Factors Affecting Language Change

Abstract

All languages change over time and change is inevitable for any living language. History records that languages change over time at every level of structure. For many people, it is not obvious in a day-to-day communication on a personal level because many individuals are so intimately connected to their language that they fail to see its changes. However, languages do indeed change and some languages flourish, some expand and some languages even die.

Generation by generation, pronunciations evolve, new words are borrowed or invented, the meaning of old words drifts, and morphology develops or decays. The rate of change may vary from one place to another but whether the changes are faster or slower, they do happen and they happen for a good cause. Understanding the causes of language change is essential for language students. It is also a significant topic for linguists, who take a descriptive attitude and accept that change is inevitable.

Keywords: language change; causes for language change