A Genealogy of "Why Does Language Change"
From Jones to Anthony, retracing the one question that runs through nine other features on this site. Is language change a law of nature, or a human practice — thought has swung along this axis for 221 years. A feature that spans the other features, told in six chapters.
A Genealogy of "Why Does Language Change" — Opening the Map
From Jones's single paragraph to Anthony's archaeology, retracing the one question that runs through nine features on this site. Is language change a "natural object" obeying laws of nature, or a "human historical practice"? Thought has swung along this axis for 221 years — the full map.
The Discovery of Correspondence — Jones and Rask
An intuition that a resemblance couldn't be an accident — and the thirty-two years it took to turn that intuition into a testable procedure. The first stretch of the road from question to method.
Law and Organism — Grimm and Bopp
Rask's method becomes a table in Grimm's hands, and gains a metaphor in Bopp's. Eleven years in which "correspondence" comes to be called a "law," and language gets compared to an "organism."
Language as a Natural Object — Müller and Schleicher
In the same year, 1861, two scholars arrive at the same conclusion from two different roads — language is not a human affair, but a natural one. The year the pendulum swings furthest toward "natural law."
An Exceptionless Law, and One Step Toward the Human — Brugmann
"Sound laws operate without exception" — the same scholar who raised the strongest words on the natural-law side also acknowledged "analogy," a thoroughly human force. The chapter where this whole genealogy's pendulum appears in miniature, inside one man.
Simplification as Progress — Jespersen's Reversal
What Schleicher called "decay," Jespersen reads as "progress." A child's speech errors, a pidgin language — both treated as evidence of human adaptability. The chapter where the pendulum swings decisively toward "human practice."
What Actually Happened — Anthony and an Answer, 221 Years On
Language change was, in the end, a real history — nameless people riding in wagons, forging institutions. In 2007, an archaeologist offered an answer to the pendulum this genealogy has traced for 221 years. The final chapter.