Historical linguistics (also called diachronic linguistics) is the scientific study of language change over time. Five of the principal concerns of historical linguistics are: (a) to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages, (b) to reconstruct the pre-history of languages and determine their relatedness, grouping them into...
the branch of linguistics concerned with the study of phonological, grammatical, and semantic changes, the reconstruction of earlier stages of ... [8 related articles]
[n] - the study of linguistic change
diachronic linguistics noun the study of linguistic change; `the synchrony and diachrony of language`
the study of changes in a language or group of languages over a period of time. Also called
The study of how languages develop over time as opposed to viewing them at a single point in time. The major direction in linguistics up until the advent of structuralism at the beginning of the 20th century.