2025/10/30 by Terttu Nevalainen, Tanja Säily · 1 voice
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Linguistic Variation and Morphology #Multilingual Education and Policy #Historical Linguistics and Language Studies
paper · doi:10.1017/9781009205702.022
openalex publication_date 2025/10/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/30 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/14
English historical sociolinguistics traces the transition of a ‘small’ language into a ‘big’ one. Old English was a small language in terms of its regional coverage and number of speakers, whereas Present-day English is a comprehensively documented world language with hundreds of millions of first-language speakers. Its 1500-year history involves gradually developing social structures of different timescales, but it was also affected by abrupt changes brought about by forces such as invasions and pandemics. Sociolinguistics highlights the agency of language users in shaping and changing their language and, consequently, the society they live in. Written records on individual language use are sparse from the earliest periods but multiply as people from different walks of life become literate and pass on data on their linguistic practices. With time, increasing efforts are, however, also expended on regulating usage with the aim of language standardisation.