ABSTRACT
All of the elements of culture change over time. The political systems, economic systems, religion, kinship, and art are all modified by the passage of time; so is language. Culture change occurs for a variety of reasons. The movement of people spreads new ideas, values, beliefs, behaviors, and language. This movement might be due to peaceful trade and travel, or to invasion and warfare. Because people move around and take their language with them, languages that develop in one area can wind up being widely distributed. For instance, the spread of the British Empire distributed the English language throughout the world, starting at the beginning of the seventeenth century. By the end of World War I, the British had delivered the English language to about 25 percent of the world’s population. As a language
spreads, it is influenced by the language(s) already spoken in an area. This is why English is spoken somewhat differently in Nigeria, India, Hong Kong, Burma, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and other areas of the world. A similar thing occurred much earlier when the Romans colonized a large part of Europe. In fact, modern French is in a sense modern Latin as spoken in France; Spanish is modern Latin spoken in Spain and Central and South America; and Italian is modern Latin spoken in Italy. Also, as a language spreads to different areas, the descendant languages may become isolated from one another to varying degrees. Changes that occur in any of these languages might not spread to other languages. As more and more changes occur, languages that originated from the same mother language might become increasingly dissimilar because of isolation.
