Short note: Synchrony and Diachrony

Short note: Synchrony and Diachrony

           

            Synchrony is the study of a language in a given time. It shows how language works at a given time. It play no attention to its past history of future destine. It is called synchronic and descriptive languet. It studies a language at a one period in time. It investigates the way people speak in a given speech community at a given point in time.

            Diachrony is the study of a language through time. The study of how speech habits change from time to time is called diachronic or historical and Temporal linguistics. It studies the development of  language through time. For example, it studies French and Latin have evolved from Latin or Gujarati, Hindi and other Indian language have evolved from Sanskrit. It also examines language changes. These two approaches have be kept clearly apart. According to C.F. Hockett:  "The study of how a language works at a given time, regardless of its past history or futur destiny, is called descriptive or synchronic linguistics. The study of how speech habits change as time goes by is called historical or diachronic linguistics”

            The distinction synchrony and diachrony refers to the difference in treating language from different points of view. In this connection Ferdinand e Saussure remarks that Synchronic linguistics deals with logical and psychological relations among the existing word from time to time. Synchronic linguistic deals with systems, while diachronic linguistics deals with units. The different between the descriptive (synchronic) and historical (diachronic) language can be illustrated by the following diagram of Saussure. He was the first  person to distinguish between the two approaches. In the diagram, axis AB is the

synchronic static axis, while XY is the diachronic moving axis.

As the Russian linguist V.M. Zhirmunsky observes, ‘In de Saussure’s conception, synchrony is language considered as a system of static oppositions resting on a single temporal plane, a static two dimensional cross-section”.

            In the nineteenth century most he linguists paid more attention to the historical aspect of language. One of the principle aims of the subject was to group language into families on the base of their independent development from common source and to study language change. They also pointed out that such families of language development form a common source. They paid little attention toe the description of language. Saussure shows this distinction through synchronic  and diachronic approach. At the same time, he agreed that a good diachronic investigation is always based on good synchronic work. A linguist’s observation on changes are always based on good description of language. On the other hand, a synchronic study always effect upon historical development. For example, two vowels of ‘reel’ and ‘earl’ are described as basically different because the historical facts show different sources from ‘ee’ and ‘ear’.

            On a closer look one realises that without a good synchronic (descriptive) work, valid historical (diachronic) postulations are not possible; in other words, a good historical linguist needs to be thorough descriptive scholar too.  According to Zhirmunsky, Such philological researches viewed language at different stages of its progress and attempted to understand relations among different languages. Language families were discovered and genetic affinities identified. Diachronic linguistics was a great discovery of the 19th century, ‘which developed so powerfully and fruitfully from the 1820s to the 1880s. This discovery enabled linguists to explain modern languages as a result of law-governed historical development

            The discoveries and theories of the synchronic studies offer particularly accurate information about a language in its current usage. Wilkins remarks  ‘The first of these principles distinguishes clearly between descriptions of the language in its contemporary form and descriptions of its historical development’