6.1

Is language getting worse?

In this research assignment I want to find the answer to the question: is the English language actually getting worse? Mainly people of age tent to claim that the language used in media and informal conversations is getting worse. They mostly blame it on younger generations and the influences of other languages.

The reason that I choose this topic, was because I read myth 3 (the media are ruining English) in Language Myths. I found it funny to read that this debate, whether language is getting worse or not, has been going on for ages. Basically since the beginning of language itself!

 

The beginning of language

To better understand the meaning of language and to see if language can in fact get worse, we will first take a look at the beginning of language. Animals can only communicate immediate issues, for example when they’re hungry or when they are threatened. There are different theories of how language came to be. One of them is the theory that language started as our human ancestors made sounds like crying out and grunting, eventually this developed in the language we use nowadays. Another theory is that language started out as sign language and eventually developed into speech.[1]

 

Criticism

In 1908 writer Thomas Lounsbury said that people must try their best to safe the English language from destruction, this is one of the examples of complains that people had (and still have!) on language development.

Media like television, radio and newspapers have been widely criticized as linguistic criminals, according to Jean Aitchison. Journalists were regarded as linguistic troublemakers, because they supposedly would have used a lot of “popular language errors” which resulted in the language errors becoming accepted by society. In the beginning of the 20^th century many young parents were horrified by the simplified use of English on the radio, to which their children listened. The parents believed that their children would pick up these words and that their vocabulary would be ruined.

A popular example that leads to discussion is “You and I” vs “You and me”. Throughout time the correct use changed a few times. Shakespeare used “you and I”, even though most people would have said “you and me”.  This has led to a lot of discussion, but there isn’t one correct answer, because language changes all the time.

When we go back to the journalists, we see that some people tent to say that journalists do not pay enough attention to the detail of language. According to Aitchison, this is untrue on closer inspection. Once again, because people are blind for the fact that language changes constantly. Until the 1960’s people believed that language changed slowly. Nowadays, we know that languages changed rapidly, all the time. One of the reasons why language changes so fast, is because we are able to talk to people who live on the other side of the globe 24 hours a day! We are able to inform one another about the latest words all the time. This is a reason why language, or slang, spreads as fast as it does.

Americanisms

Another troublemaker in the “traditional” British English language is the phenomenon of “Americanism”. Originally, Americanisms were things that were found in the Americas by British colonists or settlers. Americanism as the language term was firstly introduced around the 1930’s, when the first Hollywood movies came to the big screens in Great-Britain. British people, especially the youngsters, wanted to sound exactly like the movie stars (or, film stars) that were featured in the blockbusters. These days, some people see Americanisms as a improvement of the British language, others see it as a horrible disease for the Queen’s language.

One of the people that are pro-Americanisms, is language expert Lane Green. Green is an American who’s currently living in London, he is especially interested in the history of words. Since he’s been living in London for quite a while, he grew custom to British-English slang, such as “boozer” (pub) and “motor” (car). Green often hears British people complain about the amount of American words that creep into the British language.

On the other hand, we have the anti-Americanisms group. Someone who’s strongly against the use of American words in the British language, is British writer Matthew Engel. He believes that the use of American words will give the American language, and therefore America itself, an even more dominant role in the (English speaking) world. In the opinion of Engel, will the world of language become fairly boring if all the speeches sound the same.

If we look critically at the use of Americanisms, can we say that they in fact are trashing the British language? According to Green, the answer is no.

Words like “faucet”, “mad” and “diaper”, typically American words, are in fact Middle English words that were first introduced around the 1400! The same thing goes for the word “sidewalk” which was used in Britain back in 1800 to describe the footpath by the Westminster Bridge.

 

Matthew Engel believes that when words emigrate to America, they should stay there. “If someone who’s ancestors emigrated to America centuries ago, they can’t turn up at Heathrow and say ‘I’m British, let me in’,” thus Engel.

 

Then again, Green claims that the British language is in a good, healthy shape and that it is only natural for languages to change and evolve all the time. In conclusion, Americanisms don’t “trash” British English, in fact they enrich them.[2]

 

Evolution

 

When we go back to the history of language, we can see that historians and linguistics have discovered that in the early days of immigration when groups of people that spoke the same language split up, they split up in smaller tribes. These tribes travelled on and separated from the main group. Because these tribes separated, did they also become isolated from each other. This means that the same language that was spoken by the two different groups, now develops in two different ways. The two groups, that had different living conditions (you can think of factors such as food, neighbours and enemies) from one another for centuries, now developed their own language. This language has completely different spelling and grammar rules than the language from the other group. These groups continued to divide into smaller groups, each developing its own, new language. Languages that are related are called “language families”, an example of such a family are the Germanic languages. Languages included in this family are German, Dutch and English, they can all be traced back to Germanic.

The point of this short history lesson, is that language has been evolving even since it started. These days, we can hardly imagine Luxembourgish or German being related to English, but they are. This is one of the many examples of how different languages that are related to each other, can develop.[3]

 

Conclusion

People have always been complaining about the decay of the English language, which in fact never happened. The studies used in this essay have shown that language has changed ever since it first came into existence, just look at the example with the language families. People believed for a long time that the change of language was a slow progress, but because of social media and globalisation we now know that language changes constantly. In summarization; people who complain that the English language is getting worse, aren’t right. If language wasn’t supposed to change, then we would still only grunt or scream at one another. This, luckily, isn’t the reality.

The next time someone tells you that the media are ruining English, just tell them that the English language isn’t getting worse, it is just evolving!

 

 

 

[1] Source: Evolution of language https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTJFghkLdhY

[2] Source: Are Americans trashing the English language? | The Economist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-WJVDDZTFY

[3] Source: How language evolves https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWDKsHm6gTA