Language History, Language Change, and Language Relationship: An Introduction to Historical and Comparative Linguistics

by Hans Henrich Hock, Brian D. Joseph

Why does language change? Why can we speak to and understand our parents but have trouble reading Shakespeare? Why is Chaucer's English of the fourteenth century so different from Modern English of the late twentieth century that the two are essentially different languages? Why are Americans and English 'one people divided by a common language'? And how can the language of Chaucer and Modern English - or Modern British and American English - still be called the same language? The present book provides answers to questions like these in a straightforward way, aimed at the non-specialist, with ample illustrations from both familiar and more exotic languages. Most chapters in this new edition have been reworked, with some difficult passages removed, other passages thoroughly rewritten, and several new sections added, e.g. on language and race and on Indian writing systems. Further, the chapter notes and bibliography have all been updated.

Genres: Linguistics, Language, Nonfiction

605 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Colleen]

Textbook for a course in Historical and Comparative Linguistics. Pretty good, covers a lot of material.

[Mikhael Hayes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book I use to teach historical linguistics. My only real criticism is the bias towards Indo-European languages, but hey you can't be an expert on all languages. I know Hock, quite an insightful guy, and if anything I would've expected the book to be super Indo-Aryan, but it's pretty balanced among the IE family