LANGUAGE CHANGES (sociolinguistics)

LANGUAGE CHANGES

1.      There are some reasons which cause the language changes. It can be divided by two: internal reason and external reason. Explain about that.

2.      On the lexical change, there are some examples. Please explain about the example of lexical change.

ANSWER.

1.      There are two reasons, those are internal and external reason:

a.       Internal reason

The internal reasons are referred to the causes of the nature of the language itself. For example: in the past, some linguists have learned that structures and sounds of language indeed tend to change from complex to be simple and from irregular to be regular. Other examples are spelling changes(colour into color, centre become center)

b.      External reason

The external reasons are referred to the situation found in the society using the language that trigger the change. This include immigration of the language speakers, technological inventions and introductions, economic values of the language and political situations.

2.      Lexical change:

a.       The formation of borrowing

English in fact has borrowed a lot of words from other languages in its history, for example from German or French. Like poet, painting, garage, are from French. And pizza, spaghetti from Italy. Slim from Dutch. Robot from Czech.

b.      The change of the sounds and spellings

It happened in Old English to modern English. Chance spelled chaunce, thousand spelled thusend, etc

c.       The change of meaning

Starve used to mean ‘to die’ but now it means ‘to die of hunger’

Silly used to mean ‘happy’, nice used to mean ignorant, etc