Editing Historical Linguistics (section)

== <span style="color: #FFFFFF;">Understanding</span> ==
Languages change at every level: sounds, grammar, and meaning.

'''The Comparative Method''': How do we know that English and Sanskrit are related? We look for '''cognates'''.
* English: ''three''
* Latin: ''tres''
* Greek: ''treis''
* Sanskrit: ''tráyas''
The systematic similarities across these languages are too frequent to be coincidental. Linguists work backward to find the "Proto-form" (in this case, *treyes) that explains all the variations.

'''Laws of Sound Change''': Jacob Grimm (of the Brothers Grimm) discovered that sound changes are not random—they are regular. For example, he showed that the /p/ sound in Proto-Indo-European systematically changed to an /f/ sound in Germanic.
* PIE *pisk- → Latin ''piscis'' but English ''fish''.
* PIE ''pater'' → Latin ''pater'' but English ''father''.
This regularity is what makes historical linguistics a "scientific" branch of the humanities.

'''Semantic Shift (Drifting Meanings)''': Words are not fixed.
* '''Narrowing''': 'Deer' used to mean any animal (German 'Tier').
* '''Widening''': 'Bird' used to mean only young birds.
* '''Amelioration''': 'Nice' used to mean foolish/silly; now it's positive.
* '''Pejoration''': 'Silly' used to mean blessed/holy; now it's negative.
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