Does anyone know of any good texts about how languages are formed and evolve? It's a subject I have some interest in, but I don't know much about it, and don't really know where to start to look into it.
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Does anyone know of any good texts about how languages are formed and evolve? It's a subject I have some interest in, but I don't know much about it, and don't really know where to start to look into it.
well.. you can start with history.. the oldest language, the nail script. Then the pictograms from the egyptians. then evolving to the greek, using the letters we use today.
i dont really know how it went from there.. but you can prob find it on wikipedia
I think you misunderstood. I'm not looking to actually follow the evolution of language by starting from the beginning. That's unfeasible. Morphology is the study of the forms of words. It would aid me in constructing a language of my own. y'know, like Tolkien.
Um, my Linguistics textbook had a big ol' chapter on Morphology. I never did my reading assignments so I can't tell you how good it was or if it would be any help for you. But generally in regards to Morphology, I'm assuming that Linguistics text books are a good direction to go in to find what you're looking for.
Try looking into the origins of words, in greek, latin, and words we borrowed from other modern languages.
A linguistics textbook is probably a fairly good idea; my friend knows a fair few linguistics majors, so I'll see if she can get a name of a good beginner's book from them.
I'm a Linguistics major =D.
The book we use is "Contemporary Linguistic Analysis" It's a pretty good book.
Beginner friendly, or am I going to be going "Whut?" every time I turn the page.
It's the book used in the Intro course, so there aren't many "whut?" moments, but there are a few, they do get un-whuted though.
Awesome.
There's a parter study/exercise book that's sold separately, we've never used it yet, but it looks pretty good too. Both books together new'll set you back roughly $70-$80, just the text would be $50+ish.
If you want an accessible but informative book, try Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue, which delves into the history and diversity of the English language. Superbly researched, but very readable and enlightening. It should be available at your library. The main focus is on English, but there's a lot of comparison and contrast to other languages too.
In bookstores, it should be fairly affordable. And since it's Bryson, you'll often find that it makes you lol and much as it makes you learn.
One of my degrees was a language BA, so I've read a fair few relevant texts; Mother Tongue is easily the best way to get started on the many aspects of language study, history, evolution and diffusion.
My professor actually referenced him during our Language Acquisition classes, and took several quotes from that book if I remember correctly.