Language traits and fashions advance extremely quickly and if left alone, seem to be one of the rawest, most observable forms of cultural or memetic evolution. Language also seems to be the facet that we hold the most dear to our self identity and any drift is immediately heralded as a decline in standards.
Various self-appointed mavens frequently take the moral high ground on how language ought to be, and you only have to question the general population to discover that perceived language erosion by the younger generations is top of the threat list in how they feel alienated from their own species in later life (related post: progression).
But yet scanning the etymology of any given word reveals a rocky and fascinating history and any golden age of language is of course immediately debunked. Someone’s God be with ye is someone else’s Goodbye, which is yet another’s Bye that is by now something I probably don’t understand. What we may consider slang is actually highly evolved language reduction. Just think about how much emotion and meaning can be conveyed by the shortest and “dumbest” idioms that seem to flow out of the USA! Genius!
There are two approaches that governments take to language: dictation or reaction. Ownership of a language by a governing body seems to be the memetic equivalent of eugenics; an attempt to control and command hereditary traits of something that no living being can possibly judge. Blonde hair and blue eyes are the best you say? Hmmm.
The French are of course famous for their stringent L’Académie française. Here the appointed members (knows as “immortals”) scrutinise daily life for signs of decay while cleansing society of all foreign loan words. Danish and Norwegian are very similar languages, expect the Norwegian Language Council decided to invent new “Norwegian” words for every part of the microcomputer, while Denmark’s own body, the Dansk Sprognævn, is more than happy to let CPU, RAM, bits, bytes and indeed “computer” itself though the iron curtain.
The difference here is that Denmark’s bureau appears to understand their role is to document and record the naturally occurring phenomenon (their main objective: “new words which have appeared enough in print and speech to be considered notable are added to the Danish dictionary”, but note that this doesn’t stop the population’s sky is falling reaction to the recent American-English overload they are experiencing).
So while a country taking ownership of its genes or planning its economy is generally considered morally dubious or fascist, dictating totally irrational language policies is still rife. Just check out the list of the world’s language regulators. Of course, in reality, language dictation can never have the reach or control of eugenics or communism in the countries we are discussing (although that didn’t stop the Welsh from trying to dictate their own suicide), but that just highlights further how futile their purist approach is!
English appears to be relatively unique because not only does it have no dictatorship, it also doesn’t have an appointed body. Whether its touted rise as the first “global language” is because of this, or a consequence of it being so wildly distributed in the “free-world” that it’s impossible to control or monitor (although France seems to try hard with French) is a topic for debate. But it seems clear that its sheer diversity and richness can in some part be attributed to the cultural freedom it has received.
The nearest that British English has to an authority is the Oxford University Press whose dictionary is the result of a long-running mission to “record the word’s most-known usages and variants in all varieties of English past and present, world-wide”. More like an ornithologist than a genetic engineer then.
So, how does this analysis of linguistic imperialism and study relate to Google?
The internet is fast approaching a tipping point where it will contain almost all human knowledge, past and present, in textual form and from a multitude of different authors and viewpoints. It’s only a short step to proclaim that this can be considered a complete data bank of language. Google therefore, as the world’s leading organiser of this data, has on-tap access to the historical sum of human language, limited only by the integrity of their algorithms.
Their seemingly benign, but useful, “Did you mean” feature (the one that corrects your spelling errors and lazy typing) works on a simple premise that is made powerful by its knowledge rather than process. Unlike a typical computer spell-checker, which works from static word lists, “Did you mean” compares similar phrases to the one entered to see if they might produce more search results. Because it indiscriminately uses occurrences of all words on the internet, it can find common usage spellings for proper nouns and slang, and remember common usage is what is important for language norms at any given time.
The service is therefore essentially a rapid, constantly updated, language usage analyser that is performing an automated version of the Oxford University Press’ mission, only on a scale unimaginable in a manual world. The natural reason that “football” is not “foot ball” is because of usage frequencies, whether or not dictation played a part in the past. It’s also the reason why “dubstep” is not “dub step“.
As the information age takes hold and language enters a free-fall state of growth due to the thirst for global communication, hopefully it will shake free of its oppressive regimes and the more archaic forms of language planning, to join eugenics on the list of ethical horrors and pseudoscience.
Interesting. So when did the modern bilingual laws come info force in Wales?
Hello from a Welsh-speaking Englisman! I also speak Esperanto. I think the Wikipedia site you provided a link to simplifies the situation with regard to Esperanto. Its initiator Dr Zamenhof handed over its creation to the wider public, and consciously withdrew from commenting on how the language develops. In any case, he died in 1917, but Esperanto lives on. There is an Akademio de Esperanto, but the language’s speaker population goes its own sweet way, largely ignoring the deliberations of that body.
By the way, I think that your comment, “The internet is fast approaching a tipping point where it will contain almost all human knowledge, past and present, in textual form and from a multitude of different authors and viewpoints” is somewhat exaggerated. Whole acres of things of interest to me, such as local history in my part of Wales are not available on the web.
Hi Bill, thanks for your thoughts.
You’re correct that the link to the list of language regulators doesn’t indicate a collective severity or approach. I was just highlighting that there *was* such a list of organisations intent on somehow moulding language. I also agree that in most cases even when there is a dictating body, their cause is becoming increasingly futile, as language is a slippery fish to control.
However I think that Esperanto (and other constructed languages) largely fall outside of typical memetic evolution. They are engineered to follow and subjectively improve on patterns observed in the “natural” languages. Because of this, aren’t they left wide open to criticism from their followers? You can’t complain about language features that formed over 1000’s of years, but when you’re trying to design the perfect (or better) language there’s an infinite debate on the best way to go?
I don’t think my comment about the internet fast approaching the sum of human knowledge is too wild. There has never been such an open and globally accessible medium that has contained so much formal and informal language, or one that has so many projects aiming to make it into the ‘complete’ resource (example, example, example, example).
I think at one time we would have approximated that world’s libraries contained the sum of current human knowledge. If you look at the rate of information upload to the internet over the last ten years, then I don’t think it will be too long that we can approximate it to human knowledge.
Of course there will always be holes in the resource, but your comment about local Welsh history sounds like a calling to open a Wikipedia account ;)
Thanks again for adding to the discussion.
It was good to see a mention of Esperanto.
Another useful site, if you have time is http://www.esperanto.net
I’m struck that the forces resisting change are as much a part of the evolution as the forces of change themselves, though, aren’t they? While I have long chuckled at L’Académie française, I imagine it has, in fact, influenced the course of the development of French. I don’t quite see how that is less legitimate than other sources of change, as the source - the people - is ultimately the same. However stringent, people thinking about the development of languages is not a bad thing, along the lines of the old saw that “change is inevitable, progress is optional.” I am not supporting any particular regulatory group, rather pointing out their formation and activities are part of the larger picture.
Yes, totally. I wasn’t suggesting that observable results suggested that any of the regulators were wasting their time. But rather that their idealistic mission was going to become increasingly futile and that maybe it was time to collectively question the ethics of language planning, as much of the world has with regard to eugenics or communism.
In Iceland we try to make up new words for everything, but if the new word is no better than the “original” then it does not “stick”, and the original word is used (albeit adapted to Icelandic pronounciation, and grammar rules).
It is a lot of fun trying to come up with new words - and it is not some old beurocrats that make up the words - everyone has a voice. Throw your idea into the mix, and if it sticks, then we have a new word.
Example of words that “stuck”:
Tölva (Computer)
Þota (Jet)
Sími (Telephone)
Example of words that did not “stick”:
Video (Myndband - video just sounds better)
- Can´t think of any others, must be a testament of our ability to make up new words );
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Hehehe, trust the little Welsh lady to wade on in to a language debate ;) …
The ‘Welsh Not’ is a contentious aspect of Welsh culture - in fact, it’s rather a disputed aspect as it seems increasingly evident that it was never used. The Welsh language was deemed not to be the language of the state by the 1536 Act of Union, and was replaced with English.
Welsh continued to be spoken etc, (it was the language of the Church in Wales) and indeed the first schools in Wales used the Welsh language. The 1847 (i think) Inquiry of the State of Education in Wales - The Blue Books - deemed that it was the Welsh language and the non-conformist Chapel movement that had cased the Welsh people to be lascivious, immoral, simple and a cause of social inrest. As such, Welsh language education was stopped, and many of the people were encouraged to see the language as an obstacle - the only way to improve themselves eductaionally and socially was to abandon it, and ‘buy-in’ to the Empire, as English woul improve even the lowliest of lives. The report rally created a divide in the nation; people argue that immigration to the Coal Field caused the language to decline, but this just isn’t true when you look at the census data. The langaueg declined in those area a good few years after the surge (and the majority of those moving into the areas learned Welsh as it was the language of the mines). Welsh was just seen as a problem, but this opinion was arrived at due to manipulation by Westminster….
(end of sermon….)