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askchapo @hexbear.net
glimmer_twin [he/him] @hexbear.net

Are all languages equally dialectically malleable?

I remember reading once about a movement trying to keep French from evolving (lol). And I’ve been thinking about how we have old English and Middle English and modern English, and how to someone living in the grey area they wouldn’t have known they were living in a time of their language being revolutionised (?). Or maybe people did? I’m not a linguist lol.

But yeh it got me thinking, is English a language that is particularly in flux compared to say, Korean? If it is, what makes a language more or less fast in its development over time? More or less insular/isolated societies of speakers must enter into it I guess?

I dunno I guess I’m just shooting the shit because I find language interesting. Let’s talk about interesting linguistic things. I swear I am not high.

8 comments

  • Something changes once a language is standardized, and that standardizationis malleable in direct relation to how important the "standardized language" is to the current culture.

    Like Vampire said, Standard Arabic is very conservative because the Quran is considered holy only in the form of standardized Quranic arabic. So, you can see Modern Standard Arabic as being a ship with an anchor in the Quranic language and thus moving very little.

    Regarding many European Languages, there was a standardization around the time of the protestant reformation because of the translating of the bible into languages. The example I'm most familiar with is the Dutch/German separation based on 2 major translations done in the area near Amsterdam and in the highlands of the German south. Translators were the closest thing to modern linguists, and attempted to find the most broadly understandable way to write something (with, of course, class differences and such taken into account). And people became grouped geographically by which translation they could understand well enough. To extend the anchor metaphor, this bible translation was similar to the Quran but without the specific necessity for not changing. So it had a braking effect with regards to diverging linguistic trends, but can't really be called an anchor.

    I'm sure some people understood that this was an interesting development, where they were not only expected to do simple trading/travel across a Sprachbund, but were expected to understand writing and complex concepts in a specific wording. The consequences of that might not have been fully realized. That is a super interesting thing that I want to study a bit into.

    English had Shakespeare as possibly the biggest braking trend in the past 300 years (up until WW2). I find it really interesting to try to analyze how much English has changed after becoming the Lingua Franca of most of the world relative to before that. Does being spoken broadly cause converging or diverging change? I assume is has a strong converging element, but does that converged lanuage also change faster (think of spreading of memes)?

    idk if i gave any answers, but I also love thinking about this

  • Conservative is the word you're looking for.

    Icelandic is very conservative. Standard Arabic is kept conservative partly by the Quran.

    One way to measure the speed of change is with a Swadesh list.

  • The fewer speakers a language has, the faster it's likely to evolve. More widespread languages can undergo pronunciation changes, but the core vocabulary stays pretty fixed.

    • I don't agree with this.

      Icelandic and Lithuanian are small language-communities. Those are just two data tho; a statistical study would be needed to determine is community size relates to conservativism. I might do a literature search later.

8 comments