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[…] linguistic changes do not correspond to generations of speakers. There is no vertical structure of layers one above the other like drawers in a piece of furniture; people of all ages intermingle and communicate with one another. (de Saussure 1995b, Part I, Chapter II, § 1)
The state of a language is thus, in part, inherited from the language’s past. The notion of diachrony can be used to take change into account, while retaining links to the past, using the postulate that certain persistent elements establish a type of continuum across and between different periods.
1.2.2. Connecting past and present
In common parlance, continuity denotes “unbroken and consistent existence or operation…a connection or line of development with no sharp breaks” (Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 2008, p. 309). For Saussure, continuity was the first condition for diachrony:
The sign is subject to change because it continues through time. But what predominates in any change is the survival of earlier material. Infidelity to the past is only relative. That is how it comes about that the principle of change is based upon the principle of continuity. (de Saussure 1995b, Part I, Chapter II, §2)