HOTEL Lecture 1.2 – Classifying Languages, and the Two Axes of Language Study

There are three ways to group languages, and they answer three different questions: where does it come from, how is it built, and who are its neighbours? Confusing them is the commonest error in this area. This part sets out genetic, typological and areal classification, places English in each, and shows why Latvian and English can be relatives without resembling each other while English and Swahili can resemble each other without being related. It ends with Saussure’s distinction between synchrony and diachrony – and why the line between them is much less clean than the textbooks suggest. #historyoftheenglishlanguage #languageclassification #historicallinguistics #HOTEL