[QUOTE=Howard Klepper]
Actually, I have learned that change is far slower in written languages than it is in those that are only spoken, and the great majority of languages are not written. Change has been very slow in English by comparison with these. For example, we can still understand Elizabethan English 400 years later. There are many languages that have changed so rapidly that present speakers could not understand someone who spoke that language 100 years ago.
I hear Latin phrases spoken regularly. And that's in California![/QUOTE]
As a student of linguistics, I've always been fascinated with language change. Here are a few tidbits that most people don't know:
A language is considered "living" when it is still being acquired as a first language by children. When this process stops, it becomes a "dead" language. This is why Latin and classical Greek are considered dead languages. They aren't being acquired by children as a first language anymore. Hebrew is an interesting example of a language that was "resurrected." The state of Israel made a conscious decision to have Hebrew taught to children as a first language, and now it is a living language once again. And as a result, one thing you can count on is Hebrew has begun to change again.
Many, many languages are in danger of becoming extinct. A good example of this is Taiwanese (also known as Min Nan, or the Southern Min dialect). In Taiwan, the official language is Mandarin Chinese. This is what most Taiwanese people speak now, and parents are "teaching" it to their young, even though their first language was probably Taiwanese. In recent years the Taiwanese government has become concerned about this, now requiring that Taiwanese be taught in schools, but this does not solve the problem. It is an endangered language because few Taiwanese children nowadays are learning it as a first language.
Just because a language is dead, does not mean it doesn't have value. In fact, one of the values of Latin is its dead status. It doesn't change, so it is safe to use Latin terms in science, medicine, literature, etc., with the secure knowledge that the term will mean the same as it did five hundred years ago and five hundred years in the future.
The vast bulk of language change is caused, in fact, by children as they acquire language. This is because they don't actually learn it by rote from their parents. They reinvent it, so to speak, and frequently experiment with new usages. I'm not really referring to slang, either -- although slang is certainly more prevalent among the young than older speakers of a language. I'm referring to fundamental grammatical shifts. (For example, children will routinely "regularize" irregular verbs by applying regular rules to them, such as using "taked" instead of "took.")
As for comparing "written" to "spoken" languages, an important point to understand is that a spoken language is always considered to be of primary importance, simply because it is spoken. If a language is written only, then by definition it is a dead language, which explains why it doesn't change.
Every language has its own "geneology" and every word has a history. We English speakers do not speak Elisabethan English anymore, but we can still understand it. Sort of. It is still considered "Modern English" (as opposed to the Middle English of Chaucer and the Old English of Beowolf fame). Even though Elisabethan English is considered to be early Modern English, many usages have changed in the past five hundred years. Probably one of the most important is pronunciation, caused by what is known as the
Great English Vowel Shift. Interestingly enough, I have found, the vowel shift did not occur among the Scots dialects.
Oh well. More than you ever wanted to know, I'm thinking.
Best,
Michael
Michael McBroom38897.5006944444
Login
Register
FAQ
[/QUOTE]
[/QUOTE]
!