Dialectal Differentiation

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Dialectal Differentiation

• Language change through time, space, and
  circumstances

Credits This presentation is created by Dr. A.P.
Church. It may be used for educational purposes
on condition of acknowledgment. The author
acknowledges the use of maps provided by the
Ancient World Mapping center, http//www.unc.edu/a
wmc/, which he has modified for the purpose of
this presentation. Other sources used in the
presentation are acknowledged upon use.
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Insitutional Learning Outcomes

• I Critical Thinking
• (About where, when, why, and how language
  changes)
• II Communication and Technology
• (Power point, WWW, and other electronic
  resources)
• III Multicultural and Global Awareness
• (The study of English and your English is a
  study of the socio-historical contexts of many
  cultures that have shaped varieties of English)
• IV Aesthetic Appreciation
• (We can not appreciate literature without
  appreciating the language which makes literature
  possible, but the study of language also allows
  us to appreciate the various factors that shape
  its own form and content the history of English
  is a history of extraordinary diversity, power,
  and beauty of language in a variety of social
  and historical contexts.)
• V Discipline Content
• (Understanding English literatures requires
  understanding English languages)
• These Outcomes are relevant to all of the English
  Program Outcomes because they develop knowledge
  and skills necessary for critically reading,
  writing, and thinking about language and
  literature.

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Language is constantly changing

• A basic precept of this course is the idea that
  language is constantly changing. Since this
  course is about the history of the English
  language, our ultimate goal is to apply this
  precept to English and study how it has been and
  is changing through time, space, and
  circumstances.
• But language is not just a system of vocal signs
  by which a group of humans communicate, it is
  also a system of vocal signs by which an
  individual communicates at different times,
  places, and circumstances. Before we look at the
  English language historically, lets examine how
  your language has been constantly changing.

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How has your language changed?

• Relevant to time?
• When I was a child, I spake as a child, I
  understood as a child, I thought as a child but
  when I became a man, I put away childish things.
  (Apostle Paul, 1 Corinthians)
• Relevant to space?
• I am become a name
• For always roaming with a hungry heart
• Much have I seen and known cities of men
• And manners, climates, councils, governments,
• Myself not least, but honour'd of them all
• And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
• Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
• I am a part of all that I have met (Tennyson,
  Ulysses)
• Relevant to circumstances?
• I must remind you that you are not to interrupt
  me if I speak in my accustomed manner. . . . Men
  of Athens, do not interrupt, but hear me there
  was an agreement between us that you should hear
  me out. (Socrates, in Platos Apology)

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Language is shaped by time

• The diachronic study of language is the study of
  how language changes through time. It is the
  study of historical change. Your language has
  changed throughout time, and so has the English
  language.
• By studying the historical evidence of written
  records, scholars have concluded that English, a
  Western Germanic language, evolved over thousands
  of years from a reconstructed Proto-Indo-European
  Language (PIE).

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PIE Time?
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Scholars disagree on the number of distinct
language groups evolving out of PIE I follow
Cable and Baugh, who mention eleven distinct
groups Germanic, Celtic, Balto-Slavic, Latin,
Albanian, Hellenic, Hittite, Armenian, Tocharian,
Iranian, and Indian. Modern English evolves out
of the West Germanic branch of the Germanic
group. The map approximates the location of
descendents of these language speakers today, but
the languages evolved at different times since
the approximate date of PIE some 6000 years ago.
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Comparative study of PIE languages began with Sir
William Jones, who was an official of the British
empire in the late 18th century. Studying some
of the oldest known texts written in Sanskrit (an
early form of Indian), Jones noticed there were
similarities between Sanskrit, Latin, and Greek.
He theorized that they had originated from a
common mother language that has been lostthe
Prototypical Indo-European.
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Comparison of PIE Languages to be
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What similarities and differences do you see in
these forms?
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Comparison of PIE Languages common words
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What similarities and differences do you see in
these forms?
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Oxford English Dictionary Etymology

• Etymology is the study of word origins. Many
  dictionaries will include an etymological
  explanation of a word to place it in a historical
  context. The most reliable source for English
  language word origins is the OED. It
  demonstrates the history of the English word
  Father as follows
• Com. Teut. and Aryan OE. fæder corresponds to
  OFris. feder, fader, OS. fadar, fader (LG., Du.
  vader, vaar), OHG. fater (MHG. and mod.G. vater),
  ON. faeðr, -ir (Sw., Da. fader, far), Goth. fadar
  (found only Gal. iv. 6, the ordinary word being
  atta)OTeut. faderOAryan pater. whence Skr.
  pitr, Gr. p?t?? , L. pater, OIr. athir.

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Evidence for Language Change

• From our personal experience we can observe the
  differences in our language throughout time from
  when we were children, teenagers, and adults.
  Perhaps we have recordings or videos of our
  speech from different periods in our lives, or
  samples of our writing from elementary school,
  high school, and college. We also have the
  testimony of adults who knew and know us.

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Written Evidence
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Lords Prayer Diachronically in English
Do you know the modern English version of this
prayer? Ill recite it as you read either the OE
or ME version. What kinds of changes can you see
in the four hundred years that separate the Old
and Middle English English periods?
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Language is also shaped by space

• Space, in a sense, is geography. OED defines
  geography as the description of the earth's
  surface, treating of its form and physical
  features, its natural and political divisions,
  the climate, productions, population, etc., of
  the various countries. Throughout the term, we
  will explore how these different geographical
  factors influence change.
• When speakers of a language move into a new
  space, they often encounter features associated
  with the new region which requires them to invent
  a new word or borrow a word from a different
  language.

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New Words for New Worlds
Although common words like father, mother, and
brother may not necessarily change as a result of
geography, we do know that unique features of
ones environment may result in different words
being developed in different languages. For
instance, there were no words for jungle, mango,
and crocodile in the earliest Germanic and Slavic
languages because the speakers of these language
groups lived in regions where there were no such
things. Yet English eventually acquired these
words when it came into contact with languages
that had already found a need for them.
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Jungle, Desert, Forest?

• The OED explains that the word Jungle was
  borrowed into English toward the end of the 18th
  century, but notice how even as it was borrowed
  its meaning was changed to correspond to a
  geographical feature of the Indian Subcontinent
  that the English were not familiar with. The OED
  etymology of jungle is
• a. Hindi and Marathi jangal desert, waste,
  forest, Skr. jangala dry, dry ground, desert. The
  change in Anglo-Indian use may be compared to
  that in the historical meaning of the word forest
  in its passage from a waste or unenclosed tract
  to one covered with wild wood. In the transferred
  sense of jungle there is app. a tendency to
  associate it with tangle. 
•     
• 1. In India, originally, as a native word, Waste
  or uncultivated ground ( forest in the
  original sense) then, such land overgrown with
  brushwood, long grass, etc. hence, in
  Anglo-Indian use,    a. Land overgrown with
  underwood, long grass, or tangled vegetation
  also, the luxuriant and often almost impenetrable
  growth of vegetation covering such a tract.    b.
  with a and pl. A particular tract or piece of
  land so covered esp. as the dwelling-place of
  wild beasts.

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Languages, Dialects, and Registers

• The variations that emerge over time among people
  speaking the same language but in different
  regions result in what we call dialects.
  Eventually, dialects may become recognized as new
  languages. Dialects and languages are typically
  associated with particular places.
• Language also changes to meet the particular
  needs of a given situation. When we change our
  language to function in different social
  settings, we speak in what are known as different
  registers these registers represent cultural
  levels and functional varieties of English that
  we may use at work or school, when being formal
  or informal, or when speaking to a friend or a
  grandfather or a professor or policeman.

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Whats a Klinefelter?

• Varieties of language that adapt to a
  contemporary time, place, and circumstance are
  considered synchronic rather than historical or
  diachronic. For instance, spatial relationships
  may be intimate expressions of a particular
  community. If you tell another Blue Hawk that
  you saw some dude dressed like Buster at
  Klinefelter, or if on the Kaibab crew-net I warn
  someone be advised theres a widowmaker
  hanging on the yellowbelly at Shoot em up Dick,
  whether or not we are understood depends on the
  extent our language has been shaped mutually by
  the same time, space, and circumstances.

Go Hawks!!!
(Shoot em up What?!?!)
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Language changes in time and space

• Just as your language has been changed by the
  peculiarities of your experiences in time and
  space, English has changed as a result of its
  contact with other places and cultures. From its
  origins as an Indo-European language, through its
  development as a form of Germanic known as
  Western Germanic into its earliest historical
  form called Old English, English has been
  constantly changing.
• From the earliest historical evidence, we also
  see that there were many dialectical differences
  between the Anglo-Saxon tribes that arrived from
  different regions of the Continent to what was to
  become known as England.

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Dialects

• David Burnley says the following about Dialects
  (from Old English A Multimedia History)
• Dialects arise through the variation which is
  found in languages according to the geographical
  locations in which they are spoken. Variation may
  occur at all levels of analysis, and include
  variety in everything from accent to syntax and
  semantics. This basic conception seems simple
  enough, but precise definition is less easy.
  Variation due to social and stylistic differences
  may not always be easy to distinguish from purely
  geographical ones. And there are other
  uncertainties.

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Dialects

• A dialect is distinguished from the more
  widespread form of the language by a set of local
  variants, but it is often difficult to identify a
  geographical area for that dialect. As we travel
  across the country, variants tend to be replaced
  at different points. A Durham dialect sounds more
  like a North Yorkshire dialect than a South
  Yorkshire dialect. It is usually difficult to
  recognise a clear border.David Burnley
• The dialectal differences of the Angles and the
  Saxons that settled in Northumbria and Wessex,
  respectively, may be seen in the following
  comparison

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Caedmons Hymn in Different Regions of
Anglo-Saxon England

• Northumbrian Dialect Version
• Nu scylun hergan hefaenricaes uard,
• metudæs maecti end his modgidanc,
• uerc uuldurfadur, sue he uundra gihuaes,
• eci dryctin, or astelidæ.
• He aerist scop aelda barnum
• heben til hrofe, haleg scepen
• tha middungeard moncynnæs uard,
• eci dryctin, æfter tiadæ
• firum foldu, frea allmectig

• West Saxon Dialect Version
• Nu sculon herigean heofonrices weard,
• meotodes meahte and his modgeþanc,
• weorc wuldorfæder, swa he wundra gehwæs,
• ece drihten, or onstealde.
• He ærest sceop eorðan bearnum
• heofon to hrofe, halig scyppend
• þa middangeard moncynnes weard,
• ece drihten, æfter teode
• firum foldan, frea ælmihtig.

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What differences can you see in the Northumbrian
and West Saxon dialects of Caedmons Hymn?

• West Saxon Dialect Version
• Nu sculon herigean heofonrices weard,
• meotodes meahte and his modgeþanc,
• weorc wuldorfæder, swa he wundra gehwæs,
• ece drihten, or onstealde.
• He ærest sceop eorðan bearnum
• heofon to hrofe, halig scyppend
• þa middangeard moncynnes weard,
• ece drihten, æfter teode
• firum foldan, frea ælmihtig.

• Northumbrian Dialect Version
• Nu scylun hergan hefaenricaes uard,
• metudæs maecti end his modgidanc,
• uerc uuldurfadur, sue he uundra gihuaes,
• eci dryctin, or astelidæ.
• He aerist scop aelda barnum
• heben til hrofe, haleg scepen
• tha middungeard moncynnæs uard,
• eci dryctin, æfter tiadæ
• firum foldu, frea allmectig

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OE version of Caedmons Hymn compared to a MnE
Translation

• Nu we sculon herigean heofonrices weard, Now we
  must praise the Protector of the heavenly
  kingdom,
• meotodes meahte ond his modgeþanc, the might of
  the Measurer and His mind's purpose,
• weorc wuldorfæder, swa he wundra gehwæs, the
  work of the Father of Glory, as He for each of
  the wonders,
• ece drihten, or onstealde the eternal Lord,
  established a beginning.
• He ærest sceop eorðan bearnum He shaped first
  for the sons of the Earth
• heofon to hrofe, halig scyppend heaven as a
  roof, the Holy Maker
• þa middangeard moncynnes weard, then the
  Middle-World, mankind's Guardian,
• ece drihten, æfter teode the eternal Lord, made
  afterwards,
• firum foldan, frea ælmihtig. solid ground for
  men, the almighty Lord.

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What Have You Learned?

• I hope that this brief introduction has helped
  you begin to understand how time, place and
  circumstance have influenced language change. We
  call this process of change Dialectal
  Differentiation.
• Dialectal Differentiation is a term that refers
  to the process by which language changes over
  time and space and circumstance. It is also
  known as language variation or language
  diversification.

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Dialectal Differentiation

• In its broadest application, dialectal
  differentiation provides an explanation for how
  new languages or dialects emerge from a common
  language. As a group or groups of speakers of a
  common language become separated from other
  speakers of the same language, the process of
  change begins as they are exposed to different
  languages, dialects, and other stimuli that
  result in changes in phonology, morphology,
  lexicology, etc. that differentiate them from
  their original language group over time and
  distance.

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What else?

• We also learned about how we can study a language
  diachronically or synchronically, from historical
  or contemporary perspectives.
• We learned that there are differences between
  languages, dialects, and registers.
• We will continue to study how English is a
  language with many historical and contemporary
  varieties and how it has changed in morphology,
  phonology, lexicology, and orthography.

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Critical Thinking Questions

• Purpose To think critically about why and how
  language and languages change.
• Questions What kinds of changes have taken
  place in English since its PIE origins? How has
  western North Dakota shaped your dialect of
  English?
• How does your language change when you are
  writing rather than speaking?
• Do you have any other questions?
• Evidence What evidence to we have to answer
  the question?
• Interpretations/Conclusions How are we
  interpreting the evidence? What are our
  conclusions?
• Ideas, Concepts, Theories Are there any
  particular theories or ideas that help us
  understand the issue?
• Assumptions What assumptions or presuppositions
  do we have regarding the issue?
• Implications/Consequences If our
  interpretations or conclusions about the evidence
  are correct, what are the implications and
  consequences of our thinking?

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Dialectal Differentiation

• Language change through time, space, and
  circumstances
• -The End-