Historical Linguistics

Oxford Introductions to Language Study

by Herbert Schendl, H.G. Widdowson (Series Editor)

This book provides an accessible introduction to anyone interested in the history of the English language. It outlines the major issues and terminology used in the field of Historical Linguistics, a required part of most university-level language and linguistics courses, and creates an opening into the field for the new reader.

Genres: Linguistics, Nonfiction, History

144 pages, Paperback

First published May 3, 2001

About the author

Professor Schendl studied English and French at the University of Vienna and General Phonetics at the Sorbonne. He holds a Ph.D. in English Linguistics from the University of Vienna.

Professor Schendl is Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Vienna, Austria. His research areas include English historical linguistics, especially Old English syntax, semantics, and phonology, Middle English lexicology, historical code-switching and Early Modern English morphology.

He is the author of Historical Linguistics, recently published by Oxford University Press.

Reviews

[Pavlina · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's an exhaustive introduction to historical linguistics. It is easy to read provided that one is already familiar with linguistic terms, e.g. from previous studies. It could be better arranged, though.

Read for school, obviously.

[Christopher · Rating 2 out of 5]

Herbert Schendl's HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS, part of the Oxford Introductions to Language Study series, is a concise summary of the main themes of the diachronic study of language. Departing little from other textbooks of historical linguistics, it presents the comparative method, details the process of lexical, morphology and syntactical, and phonological change. Contact phenomena are discussed in one brief chapter, and the book ends with various explanations for why languages change.

Schendl's book is not written for the layman, for his discussion of the topic expects some prior knowledge of general linguistics. However, unlike many introductions to historical linguistics which use the whole Indo-European family as the chief example, Schendl seems to realize not all students of general linguistics are proficient in the ancient languages, and so he uses a large amount of English data which anyone who has read Shakespeare and Chaucer can appreciate. However, with this particular angle I don't think that Schendl's book fulfills any real niche. If one already knows something about linguistics, one could just pick up Hock's magisterial PRINCIPLES OF HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS (The Hague: Mouton de Gruyter, 1991), which costs just a few bucks more and is eight times the size. This tiny guide, barely over a hundred pages, doesn't seem much of a good value in comparison.

[Nar Ges · Rating 4 out of 5]

It really helped me in 1st year courses the whole serie is also helpful for Students majoring in Linguistics

[Carrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great introduction.

[Darkgamma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tolerable, scanty.