Language Change And Languages In Contact

Abstract

The hypothesis of the history of linguistics as a succession of paradigms was more appropriate to linguistic facts and to the continuity of history itself than to a substitution of models. One of the most assiduously maintained principles in historical linguistics was the theory of the regularity of linguistic change. However, both the history of languages in contact and linguistic change were part of acculturation, based on social and cultural diffusion, which implied the intrinsic relationship between linguistics, sociology and anthropology. It was not, therefore, a mere linguistic issue, but also a social and cultural one. In this sense, we had to differentiate two interpretations: 1) an autonomous version of the assumption of phonological regularity, and 2) a grammatical version of linguistic change. Within the anthropological history of Hispanic romances there was a linguistic and cultural continuity, based on the successive and diverse historical acculturations (Indo-European, Iberian, Phoenician-Greek, Roman, Christian, Germanic, Visigothic, Byzantine, Islamic, Castilian, Catalan-Aragonese, Hispanic and AngloSaxon), with the linguistic and cultural transfers that implied the social and cultural mixing of these groups, and the adaptation to a new sociocultural context. During the second half of the last century, great contributions to historical linguistics were accumulated, which were far from being recognized by historians of the language.