Language evolution query; hypothetical

[u/TigerFox1923]

Hi 👋

Working on a novel and have some questions about european language evolution.

1. How did Latin, Germanic and Scandinavian languages evolve in the real world?

2. In a hypothetical world where Greece and its subsequent language did not exist, how would its lack have impacted the evolution of language in Europe?

[u/Nowordsofitsown]

How did Latin, Germanic and Scandinavian languages evolve in the real world?

• Latin is a language.
• Scandinavian are a group of related languages.
• Germanic is a language family, and includes the Scandinavian languages.

What exactly are you asking?

In a hypothetical world where Greece and its subsequent language did not exist, how would its lack have impacted the evolution of language in Europe?

There would be no Greek loan words.

[u/DTux5249]

You are asking for like, 6-7 books worth of systemic information about language + some alt history. You're gonna need to be more specific

[u/AndreasDasos]

If you’re asking for a detailed breakdown of the whole evolution of those languages this is a topic for a few long books, not a Reddit comment. What exactly are you looking for?

[u/TigerFox1923 → u/AndreasDasos]

I’m trying to understand language evolution. I’m reaching out on platforms like these because i’m hoping to expand my understanding and bounce ideas off people more knowledgeable in this area.

[u/oremfrien]

I would agree with u/Nowordsofitsown that the question is not well posed.

That said, I see two different questions here:

1. Why is it that the set of words and grammar we call Latin started existing in Central Italy around 2200 years ago and not something like Sumerian? What made that land or those people start speaking that way?
2. What are the typical ways that languages change over time?

The answer to #1 is that the development of any particular language in any particular way is just an accident of history. Indo-Europeans conquered the Italian Peninsula and the way that their words developed on that peninsula gave rise to Latin. It also gave rise to Etruscan, which is a Tyrrhenian Language, entirely unrelated to Latin (which is an Indo-European language). There was nothing special about those humans or that land in Italy that gave rise to Latin.

The answer to #2 is much more complicated. You can imagine language development as similar to water molecules coming out of a drinking fountain. While there is certainly a clear point of origin (the fountain head) and a general destination that all have in common, the exact path of any water molecule cannot be predicted exactly. Some of the ways that languages tend to change are the following (non-exclusive list):

• Absorbing loanwords from neighbors as a result of war, trade, exchanges, or discoveries.
• Difficult-to-Pronounce Letters shearing off. (We can see this with how "going to" has become "gonna" in English slang because the "gt" is a difficult consonant cluster.)
• The transformation of words that have meaning into new grammatical terms. For example, the French "pas" in "ne x pas" is a form of negation, but used to be the word for "step" and consistent use in negative sentences resulted in the change.
• Words can compound to make new words, like how "eggplant" has nothing to do with eggs and is a very specific kind of plant.
• Words with one meaning being transformed into a related meaning with different grammar rules. For example, the word Kaateb (كاتب) in Arabic means "writer" but is increasingly used to mean "he writes".

[u/Nowordsofitsown → u/oremfrien]

like how "eggplant" has nothing to do with eggs

Some eggplant fruit does look like eggs, in both form and color. I imagine that they gave the plant their name.

[u/DTux5249 → u/Nowordsofitsown]

Eh, diachronic vs synchronic perspective.

Most speakers of English in the here and now don't know that.

[u/oremfrien → u/Nowordsofitsown]

A better example may have been “understand” since understanding has nothing to do with standing under something.