cannot be done without taking into account, first, their own extinct forms, and
secondly, allied languages, both living and dead."
This important statement is of great significance for a proper understanding of
the essence of the comparative method in linguistics. This method has been justified
by discoveries made in the 19th century. On the basis of the comparative method it was
suggested that the Latin nouns
ager
"tillage", and
sacer
"sacred" originated from the
reconstructed forms *
agros
and *
sakros
. In 1899 a document was found in Rome
dating from the 6th century A. D. in which the suggested form sakros was found.
Some original forms calculated by eminent linguists in the 19th century by
comparative method were discovered in the Hittite language in the north east of Asia
Minor at Boghazkoy on the site of the prehistoric capital Hattusas, about eighty miles
east of Ankara. Some cuneiform tablets in the Hittite language, discovered in
Boghazkoy in Asia Minor, were translated by the Czechoslovak scholar Bedrich
Hrozny in December, 1915, who proved its linguistic affinity with Indo-European. A
revolution was also affected in early Greek studies by the discovery in 1939 of clay
tablets at Pylos in Messenia which were deciphered by Michael Ventris in 1952. This
meant putting back the beginning of recorded Greek to a time long before Homer,
perhaps as early as 1500 B. C.
It was suggested long ago with the help of the comparative method that the Greek
words
aichme
"spear" and
artokopos
"baker" arose from the forms *
aiksmii
and
*
artopokwos
. This was confirmed by the recently deciphered Krito-Micenian
inscriptions.
The comparative method has been thoroughly applied to the reconstruction of
Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Romance, Proto-Germanic, Proto-Celtic, and Proto-
Slavonic. Rather Less thorough use of the method has been made in reconstructing
Proto-Semitic, Proto-Finno-Ugric, and Proto-Bantu. Work is well under way on the
Malayo-Polynesian languages, Algonquian, and several other groups.
As we have stated, the comparison of languages which are believed to have
been dialects of one language in the past, is done by what is known as the
comparative method.
There is, however, another method of reconstructing the previous stages of a
language when neither older texts nor related languages are known. A suitable term for
this method is internal reconstruction, the theoretical foundation of which lies
partly in synchronic, partly in diachronic linguistics. Synchronic linguistics (from the
Greek
syn
"wi th" and
chronos
"time", IE. simultaneity) deals with the study
of language at the present moment, while diachronic linguistics (from the Greek
dia
"through" and
chronos
"time", IE. of continuous time) concerns the study of
language in its historical development.
In the last decade the method of glottochronology has sprung up, better known
as the Lexicostatistic method, which envisages the measurement of linguistic change,
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