TL3V230017.5 ECTSQ4EnglishBachelor
Historical Linguistics and Language Change in the British Isles
FaculteitFaculty of Humanities
NiveauBachelor
Studiejaar2026-2027
Beschrijving
Course goals
Students:
- Acquire knowledge of the principles of language change in the areas of semantic change, sound change and morphosyntactic change.
- Possess knowledge of the history of the English language (BA English Language and Culture students) or the history of Irish and Welsh (BA Celtic Languages and Culture students).
- Can understand and apply the terminology and concepts involved in the description of language change.
- Are acquainted with the ways in which data sets can be turned into language history. Students are familiarised with linguistic methods of historical data analysis, including the analysis of corpus data, and can report on these in appropriate academic English in a research paper.
Content
Content
The British Isles are dominated by two language families: Germanic, in the form of English, is pervasive throughout the isles as a result of an expansion movement that started in the fifth century, while Celtic consists of Irish in Ireland, Scots Gaelic in the Scottish Highlands, Welsh in Wales, as well as the extinct Cornish and Manx languages. Celtic has been receding gradually, being superseded by English. Other players historically have been Latin, Norse, and French. The course explores the linguistic history of the British Isles by focusing on two themes:
(1) The general principles of the study of language change, also called historical linguistics. The student is introduced to theories and methodologies.
(2) General principles are illustrated by looking at the specific histories of the history of the English language (BA English Language and Culture students) or the history of Irish and Welsh (BA Celtic Languages and Culture students).
The British Isles are dominated by two language families: Germanic, in the form of English, is pervasive throughout the isles as a result of an expansion movement that started in the fifth century, while Celtic consists of Irish in Ireland, Scots Gaelic in the Scottish Highlands, Welsh in Wales, as well as the extinct Cornish and Manx languages. Celtic has been receding gradually, being superseded by English. Other players historically have been Latin, Norse, and French. The course explores the linguistic history of the British Isles by focusing on two themes:
(1) The general principles of the study of language change, also called historical linguistics. The student is introduced to theories and methodologies.
(2) General principles are illustrated by looking at the specific histories of the history of the English language (BA English Language and Culture students) or the history of Irish and Welsh (BA Celtic Languages and Culture students).
Additional information
Please note: the time slot shown here is not yet final and may still be modified until the 3rd Wednesday in September.
General remarks
This is a level 3 course. The course is a compulsory first-year course for BA English Language and Culture students and BA Celtic Languages and Culture students. Students from other BA programmes are very welcome on the course, as long as they fulfil the course prerequisites.
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