Seminar: ´History of Linguistics`

WS 2000/2001

Indo-European Linguistics

A study on the basic differences between a Germanic 
and a Slavic language, exemplary presented 
on English and Serbo-Croatian

by

Tamara Kostic

INTRODUCTION 3

1. LINGUISTICS BEFORE THE 19TH CENTURY 6
1.1. Antiquity 6
1.2. The Middle Ages 8
1.3. The Renaissance 10

2. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDO-EUROPEAN STUDIES 12
2.1. The predecessors 12
2.1.1. Sir William Jones 12
2.1.2. Friedrich and August Schlegel 12
2.1.3. Wilhelm von Humboldt 13
2.1.4 Rasmus Rask 14
2.1.5. Franz Bopp 15
2:1:6: Jakob Grimm 17
2.1.7. Karl Verner 18
2.1.8 August Schleicher 19
2.1.9. Johannes Schmidt 20
2.1.9. Friedrich Karl Brugmann 21
2.1.10. Berthold Delbrück 21

3. THE COMPARATIVE METHOD 22
3.1. Proto-Indo-European 22
3.2 Basic steps in the comparative method 23
3.3. Criticisms of the comparative method 25

4. CLASSIFICATION OF THE SELECTED INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES 26
4.1. The Germanic languages 26
4.1.1 English 27
4.2. The Slavic languages 29
4.2.1 Serbo-Croatian 32

5. A COMPARISON OF ENGLISH AND SERBO-CROATIAN 34
5.1. Phonetics and Pronunciation 34
5.2. Phonology 36
5.3. Morphology 38
5.4. Word formation and Syntax 39
5.4.1 Elements of word formation 39
5.4.2. Grammar 42

6. LINGUSITICS IN THE 20TH CENTURY 47
6.1. Structuralism and Ferdinand de Saussure 47
6.2. Noam Chomsky 49

CONCLUSION 50

BIBLIOGRAPHY 55

INTRODUCTION

The foundations of much of what we know about grammar were laid at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Latin, the ancestor from which the Roman languages -French, Italian and Spanish with their various dialects -have descended, is historically attested. Therefore, there could be no doubt about the fact that the Roman languages are ´daughter` languages, sprung from the same ´mother′. Similar developments can be observed in India, whose modern languages and their dialects are the differentiated outcomes of Sanskrit.

The Germanic languages English, German, Dutch, Frisian, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, etc. -that exhibit a degree of similarity with each other, that is not substantially different from the one between Roman languages- no mother language is historically attested from which they might have developed as ´daughters`. Although, one can assume that in case of the Germanic languages, also once existed a linguistic ancestor, which happened to be spoken before the arrival of literacy.

One of the first scholars who mentioned, that there might be a relationship between Sanskrit, Greek, Latin and the other European languages was Sir William Jones. He was a British judge in India in 1786. Jones describes Sanskrit as a language that is

"[...]more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident."¹

He believed that all languages, especially Sanskrit, Greek and Latin must

"[...]have sprung from some common source, which perhaps no longer exists: There is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both, the Gothick and the Celtick, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanskrit; and the Old Persian might be added to the same family."²

The linguistic relationship of Latin, Sanskrit and Germanic now is established, too; and so are similar relationships between other languages of the world. A method called "comparative reconstruction" has made it possible to develop some ideas on the structure and vocabulary even of unattested linguistic ancestor languages.
Language changes, words become old-fashioned and are replaced (for example: yonder > there; thee > you). The development of languages is very complex. It would take sheets of paper to explain, how languages like, for instance, English and Serbo-Croatian have become what they are today. In this work I must neglect nearly the whole process of development of English and Serbo-Croatian itself and I have to restrict my explanations to the modern forms of the two languages to compare them with each other. I will not avoid referring to some older forms of one or other word, but only if it is really necessary to understand important relationships of the two languages. First I will give a relatively simple example to show the similarity of a few Indo-European languages. Here are some numerals in different languages:

English: one two three
Serbo-Croatian: jedan dva tri
Sanskrit: eka- duva- traya-
Latin: unus duo tres
German: eins zwei drei

The importance of the numerals for proving the thesis about Indo-European languages and their relationship to each other, (and probably a derivation of one common source) will become clearer in the third section, where I will mention Franz Bopp, who wrote about the relationship of numerals in different old languages.
Thought most of the modern languages (especially English and Serbo-Croatian) for a non-linguist seem to be as different from each other as it could be possible, even there you can find a lot of similar words- besides the numerals. Furthermore, the different pronunciation of the two languages, make non-linguists sure, that the words seem to be very far away from each other. But if one sees some words written down, one can recognizes a similarity and assumes that there could be a kind of common source.

English: to stand guest
Serbo-Croatian: stajati gost
German: stehen Gast

The kinship is much more obvious in relation to the oldest well known languages Sanskrit, Latin and Greek, from which the English, German and Serbo-Croatian words at least seem to derive from.

Sanskrit: stha- ghosti-
Latin: sto hostis
Greek: histami

Present-day written forms of words often still betray earlier forms. For example: In night the ´gh` is no longer pronounced, but it once indicated a real sound like in the German word Nacht, where the corresponding ´ch` is still fully pronounced. This sound goes back to the ´k` of the Latin word nox, noctis. If we reconstruct that, we can recognize an earlier similarity between the word night and the Serbo-Croatian word noć. Here the ´ć` is still pronounced [ƒch] (it sounds like something between the ch in "Chiquita" and in "Cherokee").

In this essay I will try to show similarities and differences between English and Serbo-Croatian, and to find out how it is possible, that this two languages, the one spoken in Northern Europe, the other in South-Eastern Europe, could have a common "ancestress". First I will give a survey about the historical development of the young science of linguistics in general - from the first so-called ´grammarians` in the antiquity up to nowadays linguistic theories, advanced by some famous linguists. Here I will mention names of persons, who left some important ideas for the following generation of linguists, especially for the comparative Indo-European studies. Then I will describe the origin of the Germanic and the Slavic language groups. This will be followed by a few words about the origin especially of English and Serbo-Croatian, and further by a description of the characteristics of the Standard forms. After some explanations about the pronunciation, the phonology, the morphology and the basic word formation and grammer patterns, I will sum up, if there are etymological connections between nowadays English and Serbo-Croatian.

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