Book contents
- The Secret History of Language
- The Secret History of Language
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Notes on the Text
- 1Language History
- 2What’s in a Word?
- 3You Get My Drift?
- 4Language Mooching
- 5Sound Change
- 6How Do Languages Clean Up Their Act?
- 7Can Languages Change Their Grammatical Spots?
- 8All in the Family
- 9Writing and the Magic of Writing Systems
- 10Thereby Hangs a Tale
- 11Is Linguistic Armageddon Nigh?
- Appendix:Language Families of the World (Including Language Isolates)
- Glossary
- References
- Index
10 - Thereby Hangs a Tale
Linguistic Prehistory
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2026
Book contents
- The Secret History of Language
- The Secret History of Language
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Notes on the Text
- 1Language History
- 2What’s in a Word?
- 3You Get My Drift?
- 4Language Mooching
- 5Sound Change
- 6How Do Languages Clean Up Their Act?
- 7Can Languages Change Their Grammatical Spots?
- 8All in the Family
- 9Writing and the Magic of Writing Systems
- 10Thereby Hangs a Tale
- 11Is Linguistic Armageddon Nigh?
- Appendix:Language Families of the World (Including Language Isolates)
- Glossary
- References
- Index
Summary
Linguistic prehistory correlates findings from language history with information from archaeology, ethnohistory, human genetics, and ethnographic analogy to obtain a more complete picture of a people’s past. All the tools for investigating language change and the history of languages can provide information valuable to linguistic prehistory. This chapter presents the fundamental concepts involved in linguistic prehistory, illustrates its various methods and tools, and is seen in action in its application in several captivating cases. The culture of the speakers of Proto-Indo-European as captured from reconstructed vocabulary and the question of the Proto-Indo-European homeland play a large role in this chapter.
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- Information
- The Secret History of LanguageLanguage Change Unraveled, pp. 155 - 169Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2026
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