The Phenomenon Of Language Change

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

And to make an end is to make a beginning." T.S. Eliot. Language is a continuous ongoing competition, with a distinguish effect of 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) has become an important aspect of how we communicate, then 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.

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 audience and students who are located in very different 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 production 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. 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 is limitless. Once again, the time has almost arrive when men have the tools to reach the sky. I will prove with extensive evidence from the past and present that the world will ultimately be a world with only one language.

The phenomenon of language change is surprising, after all, languages are passed throughout generations of sources and 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 if over 1,000 years old, and 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 a difficult time 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 exactly the same way. The vocabulary 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 immersion into society.

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 communicated communication (CMC). Some words such as "pwn" are created people who consecutively mistakenly press the "p" button on the keyboard instead of the "O". The adaption of language is a series of convergence that continues to change. When technology became a major part of peoples’ lives, languages of the world quickly converged. Even with a diverse worl``

While vocabulary can change quickly, sentence structure—the order of words in a sentence—changes more slowly. Yet it’s clear that today’s English speakers construct sentences very differently from Chaucer and Shakespeare’s contemporaries. Changes in sound are somewhat harder to document, but at least as interesting. For example, during the so-called "Great Vowel Shift" 500 years ago, English speakers modified their vowel pronunciation dramatically. This shift represents the biggest difference between the pronunciations of so called Middle and Modern English (see audio clips in "Paths of Change")

Agents of Change

Before a language can change, speakers must adopt new words, sentence structures and sounds, spread them through the community and transmit them to the next generation. According to many linguists—including David Lightfoot, NSF assistant director for social, behavioral and economic sciences—children serve as agents for language change when, in the process of learning the language of previous generations, they internalize it differently and propagate a different variation of that language.

Linguists study language change by addressing questions such as these:

Linguists has estimated that there are more than 6,000 languages in the world.

The effects of technology has impact every aspect of daily lives for most of the world.