Description
What are the causes of language change? Where do words come from? Is modern technology and social media corrupting our language? Language change is just as relevant today as it ever was, yet the secrets of how and why it occurs remain tantalisingly out of reach to anyone without a background in linguistics. This book has the answers. Written by one of the leading experts in the field, it provides readers with an accessible account of language change, unraveling the processes and phenomena that have so far remained locked within academia. It explores a range of fascinating topics, such as whether language change is bad, whether change is different in some kinds of languages than others, and if television, AI, and modern technology have any impact on language change. Written in a lively and engaging way, it uncovers the marvels and mysteries of language change for anyone curious about this captivating field.
Table of Contents
1. Language history: past offenses or glorious achievements?; 2. What's in a word?; 3. You get my drift? Meaning change; 4. Language mooching: loanwords and borrowing; 5. Sound change costs and benefits; 6. How do languages clean up their act? The might of analogy; 7. Can languages change their grammatical spots? Can old grammars learn new grammatical tricks?; 8. All in the family: language classification; 9. Writing and the magic of writing systems; 10. Thereby hangs a tale: Linguistic prehistory; 11. Is linguistic Armageddon nigh? What's ahead for the world's languages?; Appendix: language families of the world (including language isolates).
