Evolution of English and Indo-European Linguistics

Analytic vs. Synthetic Languages

Modern English is a highly analytic language because it does not depend on inflections, but on the functions of words in a sentence. In contrast, Old English was a synthetic language because it expressed grammatical relationships through inflections and case endings. Nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs took different forms according to their grammatical function. This represents one of the most important changes in terms of syntax.

The Role of Sanskrit in Linguistics

Sanskrit is an ancient Indian language whose texts date back to 1500 BCE, but it was discovered by Europeans in the 18th century. This discovery allowed scholars to identify similarities between Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and Germanic languages. Sanskrit became the ideal language for comparative studies due to its rich system of inflections; for instance, the verb to be is perfect for comparing.

• Sir William Jones: The first to see the correspondence between Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit and find cognates.
• Rasmus Christian Rask: Suggested the connections among languages.
• Franz Bopp: Conjugated Sanskrit and focused on the language's grammatical forms with common origins.

Grimm's and Verner's Laws

Jacob Grimm formulated an explanation for the correspondences between certain consonants in the Germanic languages and in distant languages like Greek, Latin, or Sanskrit. He identified three different sets of changes:

• Proto-Indo-European voiceless stops (p, t, k) → Proto-Germanic voiceless fricatives (f, θ, h).
• Proto-Indo-European voiced stops (b, d, g) → Proto-Germanic voiceless stops (p, t, k).
• Aspirated voiced stops (bh, dh, gh) → voiced stops (b, d, g) in Proto-Germanic.

Karl Verner found some limitations to Grimm's Law. The voiceless fricatives (f, θ, h) became voiced fricatives (b, d, g) depending on the stress position (not on the preceding syllable).

Proto-Indo-European Branches

The Tocharian branch was an extinct language of Chinese Turkestan. Although it was spoken in the east, it is a centum language, in which the palatal consonants merged with the velar ones, and not a satem language, in which the palatal consonants became sibilant sounds (s, sh). It is not a simple west-east division, but a linguistic one.

The Germanic branch, one of the main ones, derives from Proto-Germanic. It is divided into:

• East Germanic: With Gothic as its main language.
• North-West Germanic: Divided into:
  • North Germanic: Such as Swedish or Danish.
  • West Germanic: Divided into:
    • High German.
    • Low German: Old Saxon and Old Franconian.
    • Anglo-Frisian: Old Frisian and Old English. This is the subgroup most directly related to the history of the English language.