Diachronic reconstruction

The dichotomy of diachrony and synchrony was postulated by a Swiss philologist Ferdinand de Saussure ( 1852- 1913).

He proposed the hypothesis that the long vowels had developed from a short vowel plus a sonant coefficient.

Diachrony (from Greek ilia through and chronos time) deals with the study of language change over a period of time. The chief task of diachrotiic linguistics is to reconstruct language systems at separate stages of their development. When contrasted with synchronic linguistics diachronic linguistics is often called historical linguistics.

Synchrony (from Greek syn together and chronos time) is a conventional isolation of a certain stage in the development of a language as an object of linguistic investigation.

Roman Jacobson (1896-1982), one of the representatives of the Prague School of linguists. To him, the goal of the synchronic analysis of a language is to define the principles of language as a system, which is dynamic and static at one and the same moment.

Modem diachronic linguistics aims at:

a) studying phonological, grammatical and semantic changes;

b) reconstructing earlier changes of languages;

c) applying methods by which genetic relationship among languages can be demonstrated.

The principle methods of diachronic reconstruction are:

a) comparative reconstruction, which is of special importance in pre-historic reconstructions: based on comparison of genetically related elements from cognate languages and dialects of the same language, it draws evidence from different linguistic systems;

b) internal reconstruction: based on comparison of genetically and structurally

related elements from the same language and the same dialect, it takes none of the outside languages into account;

c) graphic reconstruction', a contrastive evidence based on graphic data;

d) external reconstruction: based on language contacts.

Historical sources of Germanic languages

General account

Greek historian and geographer of the 4^th century BC Pitheas mentioned the Germanic tribes for the first time.

Plutarch drew our attention to such Germanic tribes as the Tetjtones and the Cimbrians who endangered the safety of the Roman empire.

In the 2^nd century the Alexandrian geographer Claudius Ptolemaeus described Germania, giving a list of 69 Germanic tribes.

The history of the Goths was told by Cassiodorus.

The history of the Saxons was written by Widukind of Corve. His "Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorwn" (737) described the Angles, Saxons and Jutes who had left the continent for the British Isles.

Julius on the germanic tribes

Book 4 of Julius Caesar's "Commentaries on Gaelic Wars" begins with the description of the Usipetes (Usipians) and Tenchtheri (Tencterians), two of the Germanic tribes that were forced to cross the Rhine under the pressure of the Suebi (Suevians).

When Caesar arrived, he resolved to make war against the Germans to prevent them from entering the Roman territories.

Cornelius Tacitus on the life and customs of the ancient Germans

Gains Cornelius Tacifus (55-117) described the peoples of Germany in "De Situ, moribus etpopulis Germaniae.".

Tacitus mentioned about 40 tribes of the Germans. Among the tribes living to the west Tacitus gives the names of the Cattans, the Usipians, the Tencteriasns. the Chamavians, the Angrivarians, the Dutgubinians. and the Chasuarians.

Pliny the Elder`s classification

"True glory lies in doing what deserves to be written and writing what deserves to be read."

Pliny the Elder (23-79 AD) is famous for the "Histona Naturalis" He divides all Germanic tribes into 6 groups:

1) the Vandals inhabifed the eastern part of Germanic territory.

2) the Ingvaeones inhabited the north-western part of Germanic territory, the shores of the North Sea. English is the descendant of the tribes, that originally belonged to this group;

3) the Istvaeones inhabited the western part of Germanic territory, among them the Franks. The Istaevonic dialect was Old Low Franconian from which Dutch originated;

4) the Irmiones inhabited the southern part of Germanic territory, what is now southern Germany;

5) the Hilleviones inhabited Scandinavia;

6) the Peucini and Bastarnae who lived close to the Dacians.