1. Historical linguistics The birth, evolution, and death of languages

2. RankLanguagePopulation (in millions) % of world’s pop. 1Chinese (Mandarin)88515 2English3225.4 3Spanish2664.5 4Bengali1893.2 5Hindi1823.0 6Portuguese1702.8 7Russian1702.8 8Japanese1252.1 9German 981.6 10Chinese (Wu) 771.3 11Javanese 761.2 12Korean 751.2 13French 721.2 14Vietnamese 671.1 15Telegu 661.1

3. Polygenesis vs. monogenesis Monogenesis prevails in biological evolution Polygenesis prevails in cultural evolution: independent invention Polygenesis seems to prevail in remote language origins

4. Causes of language change Random Drift Phonetic Assimilation Language contact: –Borrowing –Interference in acquisition of second language Institutionalization of formerly aberrant forms.

5. Change in animal systems? Little evidence that call systems of other primates evolve through time –Data about the past are skimpy. –Linked to genes. Genetic evolution slower than cultural evolution Whales: the possible exception

6. Language families No evidence for one common ancestor language But languages can be grouped into families The role of Sanskrit in the discovery of the Indo-European family

7. Indo-European family Probably originated in north-central Europe Associated with “Aryan” warriors who were to conquer Europe, India, and parts of Asia No literary remains No archeological site can be firmly linked. Has been hypothetically reconstructed

8. Branches of Indo-European Italic: Latin and Romance languages Slavic: Russian, Polish etc/ Celtic: Irish, Gallic, Welsh, Breton Germanic: German, English, Swedish, et.al. Indo-Iranian: Hindi, Bengali, Farsi, Pashto

9. Map of Celtic Languages Today

10. European language distribution, present

11. Indo-European Expansion

12. Indo-European languages in times past

13. Indo-European languages around the world

14. Language Families in Europe

15. Indo-European branches in Europe today