The Great Pronunciation Controversy -- Guardian (28 October 2010)
  
  
• That's What They Say -- Rina Miller and Anne Curzan, Michigan Public Radio
  
  
• Hope for Endangered Language in Spain -- EurekAlert (27 June 2011)
  
  
• Huge Ancient Language Dictionary Finished After 90 Years -- ScienceDaily (07 June 2011)
  
  
• Interaction Is Critical for the Evolution of the Language -- ScienceDaily (05 July 2011)
  
  
• Language and Toolmaking Evolved Together, Say Researchers -- Guardian (03 November 2010)
  
  
• Language Change Can Be Traced Using Gigantic Text Archives -- ScienceDaily (29 June 2009)
  
  
• The Language Fossils Buried in Every Cell of Your Body -- Discovery Magazine (17 October 2011)
  
  
• Library to Rediscover Aboriginal Languages -- Miller-McCune (29 August 2011)
  
  
• Linguist on Mission to Save Inuit 'Fossil Language' Disappearing with the Ice -- Guardian (10 August 2010)
  
  
• "Lost" Languages to Be Resurrected by Computers? -- National Geographic News (19 July 2010)
  
  
• Mesopotamian dictionary completed after 90 years' work -- Guardian (07 June 2011)
  
  
• 'Oldest English words' identified -- BBC News (2009-02-26)
  
  
• The Original Human Language Like Yoda Sounded -- LiveScience (13 October 2011)
  
  
• The origins of "OK" explored -- The Scout Report, November 24, 2010, Volume 16, Number 47
  
  
• Our Ancestors Speak Out After 3 Million Years -- NewScientist (23 November 2011)
  
  
• Our Mother Tongues -- Anne Makepeace
  
  
• Oxford University Mission to Save a Language Spoken by Three People -- Telegraph (21 April 2011)
  
  
• Piktochart: 5 Language Infographics
  
  
• Resurrecting Endangered American Indian Language -- LiveScience (22 November 2011)
  
  
• Rescuing Endangered Languages Means Saving Ideas -- Miller-McCune (19 August 2011)
  
  
• Signing, Singing, Speaking: How Language Evolved -- NPR (16 August 2010)
  
  
• The Voynich Manuscript: Will We Ever Be Able to Read This Book? -- Telegraph (24 May 2011)
  
  
• Where did English come from? -- Claire Bowern
  
  
• Wynn, Thomas, and Frederick L. Coolidge. How to Think Like a Neandertal. NY: Oxford University Press, 2012.