ABSTRACT
Languages, like all living things, change. This process can be a slow one, the result of the accretion of centuries of minor shifts; or, it can be rapid, the result of contact with the language of another, more dominant culture, or of policies pursued by the rulers of the language's speakers. In either case the result is the same: a language often quite different in many ways from its earlier forms. Language change, therefore, is a fruitful area of study for the linguist, enabling an extremely wide range of possible approaches and methodologies to be pursued in attempting to discover its nature.
