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The evolution of languages or history of language includes the evolution, divergence and development of languages throughout time, as reconstructed based on glottochronology, comparative linguistics, written records and other historical linguistics techniques.
Historical linguistics, also known as diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of how languages change over time. [1] It seeks to understand the nature and causes of linguistic change and to trace the evolution of languages.
The origin of language, its relationship with human evolution, and its consequences have been subjects of study for centuries.Scholars wishing to study the origins of language draw inferences from evidence such as the fossil record, archaeological evidence, contemporary language diversity, studies of language acquisition, and comparisons between human language and systems of animal ...
According to this hypothesis, languages evolved as several lineages independent of one another. [16] Modern investigation about creole languages demonstrated that with an appropriate linguistic input or pidgin, children develop a language with stable and defined grammar in one generation. [17] Creole languages descend from pidgins.
This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 3 February 2025. Group of languages related through a common ancestor 2005 map of the contemporary distribution of the world's primary language families A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term family is a ...
The form or meaning of the word might show variations between dialects, which may yield clues about its earlier history. The comparative method. By a systematic comparison of related languages, etymologists may often be able to detect which words derive from their common ancestor language and which were instead later borrowed from another language.
Cladistic representation of the Mayan linguistic family, going back 4000 years.(The numbers represent proposed historical dates in the Common Era).. In historical linguistics, the tree model (also Stammbaum, genetic, or cladistic model) is a model of the evolution of languages analogous to the concept of a family tree, particularly a phylogenetic tree in the biological evolution of species.
Linguistics is the scientific study of language, [1] involving analysis of language form, language meaning, and language in context. [2]Language use was first systematically documented in Mesopotamia, with extant lexical lists of the 3rd to the 2nd Millennia BCE, offering glossaries on Sumerian cuneiform usage and meaning, and phonetical vocabularies of foreign languages.