Diachronic and synchronic

Diachronic and synchronic, the first term refers to the study of language from time to time. The basic characteristic of language is dynamic, it means language constantly changes from time to time depend on the necessity of the language users.

Referring to the history of English, the transformation of English recorded by historian happened once. In the ancient time, we will find that English nowadays is very different than English that used at that time. The previous version of English sometime we call it old English version was used in the era of 5 C, in which it was strongly influenced by three Germany tribes, Jutes, Saxons, and Angles, which conquer the land of Great Britain during that time.

During the 1066-1200, England was ruled by the Normandy. The district of this Normandy spread out on the northern coast of France; hence, their language used was much influenced by France. Long period of governing in England territory, the Normandy contributed the language shift of English. English which was resulted from the accumulation of the three Germany tribes stated previously had changed during this era of ruling colored by the existence of France language brought by the Normandy. The France began to manifest itself to the development of old English.

The first link in the chain binding England to the continent was broken in 1204 when King John lost Normandy. As a result, during The Middle English period (1150–1500) was marked by momentous changes in the English language, changes more extensive and fundamental than those that have taken place at any time before or since. They took place more rapidly because the Norman invasion removed from English those conservative influences that are always felt when a language is extensively used in books and is spoken by an influential educated class. The changes of this period affected English in both its grammar and its vocabulary. Those in the vocabulary involved the loss of a large part of the Old English word-stock and the addition of thousands of words from French and Latin. At the beginning of the period English is a language that must be learned like a foreign tongue; at the end it is Modern English. Thus, related to diachronic, we can trace the evolution of language through the recorded data presented by the language historian, and learn from it.

In the other hand, synchronic refers to the study of language in particular period of time. It means that the study of language can be done in the particular of time in which the language is still used and utilized by the language users to communicate each other in a society in particular period of time; it can be present day, 50 years ago, ancient time and so ford. However, one point to be paid attention is that there is no comparison made to other states language or other times. Thus, the first dichotomy introduced by de Saussure is meant to point out that language can be traced from time to time along with the history of it and can be learned in a particular period of time in which the language occur.


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