ABSTRACT
All languages change over the course of time. Within a language group, these changes may develop to the extent that the language use of a particular community is significantly different from that of other users. This language use may then be described as a dialect (if those changes are at the level of small differences in grammar and vocabulary), and as a separate language (if those grammatical and lexical differences are significant). The fact of language change is relevant to the study of texts in several ways. A text may be a force for language change or it may attempt to retain older usages for particular effects. A text may become difficult to understand because of language change; it may contain words and phrases that are associated with earlier periods of the language’s history, that have now become archaisms, and that rely on an understanding of what the state of the language was at any given time. A modern text may also deliberately use archaisms for particular effects.
