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Proto-Slavic: Historical Setting and Linguistic Reconstruction

Proto-Slavic: Historical Setting and Linguistic Reconstruction Georg Holzer PROTO-SLAVIC: HISTORICAL SETTING AND LINGUISTIC RECONSTRUCTION THE ORIGIN OF SLAVIC Slavic is a language or rather a family of languagcs and dialects of Indo-European origin. The theoretical foundation for this claim is the idea that a language called Proto-Indo-European by linguists that was in use thousands of years ago, under went various changes in different parts of the territory in which it was spoken, the result of which were various new languages. '1'hese descendants of Proto- Indo-European, called Indo-European languages, replaced their ancestor, but in turn split up and became protolanguages for the next generation of languages, and so on. Linguistic proliferation is driven by language change. Languages change con- tinuously, albeit slowly and therefore imperceptibly, with the notable exception of vocabulary, some parts of which may undergo rapid and abrupt changes. The causes of language change are poorly understood, again, with the exception of change in vocabulary. One reason might be that a generation of children does not manage to reproduce their parents' language in all details of grammar and pronunciation. However, the question of why languages change is not that important for historical linguistics. Historical linguists are used to studying lan- guage changes without http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png East Central Europe Brill

Proto-Slavic: Historical Setting and Linguistic Reconstruction

Holzer, Georg
East Central Europe , Volume 31 (1): 49 – Jan 1, 2004
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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 2004 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
0094-3037
eISSN
1876-3308
DOI
10.1163/187633004X00099
Publisher site
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Abstract

Georg Holzer PROTO-SLAVIC: HISTORICAL SETTING AND LINGUISTIC RECONSTRUCTION THE ORIGIN OF SLAVIC Slavic is a language or rather a family of languagcs and dialects of Indo-European origin. The theoretical foundation for this claim is the idea that a language called Proto-Indo-European by linguists that was in use thousands of years ago, under went various changes in different parts of the territory in which it was spoken, the result of which were various new languages. '1'hese descendants of Proto- Indo-European, called Indo-European languages, replaced their ancestor, but in turn split up and became protolanguages for the next generation of languages, and so on. Linguistic proliferation is driven by language change. Languages change con- tinuously, albeit slowly and therefore imperceptibly, with the notable exception of vocabulary, some parts of which may undergo rapid and abrupt changes. The causes of language change are poorly understood, again, with the exception of change in vocabulary. One reason might be that a generation of children does not manage to reproduce their parents' language in all details of grammar and pronunciation. However, the question of why languages change is not that important for historical linguistics. Historical linguists are used to studying lan- guage changes without

Journal

East Central Europe – Brill

Published: Jan 1, 2004

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