The declination of the English Language

[Lora]

Quote by: G. Adams I'm sure the same thing was said 200 years, 400 years and 600 years ago. If language is a reflection of culture, then your going to have to let language go, as sad as that is, because we can't stop the shifts in our culture. It's meant to change, so don't worry about it, just find a comfy niche to carve for yourself and watch everyone else go by. It's what I'm doing anyway. Besides, if you think it's bad for English, imagine how it feels to have Welsh or Irish Gaelic as your first language. They've seen their language almost die in front of them.

The same was not said. The driving force behind the change than was the England's exploration of the world, and we adapted to encourpoate words from different languages and places. Latin words were used for formal text and to name and describe new science - English was still used by the majority.

Welsh and Gaelic are still preserved, and spoken in the relevant parts. Cornish has disappeared.

Quote by: Nono Right, English is a hybrid of the Latin and the Germanic. That could come about only by successive changes that invariably outraged some. We all laugh at the pathetic attempts of the Académie française to safeguard the purity of the French language. It simply can't be done. Even the Nazis failed in their campaign to 'regermanicize' German, i.e get rid of Latin words and replace them with contrived Germanic clunkers. People just refused to use them, and these were the same people who were otherwise slavishly doing pretty well everything they were told to.

Sorry but that is not entirely correct. English was an Anglo-Saxon language, which was only ever 'taken over' by the French, when the legal systems were overwritten and so on.. English still survived with the lower classes and was retained when the French left power. It changed to include French words, over a third of our language is French. Latin never actually changed out language, it simply increased our vocabulary, as I mentioned before.

There were no dramatic changes, only in a similar way to Latin, American English, Russian, Greek and so on influenced our lexis and continue to influence our lexis over time.

What I'm trying to say here is that this gradual change is different. It is not due to exploration, invasion or influence of other languages. Our language is changing because of the sheer laziness of the speakers, for grammar and pronounciation. It is not our vocabulary that is changing so much, we're adding new words as we always have. This is not moving toward a global language, or a more easily understood language, it is just a decline.I don't see how the change that is occuring in our grammar and phonology is benefitial at all.

[Samildanach]

Anything that allows people to communicate is beneficial, and just because you have a parallel language does not mean you cannot speak the pure language if necessary.
All that is happening is you are seeing an accelerated change due to our adaptation to devices which were not present before in a juvenile population, because those very devices are used for communication the change is rapid and accelerating as the uptake of the technology spreads. Nothing different is happening just the medium through which the changes propagate has changed to a much faster one. To prove a declination is occurring you would have to be able to prove you could not say something in the new language that you could in the old, ie ideas could be lost.

[Nono]

Lora, when I say "the Latin and the Germanic" I mean everything from Portuguese to Romanian (Latin) for the former and from German to, well, the other languages spoken in the Benelux and Scandinavia for the latter. (So not Latin as such.) Saxon obviously was Germanic (still is).

Sure social layers were involved, which explains why if you kill your brother (a Germanic word) you might be said to have committed fratricide (a Latin-based word). Ad nauseum. So the Latin formed a layer on the Germanic.

I would agree, by the way, that verbal skills are declining (for the reasons I mentioned earlier). It's not that people are "lazier" but rather that society as a whole sets less store by them an we's jes not uhh.. rewarded like we used to for havin em.

[tinybear]

Actually, you know what's really declining? Our ability to write with a pen. These days, all we do is type.

[Logjam]

Quote by: Nono Actually it was quite intentional. :) It sounds to me like Lora's complaint is that, precisely, ever fewer people are using the language well. If this is true, it may be due to falling education standards and the fact that there are so many hypnotic leisure activities around today other than reading. That said, deploring falling language (and other) standards is an age-old tradition.

You may be correct. Certainly there are several reasons that language is suffering.

I think that one of the reason for the demise of English in the US is that we tolerate shoddy usage. If people use poor language they should be corrected. It should start at childhood.

If one speeks ebonics that's fine in the hood, but in the halls of the Ivy League is out of place, and it should not be tolerated.

[Logjam]

Quote by: tinybear Actually, you know what's really declining? Our ability to write with a pen. These days, all we do is type.

Good point. I think that we would be better off if we demanded good penmanship in the lower grades. It's a way to teach discipline and attention to detail.

Just check out the hand writing of a Japanese student. It's perfect and very beautiful. The kids have to consentrate to do it properly. It serves them well.

So we should do the same here. We should start by teaching the kids how to hold their pencil....there's a way to do it, and few do.

[Lora]

Using the English language correctly just isn't a big deal anymore. People can't be bothered unless it's for a CV or whatever. I've seen three signs in town this week advertising "4/5/6 (enter your plural amount here) apple, £1". Two pubs advertising that they're showing the hourse racing, one poster said "and there off".. I'd tell these people but I don't think they'd care.

[Chancellor]

Quote by: Lora Although at 18, I am part of the audience seen as responsible for this, it really annoys me. The English Language is a beautiful strong language with a great history. With the introduction of text messages, chat rooms etc the lazyway of typing 'Lyz dis' is slowly turning into the norm. With the way in which languages progress the popular choice prevails and I worry that this will soon be the norm, with the more formal usage of our traditional language fading away. Also, people my age (and indeed many adults) seem to have very little respect for, and understanding of grammar. Does this bother anyone else? Or should we respect this change, and adapt ourselves to use the language favoured by the young, and future generation of people?

One need only compare an elementary book of grammar from the 19th century to one from the 21st century to see how much our language has been, for lack of a better term, "dumbed down." I wholly agree with you that the rise in grammatical laziness and the attitude of "good enough" have served only to harm our society. There is no excuse for poor grammar.

[Chancellor]

Quote by: Logjam You may be correct. Certainly there are several reasons that language is suffering. I think that one of the reason for the demise of English in the US is that we tolerate shoddy usage. If people use poor language they should be corrected. It should start at childhood. If one speeks ebonics that's fine in the hood, but in the halls of the Ivy League is out of place, and it should not be tolerated.

Ebonics is never acceptable anywhere, nor is any other form of incorrect English usage.

[Prometheus]

I live in Utah. We talk bad out here. We don't know nothing about right grammer. And this is not new.

[Vee]

I prefer British English but I prefer the American Jail as opposed to Gaol

I think text messages and instant messenger forms are fine as long as they don't translate to everyday use.

Too many barely teenagers have mobile/cell phones - I suppose they just rely on their parents to pay the bills?

[rmnunez]

Seventy five percent of those who speak English are not native speakers now. Australians, Britons, Canadians, Gibraltarians, Jamaicans, assorted Caribbeans, New Zealanders and other native English speakers don't add up to a quarter of those who use the language everyday in commercial, social and academic settings.

English is a very flexible language, more so than Spanish, French, German, Arabic, Chinese or Japanese, its also the most widely spoken and the prevailing second language everywhere. Given the relatively rigid grammars of non-native English speaker's mother tongues, I'd expect we'd find more grammatical orthodoxy and the inclusion of more idosyncratic ethnic terms in the English of the future.

Not "The declination of the English language" rather than its decline.

[Nono]

Yes, it's the practical nature of English grammar (not to mention the way you can 'noun' verbs and 'verb' nouns) that has made English what it is. And once you have such huge numbers of people speaking it all over the place, things start to happen and there's nothing you can do to stop them.