English Die Soon

Hear, hear! Darren and hear, hear! Mr. Hanscombe. Beautiful.

I have a couple of reactions to Analee's essay:

1) I would not call Chinese "popular" simply because so many people speak it. If it were so easy to pick up, we'd be learning Chinese instead of the other way around. Thus, I would not lift it into a grammatically "higher" category just because it doesn't use tenses in the same way (I have a degree in Chinese language by the way, so I do know what I'm talking about).

2) I agree language always changes over time, and that you can't really dictate that change. However, I think we can certainly agree that it isn't evolving, but devolving. The more we speak with our thumbs by texting, the less we will be willing, and eventually able, to say. We've become an incredible shallow species.

APOLOGIES - I'M AN I.T.INCOMPETENT: HERE'S THE CONTINUATION

By the 19th Century improved transport and communication meant the sparsely populated Australian continent (which had been settled fairly recently) was able to eliminate virtually all regional spoken differences as well. Class differences continued, but by the second half of the 20th Century these too were becoming less significant. Australia had achieved a degree of standardisation earlier educationists would have seen as a utopian dream.

It was advances in technology which made all this possible, and the result was viewed in positive terms --- until recently.

What changed? We became obsessed with “progressive” notions that all language forms "had to be" equal. This at the very point in History where we were better placed than ever before (thanks to modern technology) to slow down the drift apart the different forms English waqs taking --- the same sort of drift which caused Latin to become a dead language. This "progressive" approach has led to an increasing uncertainty about what the words we say and write mean; but this loss continues to be defended on the spurious grounds that it's what is “supposed” to happen with a "living" language.

Fortunately this approach isn’t adopted in medicine, or we’d have “progressive” doctors singing the praises of cancer cells. After all, cancer cells are living cells, so although the rapid changes associated with them may lead to the patient's earlier death, we mustn’t attempt to slow down the living process, must we? We have to encourage this living growth, with the same enthusiasm “progressive” educationists (sic) now show for rapid (un-necessary) changes to the living English language.

There’s a growing number of people like Analee who reject the importance of high-level language skills; but for anyone hoping to go beyond understanding pumpkin pie recipes, high-level language is important. Our Latter Day flight from excellence in language is part of the reason so many students nowadays need lowered standards if they are to ‘pass’ their various courses. Of course English is and always has been a living, changing language; but our current obsession with speeding up the process has a negative effect on our ability to think --- and it isn't necessary.

In modern times, one of the English Language’s finest features was the manner in which it standardised so much of its form, and developed a logically consistent grammar. It’s true the spelling might be simpler than it is, but even our weird spelling sometimes adds to the richness of English. The success of English lay in the fact that the standards it developed made it an ideal tool for the production of both high-level literature, and the undertaking of high-level analysis.

Not everyone was able to cope fully with the language’s more demanding features --- but those who could benefited immensely. Even those who lacked the ability and/or interest to take on its more demanding features still had a language suitable for their ordinary needs, including a reliable means of communicating with fellow speakers of English.

I’d suggest that's a lot to lose --- especially when it's being lost at a far faster rate than is necessary. Until technological innovations such as printing helped standardise the written word, a common, reasonably stable written language wasn’t possible for the Germanic tribes which settled the relatively small land of England. Those early technological breakthroughs made a coherent, consistent written language a reality.

By the 19th Century improvements in transport and communication meant the sparsely populated Australian continent (which had been settled fai

Maybe your friend wouldn't laugh at your sparkling word play,except out of politeness,anyway. Your selfless relinquishing of the English language to some future utopian Babel is touching but simplistic. Language is more than just communication. It helps to dictate the depth of that communication. Who cares if we can converse with a more diverse and greater community if the conversation isn't worth having?