| A | B |
|---|
| etymology | study of the history of words |
| philology | study of how words change from culture to culture over time |
| synchronic | views linguistic phenomena only at one point in time |
| diachronic | the study of successive synchronic stages |
| comparative | comparing languages in order to establish their historical relatedness |
| dialectology | the scientific study of linguistic dialect |
| phonology | study of the sound system of languages that change over time |
| morphology | the study of the formal means of expression in a language |
| syntax | the study of the principles and rules for constructing sentences in natural languages |
| decadence | 18th century view of language change |
| natural process | 19th century theory of language change |
| social theory | theory of language change introduced by William Labov |
| Indo-European | most well-known of the language families |
| Sino-Tibetan | language family including Sinitic and Tibeto-Burman |
| Uto-Aztecan | language family that stretches from western and southwestern United States to El Salvador |
