Is English bound for extinction?

[gsdx]

I don't know if this is happening in other languages as well (somehow I don't think it is), but English has changed so drastically over the past few years that I believe it will become an extinct language and an entirely new language will be created.

(Noah Webster must be rolling over in his grave!)

Your thoughts?

 

[bander66]

As a Linguist student might I just say that languages are ALWAYS changing. Once they stop changing then they "die."

 

[pocono]

English is forever changing....

Think about how some of America's founding documents (Declaration of Independence etc...) are written. They use phrases we would never use today. Add to that all the new words that get developed and English is in good shape.

If you like change...English is your language. If you like stability.....go with Latin!

 

[gsdx]

Think about how some of America's founding documents (Declaration of Independence etc...) are written.

Yes, but this is 2 centuries later. And the English back then isn't the same English written by William Shakespeare.

But look how fast and how drastically English has changed since cell phones and text messaging became popular. I'm 57 years old. I've never had the need for an English translator until now.

English isn't changing. It's transforming into another language entirely.

 

[EwanSF]

Yes, but this is 2 centuries later. And the English back then isn't the same English written by William Shakespeare.

But look how fast and how drastically English has changed since cell phones and text messaging became popular. I'm 57 years old. I've never had the need for an English translator until now.

English isn't changing. It's transforming into another language entirely.

Couldn't disagree more. English has been constantly changing since it could be considered English. Certainly, dialects come and go (the one I speak only really developing at the end of the 19th century, for example,) but as far as I can see, English is here to stay.

 

[Alphus]

I don't mind languages changing, but there are times where I just can't stand it. I'm not sure if the following actually fits this particular thread, but I'll go for it anyway.

For example, I saw a news report where "w00t" was now going to be in the dictionary. That... was just a new low for me, personally, and before that it was ginormous--as if we needed yet another word to describe something big, but to combine "enormous" and "gigantic" into some new twisted concotion? No. Just no.

I love to write, and I think I'm quite proficient with English. But to have numbers (yes, exactly like that) now entering the language? I'm afraid that anything I write in the future for publishing (which I do intend to) will fail because people don't understand what, I guess I can call "Extended English" is or how to read it. A bit dramatic, I know, but it's to bring a point across.

I'm already annoyed that "lol omg wat r u ^ 2" and lines like that slip into so many text-based sources it's becoming rediculous. I get for texting and whatnot, you want to be short and fast but that's no excuse for handwriting letters, official documents, and various other means. Even on IM, I don't put up with anyone like that because I just am that bothered by it.

Hell, people who don't have English as their first language do better spelling and grammer than some of the teens coming out of middle and high school now, and that really saddens me. I remember I once had a teacher complain about how some essays were being returned to her with 1337 spelling. Nothing wrong with evolution, it happens all around us, but it's pathetic at how some lines are just crossed (at least how I see it). I'm not saying I don't do it; lol, rofl, and some other similar things I'll admit to doing, but if I'm talking to someone about anything, even the simplest of things, I spell out properly. On a side note, another reason why I love English: It's so flexible, there's so many ways to write the same thing.

new4y, i g2g kthnx bai.

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

Hell, people who don't have English as their first language do better spelling and grammer than some of the teens coming out of middle and high school now, and that really saddens me.

 

[martin6]

I'm already annoyed that "lol omg wat r u ^ 2" and lines like that slip into so many text-based sources it's becoming rediculous.

Hell, people who don't have English as their first language do better spelling and grammer than some of the teens coming out of middle and high school now, and that really saddens me.

I normally don't care about these things, but the fact that you misspelled "ridiculous" and "grammar" in your rant about using good English made me smile.

 

[Alphus]

Meh, I typed to fast... although probably not the best time for that to have happened. Case in point though, you still understood what I meant quite clearly.

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

Meh, I typed to fast... although probably not the best time for that to have happened.

The irony was more delicious than Gramma's red velvet cake.

Case in point though, you still understood what I meant quite clearly.

It's all good, I'm not gonna serve you divorce papers over it.....YET!

 

[Sinister Dexter]

As a Linguist student might I just say that languages are ALWAYS changing. Once they stop changing then they "die."

As a fellow linguistics student I have to agree. Languages that are in use don't tend to up and die, but they are more likely to change. I am young, so that may be part of my bias, but I'm really excited about what the internet has done to our language. There have been times in history when making up words was celebrated (Shakespeare anyone?) - it seems like we're moving closer to an era like that and I think it will be a lot of fun.

 

[bluepheonix]

But nobody cares. *sniff* English is "ongoing" to hell in a handbasket, and if the ground wasn't frozen with three feet of snow on it, I'd go out back and eat worms.

I object to the incorrect use of ongoing in this sentence, in common parlance I would say ongoing acts as an adjective not a verb (to ongoing; doesnt make sense, it is ongoing...). Therefore English's voyage to hell in a handbasket could be ongoing, but English could not be ongoing to hell in a handbasket.

And the English back then isn't the same English written by William Shakespeare.

I reassert Sinisters point on shakespeare, half of the words he used he made up anyway, the English shakespeare used was not the english that existed just before shakespeare. To be perfectly honest I am quite happy we have stripped forsooth from common usage.

 

[belamy]

English is forever changing....

Think about how some of America's founding documents (Declaration of Independence etc...) are written. They use phrases we would never use today. Add to that all the new words that get developed and English is in good shape.

If you like change...English is your language. If you like stability.....go with Latin!

Go with Sanskrit: (written) classical Latin was never officially a language of its own, it's a language by the mere fact of having been fossilized in documents, while Sanskrit was consciously preserved in a particular form (as far as that is possible) because of the mystical value associated with that form, and anything beyond that was already called Prakrit, and then Hindi and Marathi and...
If you want to speak modern Latin speak Spanish: it's the Romance language which is closer to Latin. And this is modern "classical Latin" literature (Spanish XVIIth century): http://es.wikisource.org/wiki/Fábula_de_Polifemo_y_Galatea

Like they say, a language is a dialect with an army and a navy: there's no "objective, scientific and substantial way" of determining what is and where begins and ends a language; the Beowulf is considered English and not "Anglo-Saxon", and Italian and Spanish languages and not dialects like the languages called "dialects" of Chinese only because of the particular way they are considered in relation to a particular cultural area and its historical heritage.

Fifty years is enough for a language to "transform in something (noticeably) different". Heck, English is a language that could become totally incomprehensible at a distance of fifty damn yards

 

[Paws]

Your thoughts?

Your retarded you should of GTFO!!!111

 

[Ram]

I don't know if this is happening in other languages as well (somehow I don't think it is), but English has changed so drastically over the past few years that I believe it will become an extinct language and an entirely new language will be created.

(Noah Webster must be rolling over in his grave!)

Your thoughts?

Examples of such changes, please.

I don't consider text talk to be "new" English. It's technologically friendly, "convenient" English, but certainly not "new" English.

 

[biguy732]

I believe that English is evolving - perhaps not in the way that you would like. And, yes I believe that the text messaging has a great deal to do with this. But also think about this, many of us speak and write in English - however some of don't have a clue about what the other person just wrote. And the reason for that is simple - look at the English used in the USA, United Kingdom, and Australia. Some people post things and I have to google the saying to figure out what they are talking about.
So, no, I don't think it is going to extinction, but just evolving and unfortunately we are moving more and more to monosyllabic grunts (i.e. text messages).

 

[thermodynamics]

Languages will always change. If you want a static language, try Latin.

I think what's happening is that we're seeing two or now three "tiers" of formality in the English language. It used to be strictly formal. But now we have informal, and in the last 10 years, texting has brought us another tier--super informal. I think people using "best practices" will always use formal English for official documents, and anything where you want to look good. There have been and always will be people who use the incorrect tier for the purpose.

 

[Shepherd 2]

A language that does not change is a dead language. Yet the proficiency of people today in English speaking countries is way down, and suprisingly it is in part related to computers, keyboarding and the failure to write manually and regularly in complete sentences.

Shep+

 

[unclaimedblessing]

I read somewhere that France and Spain periodically hold conferences to purify and standardize their respective languages.
To the best of my knowledge no English speaking countries do that.

 

[Lukeee]

vwfvgh hwn, hnfouat tyhasl yu'vg yth houyert htwerewy lllearte?

tyoooergn yae, yoerutr, yaour, yphjert!

HAHAHAHAHAH! Ylrtj! Awhn.

*uotshr fh pva*

Is that Welsh?