I think it's kind of great to see how the English language has evolved in it's former colonies, Australia, New Zeeland, South Africa etc. It's like they forked the language and just went their own...
I think it's kind of great to see how the English language has evolved in it's former colonies, Australia, New Zeeland, South Africa etc. It's like they forked the language and just went their own way.
Sort of proof that efforts for a unified language like Esperanto would never really work - as connected as the world is, it's not enough to keep language use consistent everywhere.
Also what the heck happened to Canadian French, it's so messed up.
Isn't the real question what the heck happened to French spoken in France? IIRC Quebecois is actually closer to the French that was spoken 250 some years ago than the French now spoken in France,...
Isn't the real question what the heck happened to French spoken in France? IIRC Quebecois is actually closer to the French that was spoken 250 some years ago than the French now spoken in France, which continued to evolve.
That seems similar to how English developed in the U.S.A. and in England: modern American English has more similarities to the English of a few centuries ago than modern British English (notably,...
IIRC Quebecois is actually closer to the French that was spoken 250 some years ago than the French now spoken in France, which continued to evolve.
That seems similar to how English developed in the U.S.A. and in England: modern American English has more similarities to the English of a few centuries ago than modern British English (notably, with the retention of the rhotic "r" and the flattened vowels in words like "bath").
Yeah, I think I know of another one. Have you ever heard people saying "can i ax you a question" instead of ask? well it used to be a VERY common thing apparently, and then we shipped it over to...
Yeah, I think I know of another one. Have you ever heard people saying "can i ax you a question" instead of ask? well it used to be a VERY common thing apparently, and then we shipped it over to america with us.
Sometimes I hear people being like "learn to speak english... it's spelt ASK" not realising that it was english's fault in the first place.
Actually, "acsian" went out of fashion before you Yanks went your own way. And it has resurfaced in England and Australia, as well. It's not a Yankee-specific phenomenon.
Actually, "acsian" went out of fashion before you Yanks went your own way. And it has resurfaced in England and Australia, as well. It's not a Yankee-specific phenomenon.
Not necessarily. If someone is using "us" to refer to the predecessors of a modern country, then it's retrospectively claiming those predecessors as members of the modern country. For instance, we...
Not necessarily. If someone is using "us" to refer to the predecessors of a modern country, then it's retrospectively claiming those predecessors as members of the modern country. For instance, we had Australians here long before the Commonwealth of Australia was formed on 1st January 1901. Sure, the British and Irish came over here, but once they got here, they became Australian by virtue of living here. The same would be true of the British settlers and convicts in North America.
Depends on the speakers. I believe most sources of change for languages are uneducated people, who take a more DIY and relaxed approach with language compared to their educated peers who will...
Sort of proof that efforts for a unified language like Esperanto would never really work
Depends on the speakers. I believe most sources of change for languages are uneducated people, who take a more DIY and relaxed approach with language compared to their educated peers who will place more importance into following the rules.
The situation around most of the west at least, is pretty different from what it used to be a few centuries ago.
Now most people are educated, and know there are standards to adhere to and making up grammar and spelling rules as you go along is not seen very kindly. Plus there's the whole issue of globalization, and if you want to communicate with someone from the other side of the world, you can't just use the regionalisms unique to your birthplace. Rather, you have to keep to the standard.
So, I believe that while Esperanto won't work, because it's not native to anyone. English will. It's a tool we use to communicate with not just the person from the next town a few miles out but with people from all over the world. And it's a tool too useful to just let speakers fragment it as they wish, diminishing its utility.
I'd wager their is little to no coloration correlation between education and language drift. Just look at the speed with which internet language culture rises, how quickly does it take for...
I'd wager their is little to no coloration correlation between education and language drift.
Just look at the speed with which internet language culture rises, how quickly does it take for situation specific language and speech mannerisms to come about? Think of 4chan, military jargon, a friend group in school, even reddit - we are talking just a few years. A generation later what started as an expression, or quirks in pronunciation become normal. Language and speech mannerisms have and will be used as a marker for who is in any particular group since pretty much forever. The stronger the accent the tighter the community.
Almost by necessity language is bound to split to accommodate this vital human function, our very own curse of babel.
Sure the globalised population will stick to the rules, but not even half the worlds population have access to the internet. An even smaller portion would want or could conceivably have the kind of daily communication necessary to establish common language use. In the end you live and speak with the people in your immediate surroundings and they are the ones you have to fit in with.
Humans are lazy. There isn't any need for strictly enforced language rules as long as the message can be communicated with an acceptable amount of comprehension. It's why errors such as would of...
Humans are lazy. There isn't any need for strictly enforced language rules as long as the message can be communicated with an acceptable amount of comprehension.
It's why errors such as would of and coz can exist: it doesn't matter so long as the intended meaning can still be understood.
This is a very short-sighted view. Sure, you let people do whatever and for the first few years we'll more or less understand each other. But after a few decades or a century every region develops...
This is a very short-sighted view. Sure, you let people do whatever and for the first few years we'll more or less understand each other. But after a few decades or a century every region develops their own little variation of that language and people can't understand each other anymore.
Language is a public tool. Not that different from a public metro line. If you take care of it, everybody can use it and benefit from it. If you just let anybody do whatever they want with it, it'll end up broken and useless in no time.
There is a need for stricly enforced language rules if we want to preserve the language and our ability to understand each other. Precisely because we're lazy. And if you just let people do whatever they want they'll just collectively “ruin” the language and take its utility away.
I'm definitely more in favour of "keeping" existing language, especially since I think a lot of the inaccuracies used muddle the language and we end up losing precision and more subtle meanings of...
There is a need for stricly enforced language rules if we want to preserve the language and our ability to understand each other. Precisely because we're lazy. And if you just let people do whatever they want they'll just collectively “ruin” the language and take its utility away.
I'm definitely more in favour of "keeping" existing language, especially since I think a lot of the inaccuracies used muddle the language and we end up losing precision and more subtle meanings of words and phases. However, language is naturally living. The reason language changes is to reflect the changes in people, in culture. Sure some of it is laziness, but a lot of it is driven to be more expressive in current ideas.
Yes. Language is naturally evolving to fit society and time periods accordingly. However, think of the word “literally”. Its definition is: lit·er·al·ly adverb: in a literal manner or sense;...
Yes. Language is naturally evolving to fit society and time periods accordingly.
However, think of the word “literally”.
Its definition is:
lit·er·al·ly
adverb:
in a literal manner or sense; exactly.
synonyms: exactly, precisely, actually, really, truly; More
informal
used for emphasis or to express strong feeling while not being literally true.
You have the case here of a very useful word that used to have a very clear meaning, that through misuse and careless laziness stopped having that clear meaning and it's now ambiguous.
So, if a friend is telling you a story about that time they got drunk and Timmy started playing with an airbag and ended up expelled literally 30 ft off the ground, then you have to ask “wait, like literally literally or just literally?”.
A perfectly useful and clear word just got ruined.
Now, of course I understand that the modern language we use today was born just like that. And “misuse” has played a great part in its creation. I also understand that you cannot keep a language tied down and closed to any changes. I understand that.
But I believe letting language loose, and just letting people do whatever they want with it is not the most pragmatic approach, just like completely chaining it down and preventing change isn't.
I've always advocated for a middle ground, where you allow change, but not let it completely loose, and rather try to direct it or control it somehow. Which, I realize, is very tricky and everyone will have their own opinion and there will be lots of disagreements, etc.
But just letting it loose is not an option in my opinion. Because that way the language ends up fragmented and loses its ability to make people able to communicate which is its main purpose.
I guess I just don't see it as "letting it loose" because there is no governing body or some such for language. So it's basically we all need to decided that that's something we want, and I don't...
But just letting it loose is not an option in my opinion. Because that way the language ends up fragmented and loses its ability to make people able to communicate which is its main purpose.
I guess I just don't see it as "letting it loose" because there is no governing body or some such for language. So it's basically we all need to decided that that's something we want, and I don't see that consensus happening. In the past, I believe language evolved maybe a bit slower because the written form was restricted. To have something published, in books, in newspapers, it needed to be vetted a certain amount. Nowadays, anyone can "publish" anything online.
Quick example, when I learned to write Chinese, it was extremely strict. So no matter how lazy and how much slang we used in speech (I speak Cantonese, which is basically made of slang), the written form was always "proper". In this way, the drift of the written form at least was limited. However because we communicate so much more in text messages and such now, that is no longer true. What we write and what we speak is basically the same.
One way that language change could be limited is auto-correct (not that I'm advocating that a private should be controlling language). If we can't type "coz" and it was always auto-corrected to "because", we can prevent really low levels of drift.
...noticed I'm rambling a bit. In short, I'm sad we're losing a lot of interesting parts of our language, but we're still able to express ourselves so I don't think it's super worrisome.
In your example, the speaker/listener was able to clarify, so ultimately the message was delivered with no loss.
Not in English. The French have the Académie française and the Spanish the Real Academia Española. Of course people don't always follow their rules but they're still fairly successful at...
I guess I just don't see it as "letting it loose" because there is no governing body or some such for language.
Not in English. The French have the Académie française and the Spanish the Real Academia Española. Of course people don't always follow their rules but they're still fairly successful at regulating the language as far as I'm aware.
So it's basically we all need to decided that that's something we want, and I don't see that consensus happening.
Of course not. You'll have people trying to regulate it and trying to get people to follow “the rules”, and people just using it however they like. And this tug of war more or less keeps the language stable and it's the balance I was referring to earlier.
In the past, I believe language evolved maybe a bit slower because the written form was restricted.
I think it evolved faster. Because there were fewer people trying to communicate with others from far away (so the speakers weren't tied to a lowest common denominator standard), people were generally not educated (so they didn't stick to the rules) and we didn't have regulatory bodies that made sure every writer followed the same standard. But my guess is as good as yours.
In your example, the speaker/listener was able to clarify, so ultimately the message was delivered with no loss.
Yes. But it's unpractical. I remember I once was reading about hair care routine and the article said “wash your hair biweekly”.
What's that supposed to mean? Twice a week? Or once every two weeks? There's a hell of a difference between washing your hair every 3 days and washing it every 14 days. And in this case, I couldn't just ask for clarification the way I could in my first example.
Having to ask for clarification is impractical, makes us lose time and more importantly, because people are the way that they are –assuming everyone will interpret the words they're using in the same way they're using them, just like that person who wrote that article assumed I would know what she meant by that word— it will inevitably lead to miscommunication and confusion which goes against the fundamental principle of language.
We can also go back to hieroglyphics to communicate with each other. But that, to me, seems like a step back, just like making words less precise.
we're still able to express ourselves so I don't think it's super worrisome.
It's not so much the ability to express ourselves that's a stake if we stop following rules but the ability to be understood by others.
For me, being able to express ourselves comes with being understood. Language is always going to be ambiguous, sort of proven here a little... I agree with your examples, but communicating will...
It's not so much the ability to express ourselves that's a stake if we stop following rules but the ability to be understood by others.
For me, being able to express ourselves comes with being understood. Language is always going to be ambiguous, sort of proven here a little...
I agree with your examples, but communicating will always have places that will need clarifications.
People's own experiences will always affect how they say and hear something, no matter how strict our rules are and how much they're followed.
Just thinking a bit about international law, maybe localization is what's going to help a lot of these cases. The ability to translate properly and clearly will drive languages in a more positive way maybe.
Don't come the raw prawn with me, mate. 'ken oath I can use regionalisms if I want. Any drongo what wants me to speak un-Australian has got a few 'roos loose in the back paddock.
Plus there's the whole issue of globalization, and if you want to communicate with someone from the other side of the world, you can't just use the regionalisms unique to your birthplace.
Don't come the raw prawn with me, mate. 'ken oath I can use regionalisms if I want. Any drongo what wants me to speak un-Australian has got a few 'roos loose in the back paddock.
I think it's kind of great to see how the English language has evolved in it's former colonies, Australia, New Zeeland, South Africa etc. It's like they forked the language and just went their own way.
Sort of proof that efforts for a unified language like Esperanto would never really work - as connected as the world is, it's not enough to keep language use consistent everywhere.
Also what the heck happened to Canadian French, it's so messed up.
Isn't the real question what the heck happened to French spoken in France? IIRC Quebecois is actually closer to the French that was spoken 250 some years ago than the French now spoken in France, which continued to evolve.
Damn, I googled a bit and you're right, that's honestly kind of cool, I've got a new found respect for Quebecois.
That seems similar to how English developed in the U.S.A. and in England: modern American English has more similarities to the English of a few centuries ago than modern British English (notably, with the retention of the rhotic "r" and the flattened vowels in words like "bath").
Yeah, I think I know of another one. Have you ever heard people saying "can i ax you a question" instead of ask? well it used to be a VERY common thing apparently, and then we shipped it over to america with us.
Sometimes I hear people being like "learn to speak english... it's spelt ASK" not realising that it was english's fault in the first place.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/people-have-been-saying-ax-instead-ask-1200-years-180949663/
Actually, "acsian" went out of fashion before you Yanks went your own way. And it has resurfaced in England and Australia, as well. It's not a Yankee-specific phenomenon.
Did you just accuse me of being American? I'm not sure I'll be able to forgive this slight on my character!
Ahem:
If you're not a Yank, I suggest you stop impersonating one!
I guess if it's before the American Revolution then it would be considered the British bringing it over to America.
Not necessarily. If someone is using "us" to refer to the predecessors of a modern country, then it's retrospectively claiming those predecessors as members of the modern country. For instance, we had Australians here long before the Commonwealth of Australia was formed on 1st January 1901. Sure, the British and Irish came over here, but once they got here, they became Australian by virtue of living here. The same would be true of the British settlers and convicts in North America.
That's the implication I was trying to make
Depends on the speakers. I believe most sources of change for languages are uneducated people, who take a more DIY and relaxed approach with language compared to their educated peers who will place more importance into following the rules.
The situation around most of the west at least, is pretty different from what it used to be a few centuries ago.
Now most people are educated, and know there are standards to adhere to and making up grammar and spelling rules as you go along is not seen very kindly. Plus there's the whole issue of globalization, and if you want to communicate with someone from the other side of the world, you can't just use the regionalisms unique to your birthplace. Rather, you have to keep to the standard.
So, I believe that while Esperanto won't work, because it's not native to anyone. English will. It's a tool we use to communicate with not just the person from the next town a few miles out but with people from all over the world. And it's a tool too useful to just let speakers fragment it as they wish, diminishing its utility.
I'd wager their is little to no
colorationcorrelation between education and language drift.Just look at the speed with which internet language culture rises, how quickly does it take for situation specific language and speech mannerisms to come about? Think of 4chan, military jargon, a friend group in school, even reddit - we are talking just a few years. A generation later what started as an expression, or quirks in pronunciation become normal. Language and speech mannerisms have and will be used as a marker for who is in any particular group since pretty much forever. The stronger the accent the tighter the community.
Almost by necessity language is bound to split to accommodate this vital human function, our very own curse of babel.
Sure the globalised population will stick to the rules, but not even half the worlds population have access to the internet. An even smaller portion would want or could conceivably have the kind of daily communication necessary to establish common language use. In the end you live and speak with the people in your immediate surroundings and they are the ones you have to fit in with.
Did you mean "correlation", rather than "coloration"?
ah, well yeah I got some of the right letters at least. Thanks for catching it.
Humans are lazy. There isn't any need for strictly enforced language rules as long as the message can be communicated with an acceptable amount of comprehension.
It's why errors such as would of and coz can exist: it doesn't matter so long as the intended meaning can still be understood.
This is a very short-sighted view. Sure, you let people do whatever and for the first few years we'll more or less understand each other. But after a few decades or a century every region develops their own little variation of that language and people can't understand each other anymore.
Language is a public tool. Not that different from a public metro line. If you take care of it, everybody can use it and benefit from it. If you just let anybody do whatever they want with it, it'll end up broken and useless in no time.
There is a need for stricly enforced language rules if we want to preserve the language and our ability to understand each other. Precisely because we're lazy. And if you just let people do whatever they want they'll just collectively “ruin” the language and take its utility away.
I'm definitely more in favour of "keeping" existing language, especially since I think a lot of the inaccuracies used muddle the language and we end up losing precision and more subtle meanings of words and phases. However, language is naturally living. The reason language changes is to reflect the changes in people, in culture. Sure some of it is laziness, but a lot of it is driven to be more expressive in current ideas.
Yes. Language is naturally evolving to fit society and time periods accordingly.
However, think of the word “literally”.
Its definition is:
You have the case here of a very useful word that used to have a very clear meaning, that through misuse and careless laziness stopped having that clear meaning and it's now ambiguous.
So, if a friend is telling you a story about that time they got drunk and Timmy started playing with an airbag and ended up expelled literally 30 ft off the ground, then you have to ask “wait, like literally literally or just literally?”.
A perfectly useful and clear word just got ruined.
Now, of course I understand that the modern language we use today was born just like that. And “misuse” has played a great part in its creation. I also understand that you cannot keep a language tied down and closed to any changes. I understand that.
But I believe letting language loose, and just letting people do whatever they want with it is not the most pragmatic approach, just like completely chaining it down and preventing change isn't.
I've always advocated for a middle ground, where you allow change, but not let it completely loose, and rather try to direct it or control it somehow. Which, I realize, is very tricky and everyone will have their own opinion and there will be lots of disagreements, etc.
But just letting it loose is not an option in my opinion. Because that way the language ends up fragmented and loses its ability to make people able to communicate which is its main purpose.
An equilibrium must be achieved.
I guess I just don't see it as "letting it loose" because there is no governing body or some such for language. So it's basically we all need to decided that that's something we want, and I don't see that consensus happening. In the past, I believe language evolved maybe a bit slower because the written form was restricted. To have something published, in books, in newspapers, it needed to be vetted a certain amount. Nowadays, anyone can "publish" anything online.
Quick example, when I learned to write Chinese, it was extremely strict. So no matter how lazy and how much slang we used in speech (I speak Cantonese, which is basically made of slang), the written form was always "proper". In this way, the drift of the written form at least was limited. However because we communicate so much more in text messages and such now, that is no longer true. What we write and what we speak is basically the same.
One way that language change could be limited is auto-correct (not that I'm advocating that a private should be controlling language). If we can't type "coz" and it was always auto-corrected to "because", we can prevent really low levels of drift.
...noticed I'm rambling a bit. In short, I'm sad we're losing a lot of interesting parts of our language, but we're still able to express ourselves so I don't think it's super worrisome.
In your example, the speaker/listener was able to clarify, so ultimately the message was delivered with no loss.
Not in English. The French have the Académie française and the Spanish the Real Academia Española. Of course people don't always follow their rules but they're still fairly successful at regulating the language as far as I'm aware.
Of course not. You'll have people trying to regulate it and trying to get people to follow “the rules”, and people just using it however they like. And this tug of war more or less keeps the language stable and it's the balance I was referring to earlier.
I think it evolved faster. Because there were fewer people trying to communicate with others from far away (so the speakers weren't tied to a lowest common denominator standard), people were generally not educated (so they didn't stick to the rules) and we didn't have regulatory bodies that made sure every writer followed the same standard. But my guess is as good as yours.
Yes. But it's unpractical. I remember I once was reading about hair care routine and the article said “wash your hair biweekly”.
What's that supposed to mean? Twice a week? Or once every two weeks? There's a hell of a difference between washing your hair every 3 days and washing it every 14 days. And in this case, I couldn't just ask for clarification the way I could in my first example.
Having to ask for clarification is impractical, makes us lose time and more importantly, because people are the way that they are –assuming everyone will interpret the words they're using in the same way they're using them, just like that person who wrote that article assumed I would know what she meant by that word— it will inevitably lead to miscommunication and confusion which goes against the fundamental principle of language.
We can also go back to hieroglyphics to communicate with each other. But that, to me, seems like a step back, just like making words less precise.
It's not so much the ability to express ourselves that's a stake if we stop following rules but the ability to be understood by others.
For me, being able to express ourselves comes with being understood. Language is always going to be ambiguous, sort of proven here a little...
I agree with your examples, but communicating will always have places that will need clarifications.
People's own experiences will always affect how they say and hear something, no matter how strict our rules are and how much they're followed.
Just thinking a bit about international law, maybe localization is what's going to help a lot of these cases. The ability to translate properly and clearly will drive languages in a more positive way maybe.
Don't come the raw prawn with me, mate. 'ken oath I can use regionalisms if I want. Any drongo what wants me to speak un-Australian has got a few 'roos loose in the back paddock.
Sup cuz, how's it going across the ditch?
Don't you mean "dutch", bro?