Musings on linguistics and the English language

[_Dr. Shades]

I received my undergraduate degree in English. I'm also very interested in the science of linguistics.

One of my Facebook friends told me that she thought all languages traced their roots through Latin. Not so; only five modern languages (French, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and Romanian) are direct descendants of Latin. Out of the worlds 6,909 living languages, 5 just isn't that many (substantially less than 1/10 of 1%).

She then told me that she doesn't really understand what linguistics is all about, so I endeavored to fill her in a little. It wound up taking me a long time to type up, so rather than have it fall into Facebook oblivion, I decided to repost it here so I don't lose it so easily (and on the off-chance that someone else might find it slightly interesting).

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Very, very few languages begin with Latin. Latin itself began with Indo-European, which itself began with a hypothesized proto-Indo-European. There are a great many language families that spawned far more sub-families than Latin ever did. And that's not even counting the hundreds of languages that have ceased to exist within only the past few hundred years thanks to the Colonial Era. And even those languages don't count the several language isolates, like Basque and Korean, that exist by themselves and are related to no other language on earth--nobody simply has any idea where they came from.

As a matter of fact, look at the island of New Guinea, just North of Australia. Its native populations have far more languages and linguistic diversity than all of Europe COMBINED. Even neighboring villages might speak languages as different from each other as English and Chinese.

While we're on the subject of Latin, well, let's take a look at the language you're reading right now, English. English, at its roots, is unrelated to Latin, believe it or not. When the Romans conquered the Southern half of Britain, they brought their Latin words and phrases with them, which many of the natives had to adopt for commerce and trade purposes. Centuries later, in 1064 A.D., the Normans conquered Britain, bringing their French (a sublanguage of Latin) words and phrases with them, which the natives adopted again because the Normans became the ruling elite. So the only reason English looks like it's related to Latin is due to heavy borrowing thanks to two separate waves of foreign conquest.

You say you don't understand the concept of linguistics. Well, here's some food for thought: Just like our current English is a hodgpodge of several Germanic languages from several Germanic tribes--Angles, Jutes, Saxons, Picts, etc.--which largely replaced the original Britons, who spoke their own form of Celtic, the very letters you're reading--A, B, C, etc.--are themselves an inefficient hodgepodge of characters adapted from Latin and Greek. Since those languages aren't Germanic, those letters were crammed in haphazardly to match our language--like trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole.

We have several sounds that the ABCs don't cover. In one case, we don't have a letter for the "sh" sound as in "shoe," so we picked two letters semi-randomly and illegitimately matched them together when, in reality, the "sh" sound needs its own letter. (The exact same thing happened with the "th" sound as in "thought." It needs its own letter, too. The "oo" sound as in "book" is another example.)

In a second case, we simply enlisted one letter to cover two sounds, like the letter "S." The "s" sound as in "sing" is entirely different from the "s" sound as in "vision" or "lesion." So the "s" sound in "vision" needs its own letter.

In a third case, we invented letters that don't need to exist, like the letter "J." The "j" sound is simply the "d" sound followed quickly by the "s" sound as in "vision." Try it and see. Another example of this is the long "A" sound as in "ace:" It's nothing more than the short "e" sound, as in "pelt," followed quickly by the long "E" sound as in "Eel." Once more, try it and see.

In a fourth case, we imported Latin letters that we could've easily ignored entirely, specifically the letters "C," "Q," and "X." In the first instance, the letter "C" makes the sounds already covered by "S" and "K," rendering the letter "C" entirely unnecessary in the English language--just like "Q" and "X."

In a fifth case, we combined the mistakes of the first, second, AND fourth cases! The "ch" combination, as in "chest," is a two-letter combination for a sound that, when you think about it, doesn't actually exist. "ch" is nothing more than the "t" sound followed rapidly by the "sh" sound. So, it really ought to be formed by a "t" followed by the letter that needs to be invented for the "sh" sound.

In the sixth case, there shouldn't be any such thing as long and short vowel sounds. Each sound should have its own letter, with the exception of the long "A" sound which, as I explained, doesn't actually exist.

See? That's part of what linguistics is all about. And here you probably thought that our system of ABCs was elegant and streamlined, right? :-)

Assuming you're still reading, let's continue on with the rest of your message. I don't think it's possible to study all languages, except perhaps in theoretical form. What I'm interested in most is tracking human migrations via paleolinguistics. For example, we know that all Austronesians (Filipinos, Indonesians, Madagascarans, most Malaysians, and all Polynesians like the Samoans, Tongans, Hawaiians, etc.) are descendants of people from Taiwan because their languages are all sub-languages of families which are, themselves, sub-languages of a single one of the four language stocks of the aboriginal Taiwanese.

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If I'm wrong about anything here, I respectfully request your corrections so I don't persist in my mistakes.

[_asbestosman]

Interesting. I like parts of linguistics too--mostly since I learned to speak Dutch and was amazed by how much it helped me understand Jacobean (KJV) English.

Alphabets are also fun. My MADB sig line contains a quote written in the Deseret Alphabet which I thought was an interesting experiment by early Mormon pioneers.

Speaking of English and the alphabet, I recall reading somewhere that we used to have a letter called "thorn" for the "th" sound. the letter looked something like a y and was the source for "ye olde shop".

Another interesting thing I heard was that English used to use the "v" where we now use a "u". Indeed other languages call "w" the "double-v."

Vowels are a particularly tricky part of language--at least it was for learning Dutch. In that sense, I see that many vowels are inadequately expressed with the Latin alphabet. English uses the letter "i" for a dipthong. The actual sound of "I" is more of an "ah" transitioned into an "e" (as in "eat". Other dipthongs are expressed with other combinations such as "ow" as in "cow" or "plow." In fact "w", and "h" are strange consonants that act much like vowels in certain ways.

Another fun thing I discovered thanks to Dutch is how pronunciation seems to change over the centuries, but sometimes hints about the history are preserved in spelling. Take the word "light". Why do we have a "gh" in there? I don't know the actual reason. What I do know is, that Dutch word is "licht" and the "ch" is pronounced as a raspy "h" or raspy "g". This sound is also found in Dutch words with "g" such as "god" (same meaning as in English). Thus I wonder if the "gh" in "light" is a hint about a prior pronunciation of that word in English.

[_Dr. Shades]

It's cool that you learned more about English, especially Jacobean English, thanks to your study of Dutch.

My only other language is Japanese, so obviously it didn't help me understand English roots or structure at all, of course. Anything I learned about my mother-tongue had to be done on my own.

[_Paracelsus]

Moreover, think about the pronounciation of the letter _i_ in find, fill and first.

Fortunately, somebody solved all problem. Please read it thoughtfully. It seems to be a joke, but it has true core.

A plan for the improvement of spelling in the English language
By Mark Twain

For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all.

Generally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeiniing voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x"— bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez —tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivili.

Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.

[_Bond James Bond]

1) 1066 A.D. not 1064 when William the Conqueror (a.k.a. William the Bastard) led the conquest of England by the Normans.

2) The Romans did have a "J" sound, they just didn't have a written "J". They wrote "J" as an "I" so that "Julius" was "Iulius". The Romans also didn't use a written "G" sound and instead substituted a "C", so that "Gaius Julius Caesar" was actually "Caius Iulius Caesar". Although they also used a "C" to be a "C" such as in "Caesar". You'll also usually see the vowel "U" written as a "V" so that Julius" becomes "Ivlivs" in ancient manuscripts and engravings. There was also a "V" as in "vir" (men). Latin is a weird weird language. Scholars have been working on this crap for centuries and it's still weird.

3) We've also left out some silly pronunciation stuff such as the "ae" sound which in Latin sounds like a long "i" so that "Caesar" becomes "Kaisar". "C" is often the "K" sound by the way.

4) Also in Latin pronunciation "v" is often pronounced like "w" so that the verb "video videre vidi visum" (to see) is pronounced "wideo". The exact opposite of German where "Wagner" is pronounced "Vagner"! Insanity. To mess with you there is also the hard "V" sound from time to time.

[_Dr. Shades]

Just like I said: A hodgepodge.

[_Malcolm]

Hi Doc,
Loved your treatise on linguistics.
Whilst not a great brain, I have always been interested, even intrigued, by words and their origins.
As you say, English is a hodgepodge or a mongrel language.
Prior to the Norman Conquest, the inhabitants of this island made reference to meat purely by the animal name, for example cow pie.
The Norman's brought us Cow- Beef, Sheep- Mutton, Pig- Pork .
Words crossing over from Anglo-Saxon into the courts of Norman monarchy and taken from the Latin and French are:-
Regal - Latin
Royal - French
Kingly - Native English
all meaning more or less the same thing, but showing differing origins. We are still using approximately 1,500 words from Old English.

Going back to Asbestosman's reference to the "gh" in light, it could possibly come from lihtjan Old Gothic, or from Old Norse "logi" a flame.
So much is lost in the mists of time, but it is still good fun to delve into our linguistic past. Were we to return to the Viking era and say the word "freckle" they would know that we spoke of the freckles on our face.

An interesting thing for me at any rate, as a child in the West Riding of Yorkshire, we would knock on a pal's door and ask, "Are you coming out laiking?" we had no idea that our dialect word for "playing" came straight out of Old Norse. Indeed the word with a slightly different spelling is the
same word an Icelandic child would use, today, "Leikur" to play.
Boring for some, but I find word origins totally fascinating.

[_truth dancer]

Great topic!

So Shades, what is your theory on the origin of language? Have you read any good books? Know of any great sites?

I am so NOT an expert but it seems there are some experts who believe language spontaneously arose in several (or a few), different parts of the world, other who think there is a common, "first," language.

What do you think?

~td~

[_MrStakhanovite]

I'm taking an introduction to Linguistics this fall and I'm pretty stoked.

[_Darth J]

Why are laughter and daughter spelled the same except for the first letter?