Phenomenon Of Language Change

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Hoc Bui

English 312

Final Paper

One World, One Lingua Franca

"For last year's words belong to last year's language, And next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning." T.S. Eliot. Language is a continuous ongoing competition, with a distinguish effect of either driving out or merging existing languages. In very rare cases the revival of other languages can endemically occur, but language death is a more prevalent occurrence. If we consider the cooperation of languages in the world through computer mediate communication (CMC) to be an imperative aspect of how we converse,; we must ultimately acknowledge that both humans and technology are the driving force of language unity. Evidence shows that natural selection has indicated over centuries of linguistic convergence towards a unified and globalize society, with a commonly spoken language. Since the dawn of language over 100,000 years ago, language is constantly changing. The changes are subjects of many underlining factors. History has indicated that the majority of human languages are in the process of dying or already dead. Linguists have estimated that at least 31,000 languages have existed in the history of human kind. There are only around 6000 languages currently spoken in the world. The exact amount of language in existence cannot be determine exactly, because much of the language in the world are disperse at various remote locations. Linguist have conservatively estimate that 81% of the world’s languages are already extinct. Extinction of much of the world’s language and globalization, language has become more unify. Because of America’s firm hold on economic power, English is now consider the lingua franca for 85% of international business transaction. This trend will continue unless, exclusive ideas in which includes mathematics, computer language, online collaboration and world business communication could be consolidated into one immensely diverse, communicative, yet competently logical language, I think we will have to accept the possibility of having a unify world language. I will prove with extensive evidence from the past and present, that the world will ultimately have one primary international communicative language consisting several cultural variations.

Recent advancement in technology contributed to the worlds’ rapidly changing and immerging languages. Advancement in technology changed the world and the lives of all its inhabitants. The way the world does business now is more reliable, faster and easier than ever before. Business transaction can be done from across the globe with little efforts. Advertising through the internet has become a cheap alternative and made available to virtually every business. The education system has become computerize and has gone beyond the limitation of books and blackboards. Nowadays it is more possible for audiences and students who are located in remote geographical areas to get access to lectures which are being conducted through video conferencing. Websites are developing online tutoring which enables students have the flexibility of attend class or use the website to re-enforce what they have learned. We live our lives immersed in technology, surrounded by cell digital music, videogames, smartphones, social media and global communication. The ability for the world to communicate instantaneously has enable language to rapidly change. The advances in technology has seem to change the world overnight. It feels like only yesterday when hand written letters and phone calls were the primarily forms of communication, but now there are emails and text messages in which people prefer. Some people are frighten by dramatic alteration of preferable communication and long for the golden days when communication was more personal. There are also people that love that they can simply type a message on a cell phone and click send. Whether someone is an avid user of technology or scared by it, there is no avoiding the fact that technology has changed the spoken and written language forever. Throughout history we have seen the expansion and contraction of language. The extensive variety of languages over the internet has contributed to the preference of agility over consistency and as a result, it has form an unintentional reproduction of nonchalant orthography, which consist of shorten words, expressive punctuations and captions. The fast pace of linguistic change over computer mediate communication has transform language as we know it. There are many factors that contribute to the changes of language, but the underline result is a unity of language

There are three major contributor of language change over time: sentence structure, vocabulary and pronunciations. Changes in vocabulary can come from new words or borrowed from other languages, or a combination of words or shorten words. We can see a lot of this in computer mediate communication (CMC). Some words such as "pwn" are created by people who consecutively mistakenly press the "p" button on the keyboard instead of the "O". There are two forms of language, a written form and a talking form. An example of a written form of language is a passage from "the Amber Spy Glass" by Philip Pullman. You will not find someone speaking like this at a bar. This type of language is found in books and poems or is used in speech. Presidential candidate, or perhaps a speech from a valedictorian to his graduating classmate might use this. This type of language is effective when communication is one way, with no interruptions and a reply is not expected. This is what linguists consider speaking as if you are writing. Now the reverse which is "writing as if you are speaking" has only been possible recently with computer mediate communication. If you think about it, speaking is what you use the majority of you language for. Speaking is the essence of language. Linguist has conclude that most speeches in conversations consist of word packages of 7 to 10 words. Now that is where texting, chatting, IMing, LOLCATz, and other forms of computer mediated communication comes in. If we consider these type of communication in terms of "writing as if you are speaking", you will quickly find that it is very effective. Yes, it true, that these type of communication does use, shorten words, excessive punctuation, and random uppercase and lowercase letters, but then again, you do not think about those things when you are speaking with someone. When you are talking to someone, you have the ability to show emotions such laughing, crying, wink, sarcasm and so on. So CMC has evolve in its structure to compensate for this lack emotion. The original meaning of LOLz is "laugh out loud" but, the use of LOLs has evolve into what linguist calls a pragmatic particle. All spoken language has one. Other forms of linguistic evolution includes "haha" which is being use as a sentence filler and "Oh, BTW" is being use to change the subject. This is what linguist calls a "new information marker". There are thing you can do when you are speaking, but you can’t do while you are texting, so "new information markers" are being develop to accomplish this. This is a prime example of a merging form of language, which can also be consider an adaption of a new pidgin of language through an already existent creole.

In the bible, Babel tells a story of a time when all people spoke the same language. The people were all able to communicate with each other and their collaboration was limitless. Men were so proud that they build a building to the heavens. When god saw how arrogant man became, he spread them throughout the world, and gave them all a different languages. The story signifies god’s intent that when men are not able to communicated, they are bounded to ordinary things, but when they are able to use language to collaborate, their ability are limitless. Once again, the time has almost arrive when men have the tools to reach the sky.

The phenomenon of language change is surprising, after all, languages are passed throughout generations of sources that are adequate enough for parents and children to communicate. Yet all evidence points to language change. The rate of language change is not equal for all parts of the world. Places like Japan, where Japanese is over 1,000 years old has seen comparable changes from places like western civilization where English has evolved much more rapidly in only a few centuries. The evolution of the English language is so rapid that modern day English speakers find Shakespeare hard to understand, and that was only in the sixteenth century. Most modern day English speakers will find fourteenth century Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales almost impossible to read.

There are many reason and contributing effects to language change. In Large, the change is a response to economic, social and political alterations. Major language change occur during times of colonization, invasion, and migration. Even without catastrophic influences, language has the ability to dramatically change through enough users that alter the way they speak it. The needs of speakers and societies’ demand for linguistic representation is what drives language change. New world products such as technology, industries and products require new words to reflects its characteristics. Technology is rapidly innovating and self-inventing that written dictionary have difficulty keeping up with the changes and demand of new words. Just by using emerging terms that are newly develop, we are all driving language change. The uniqueness of every linguistic network fuels desire language change, and when these changes comes in contact, the linguistic society with more power will usually take the leading role for a more permanent change. That’s because no two networks use language in precisely the same way. The lexicon that linguistic networks use are dependent on regional area, education level, age, social status and a variety of other reason. Through our interactions with other linguistic domains, we absorb new words and phrases, then integrate them into our own speech. Language is an inherit trait pass down from previous generation. The dilution of mother tongue and saturation of new linguistic change is a result of an immerging society. The adaption of language is a series of convergence that continues to change. Language change occur when speakers adopt new words, sentence structures and sounds, and then spread them throughout the communal society and communicate them to the next generation. According linguists, consisting of David Lightfoot, assistant director for social at the National Science Foundation for behavioral and economic sciences, children assist as mediators for language change by the procedure of educating the language of earlier generations, they implement it differently and propagate an altered variation of that language.

If the current development continues, most of people of the world will eventually be capable of speaking a shared language, perhaps English, over the preceding generations. This does not mean other languages will die out as a result of language unity. A world with one language is not the resolution to our situation, nor will it be the result of evolution. Nevertheless, a common language in which everyone can practice will be a useful tool in our ever increasing complex society. Technology and globalization will not bring the destruction of language, nor will it limit cultural diversity in the world. When a language dies, the last user of that language dies with it, resulting in the restrictions of continuing the culture or enabling others to comprehend it. If a common language is use, a culture can exist longer even when the natives dies out. Technological inventions tend to promote cultural understanding by permitting outsiders to spread their culture. Photography didn't kill paintings, it's improved it and allowed it for further innovations and has proven to be a tremendously useful tool, but photography cannot give viewers the idiosyncratic perspective a painting can. I feel that diversity of language is very important, and people should always retain it when possible. The world needs all the diverse cultural ways of thinking, feeling and seeing their perspective. If we want to mature as an intelligent species, we must acknowledge all cultures in the world, and allow each culture to retain their language. A restriction of communication through language is to isolate a culture by limiting the expansion of their knowledge. The key is to have animated practical languages for the purpose of art, education, technology and innovation so that we can share these different perspectives to allow new ideas and experience the world as a collective community.

The paraphernalia of technology has bearing on every facet of daily lives for most of the world. My intentions are not to emphasize English because it is my own; I believe that English is now establish as a worldwide language. English is the language of computers. Users can customize the user interface (UI) to be any language, but under the hood, all the programing languages are in English. English is the primary language of science as over ninety percent of the world's scientific journals have been written in English, and because English has already been integrated in much of the world’s language, it consist of the largest vocabulary of any language. English is also flexible enough to be further expanded. Currently the equivalent cannot be claim by any other language.

English is an excellent choice for a world language because it has already been accepted and established. English consist of an accretion of numerous Indo-European and a collection of other languages. As we intermingle with clusters of people, individuals who use different words to define our common world, we tend to combine our languages.

It is my opinion that we are heading towards a shared language, and I would really love to live to see it. Our lives and our culture are integrated in our language, nevertheless, language also separate us from other cultures. During my research, I came across many concerns and I've noticed that many people are uneasy about losing their roots if everyone had a mutual language. I believe that a mutual language would allow us to embrace everyone’s cultures, everyone’s values and all people, because we will be able to comprehend them and appreciate them. A mutual language does not mean eradicating our native and familiar language, but being bilingual, allows us to express ourselves and be understood by everyone. It means being able to share our values, our ideas and our culture, without being limited to a translators, and making uncertainties impossible. Many factors are available to alter the course of history, it would be foolish to say it is not possible to have a language of unity. Over the ages, kingdoms have risen and fallen and scholars and statesman pondered the immortality of their power, language and culture. Nevertheless, language is used universally and is adopted by all nations. I strongly believe that a unify language will improve our situation as a species. I don't believe that forsaking the teaching of other languages would benefit us. In the similar way that the stability of power favors those who speak the language of the particular environment. I have confidence in the fact that we are heading to a common language; it will happen peacefully, drawing those who wish to connect across seas and ethnic group. I do not believe it will be a push for a common language because English is such a prevalent and well known language; I am stating that much of the people in the world speak the language, even as a second language. This concentration of a collaborative language will elevate English as a second language to a unify lingua franca for all.