1.5. Modern views of language evolution

Modern historical linguistics has been enriched by various theoretical approaches, mentioned above.

Nowadays view of the language evolution is as a multi-dimensional process, static and dynamk simultaneously. Language is vewed as a complex (consiting of hierarchically organized elements), ever-changing, adaptive and self-regulating system.

Language change is moved by two most important opposite forces – dynamic and stabilizing.

Every subsystem of language has its own tempo of transformations. Thus, phonetic system is the most movable, while grammar is the most stable.

To the factors of language change belong extralinguistic and inner linguistic ones. Extralinguistic factors usually serve as the stimuli that trigger change, whereas the direction of change is regulated by internal mechanisms.

The activity of extralinguistic factors is quite lucid, while the work of inner mechanisms seems to be more obscure to linguists nowadays.

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gERMANIC LANGUAGES WITHIN INDO-EUROPEAN FAMILY

1. Family Tree Theory

Family tree theory is believed to be proposed by August Schleicher. The family tree is the traditional model of language diversification, a model of language change described by an analogy with the concept of family tree. In this scientific metaphor, the family members are languages, the family is a language family and basing on genetic relationships between languages, a language can therefore be a parent or mother language or a daughter language. Languages can have lines of descent, can be cognate and can be "related."

The genetic relatedness of languages is shown in the model through the lines (branches) which connect a single ancestor language (a proto-language) with its daughter languages and sister (cognate) languages to each other. It shows how the languages diverge in the course of their evolution and how languages which belong to the same language family are related to each other.

One should bear in mind that family tree is a model, it shows the result of splitting of a parent-language into daughter languages. It has the form of a node-link diagram of a logical tree structure, where with languages substituted for real family members. Its showing the descent of a language means that a linked language was created by a process of gradual modification over time (historically centuries or millennia) of the language at the next-earliest node.

On the theory of family tree our concept of Indo-European languages family is based.

2. Indo-European Family of Languages

The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major languages of Europe, Iran, and northern India, and historically also predominant in Anatolia and Central Asia.

Indo-European family includes the following language groups:

1. Albanian (incl. Albanian language).

2. Armenian (incl. Armenian language).

3. Baltic (incl. Western Baltic: only extinct languages – Galindian, Old Prussian, Sudovian (Yotvingian), Skalvian, and Eastern Baltic: living languages – Lithuanian (Standard Lithuanian and Samogitian) and Latvian (literary Latvian and Latgalian) and extinct languages – Old Curonian, Selonian, Semigallian).

4. Slavonic (incl. East Slavic: Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Rusyn; West Slavic: Czech, Slovak, Polish, Upper and Lower Sorbian, Pomeranian/Kashubian, Silesian and extinct Polabian; South Slavic: Serbian, Slovene, Croatian, Bosnian, Bulgarian and Macedonian).

5. Celtic (incl. extinct Gaulish, Lepontic, Noric, Galatian, Celtiberian, and living Goidelic – Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx; Brythonic - Welsh, Breton, Cornish, Cumbric).

6. Germanic (incl. East Germanic: extinct Gothic, Burgundian, Vandalic, Langobardian; West Germanic: English, Frisian, German, Yiddish, Dutch, Afrikaans; North Germanic (Scandinavian): Nowegian, Icelandic, Faroese, Danish, Swedish, Gutnish, Norn (extinct)).

7. Hellenic (Greek) (incl. Greek language).

8. Italic (incl. Latino-Faliscan: Faliscan, Latin and the descendants of Latin – Romance languages: Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Romanian, etc.; Osco-Umbrian or Sabellic: Oscan, Umbrian, Volscian, Marsian, South Picene, Sabine; Aequian, Vestinian).

9. Indo-Iranian (incl. Iranian group: Avestan (extinct), Scythian (extinct), Sakan (extinct), Ossetian, Sarikoli, Sogdian (extinct), Yaghnobi, Bactrian (extinct), Pashto, Pamiri, Ormurri-Parachi, Dari language, Balochi, Gilaki, Kurdish, Mazanadarani (Tapurian), Parthian (extinct), Talysh, Deilami, Zazaki, Old Persian (extinct), Persian, Tajik Persian, Luri / Bakhtiari, Tati; Indo-Aryan group: Vedic Sanskrit, Sanskrit, Pāli, Hindi, Urdu, Romani/Romany, Angika, Assamese, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Magahi, Maithili, Oriya, Nepali, Dameli, Domaaki, Gawar-Bati, Kalasha-mun, Kashmiri, Khowar, Kohistani, Ningalami, Pashayi, Palula, Shina, Shumashti, Punjabi, Sindhi, Khojki, Kutchi, Rajasthani, Dhivehi / Mahl, Sinhala, Gujarati, Konkani, Marathi; Nuristani languages: Ashkunu, Kamkata-viri (Bashgali), Vasi-vari (Prasuni), Tregami, Kalasha-ala (Waigali).

10. Anatolian (incl. Hittite, Luwian, Lycian, Carian, Pisidian and Sidetic (Pamphylian), Palaic, Lydian).

11. Tocharian (extinct languages only: Tocharian A – Turfanian, Arsi, or East Tocharian and Tocharian B – Kuchean or West Tocharian).

The last two language groups are extinct ones. There is one more group distinguished within Indo-European family belonging to extinct ones – the Paleo-Balkan languages (Dacian, Thracian, Illyrian, Messapic, Paionian, Proto-Greek, Phrygian, Venetic and Liburnian languages).

All abovementioned language groups diverged from one and the same parent-language – Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) which is the unattested, reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages.

There is no direct evidence of PIE, because it was never written. All PIE sounds and words are reconstructed from later Indo-European languages using the comparative method and the method of internal reconstruction. An asterisk is used to mark reconstructed PIE words. Many of the words in the modern Indo-European languages seem to have derived from such "protowords" via regular sound changes (e.g., Grimm's law) as far as when the Proto-Indo-European language broke up, its sound system diverged as well, according to various sound laws in the daughter languages.

There have been many attempts to claim that particular prehistorical cultures can be identified with the PIE-speaking peoples, but all are rather subjective.

There were a lot of attempts seeking to explain the Indo-European language expansion by a succession of migrations from different parts of Eurasia (Kurgan hypothesis, Anatolian hypothesis, etc.).

The process of diversification of the Indo-European parent language into the attested branches of daughter languages is also historically unattested, though the timeline of the evolution of the various daughter languages is mostly undisputed.

So, diachronically the Anatolian branch is generally considered the earliest to split off the Proto-Indo-European language (appr. in the mid-4th millennium BC). By 2500 BC–2000 BC the breakup into Proto-Greek spoken in the Balkans and Proto-Indo-Iranian spoken to the north of the Caspian is complete. In 1500 BC–1000 BC the splitting of Proto-Germanic and the Proto-Celtic took place as well as migrations of the Proto-Italic speakers into the Italian peninsula. By 500 BC the spread of the Germanic and Celtic languages over Central and Western Europe is went on, Baltic languages were spoken in a huge area from present-day Poland to the Ural Mountains. In 500 BC–1 BC/AD Greek and Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean, and later - to Central Asia. By 500 AD Armenian and Proto-Slavinic are attested, by 1000–1500 - Albanian and Baltic languages.

The diversification of the Proto-Indo-European can be illustrated with the following scheme: