Editing Language change (section)

{{Short description|Modification or development of a language}}
{{Distinguish|language shift|code-switching}}
{{for|the book by Jean Aitchison|Language Change: Progress or Decay?{{!}}''Language Change: Progress or Decay?''}}
{{Redirect|Linguistic corruption|errors in grammar|Solecism|non-standard words or pronunciation|Barbarism (linguistics)}}
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'''Language change''' is the process of alteration in the features of a single [[language]], or of languages in general, over time. It is studied in several subfields of [[linguistics]]: [[historical linguistics]], [[sociolinguistics]], and [[evolutionary linguistics]]. Traditional theories of historical linguistics identify three main types of change: systematic change in the pronunciation of [[phonemes]], or [[sound change]]; [[borrowing (linguistics)|borrowing]], in which features of a language or dialect are introduced or altered as a result of influence from another language or dialect; and [[analogical change]], in which the shape or grammatical behavior of a word is altered to more closely resemble that of another word. Research on language change generally assumes the [[uniformitarian principle (linguistics)|uniformitarian principle]]—the presumption that language changes in the past took place according to the same general principles as language changes visible in the present.<ref>{{Citation |last=Romaine |first=Suzanne |title=CONTACT WITH OTHER LANGUAGES |date=2001-02-07 |work=The Cambridge History of the English Language |pages=154–183 |url=https://doi.org/10.1017/chol9780521264792.005 |access-date=2025-03-22 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-139-05382-2}}</ref> 

Language change usually does not occur suddenly, but rather takes place via an extended period of [[variation (linguistics)|variation]], during which new and old linguistic features coexist. All living languages are continually undergoing change. Some commentators use derogatory labels such as "corruption" to suggest that language change constitutes a degradation in the quality of a language, especially when the change originates from [[human error]] or is a [[Prescription (linguistics)|prescriptively]] discouraged usage.<ref>{{cite book|last=Lyons|first=John |title=Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VGkkjkLPZkoC|date=1 June 1968|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-09510-5|page=42|quote=The traditional grammarian tended to assume [...] that it was his task, as a grammarian, to 'preserve' this form of language from 'corruption'.}}</ref> Modern linguistics rejects this concept, since from a scientific point of view such innovations cannot be judged in terms of good or bad.<ref>{{Cite book | author=Joan Bybee | title=Language Change | year=2015 | publisher=Cambridge University Press | pages=10–11 | isbn=9781107020160 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b1mtCAAAQBAJ}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book | author=Lyle Campbell | title=Historical Linguistics: An Introduction | year=2004 | publisher=MIT Press | pages=3–4 | isbn=9780262532679 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EjXrrOJhex8C}}</ref> [[John Lyons (linguist)|John Lyons]] notes that "any standard of evaluation applied to language-change must be based upon a recognition of the various functions a language 'is called upon' to fulfil in the society which uses it".<ref>{{Cite book|author=John Lyons|title=Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics|date=1 June 1968|publisher=Cambridge University Press|pages=42–44|isbn=978-0-521-09510-5|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VGkkjkLPZkoC}}</ref>

Over enough time, changes in a language can accumulate to such an extent that it is no longer recognizable as the same language. For instance, [[modern English]] is the result of centuries of language change applying to [[Old English]], even though modern English is extremely divergent from Old English in grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. The two may be thought of as distinct languages, but Modern English is a "descendant" of its "ancestor" Old English. When multiple languages are all descended from the same ancestor language, as the [[Romance language]]s are from [[Vulgar Latin]], they are said to form a [[language family]] and be "[[genetic relationship (linguistics)|genetically]]" related.