learned both English and Dutch from reading 1940s comic books
I'm thinking of learning French and Spanish that way, since there are many great comics from both those language groups that are untranslated.
and no one will understand what someone else is saying,
Well, you know, that's kind of the point.
What happens is that we create what I term 'language sub-ghettos' which defines which peer group we belong to.
(1)Language mutates, which is something I love about language.
(2)Can anybody explain to me how 'So Long!' substitutes for 'Goodbye!' What exactly does it mean?]
But the language is healthier than you think. while Millennials in Western countries definitely have a problem,
in countries where 'English' - and we should probably stop calling it that - is a second language, it is a language of power and also evolving within national sub-groups. It is the universal language of commerce and I believe Engineering. Computing and IT? (3)I am led to believe that in certain circles in German society, English is pretty much the primary language.
Check out how many new words dictionary compilers like Oxford and Cambridge add to the lexicon every 12 months or so.
Mind you (4)they have also been changing the traditional definitions of some common words, but that's another story.
Cheers!
(1) I have no problem with the concept of language changing over time. New inventions need names, and verbs of using those inventions, and doing something that has never been done before are needed. Even some new ways of thinking can lead to new concepts. Old ways of doing things stop existing. Describing those things in precise terms may not be so important any more.
My problems with the destruction of old terms, sayings, and ways of description are losing terms that describe things or concepts in detail, when we need to be able to articulate those differences in today's World, so that there is good understanding between people, which will ensure less misunderstandings, which can lead to problems and strife. English (due to its having four major source languages (Anglo-Saxon, Old Church Latin, Danish, and Norman French) is extremely rich in descriptive vocabulary, which has been adapted to be able to distinguish many more varying degrees of difference than most other major languages, and gives it several different ways of getting across a single idea, than, for example, a language with an extremely limited vocabulary, such as Norwegian. It's incredible how much more (relatively) sophisticated Danish is than Norwegian, merely because Denmark conquered and occupied Jutland, and absorbed many thousands of Angles (North Frisians), and Jutes, two Plattdeutsch (Low German)-speaking tribes, into their society; and in learning their newly adopted national tongue, they brought into it 539 new West Germanic vocabulary words. Those added words, instead of meaning exactly what the equivalent Danishh words meant, were amended to mark gradations of degree of value of the meaning of the word, providing a new way to express a concept which was not able to be expressed before in a single word, but only with a cumbersome phrase of several words.
Because of laziness, wanting to do everything super-quickly because of lack of attention span or an irrational desire to save time to use for favourite pursuits, many old words are dropping out of the language that are still relevant to today's World, by helping understanding in communication. I can tell you that I grew up mainly with people 2 and 3 generations before mine, and like Carl Barks, I am more at home with the Canadian/US English of 1890-1940 than from the era of my own adulthood. My pet peeve is when words used to describe a concept are dropped from the language, and there is no replacement for them, but people might still want to talk about that subject because, even if what is being describe doesn't happen anymore, explaining that history may be helpful to allow current youth to understand their history, or what is happening today that is analogous.
A good example of that is the term "cover" used to describe when a singer records a song that was a hit on the radio or in some form of medium in the past. The original meaning of that, particular use of the term was a covering up (smothering or squelching) of the access to hear the original version, and from that, its popularity, and in so doing, to result in stealing the sales of records from the original, to the benefit of the purveyor of the newer version. The origin of that practise was in USA, when Rhythm and Blues music from The African-American community was first recorded by small, independent record companies, mainly owned by Caucasian entrepeneurs, who noticed a niche in the potential market for music from The Black Community, because the latter finally had some discretionary money to spend, over and above that needed to meet their survival needs, because those who were soldiers in wartime earned decent money, and those men that didn't serve worked in the war industries' factories, as did most of the women. Soon after the Caucasian teenagers heard that music, they started to like it. The major record companies, with their greater cash reserves, marketing and distribution channels, could take better advantage of that by copying the same songs that were R&B hits, using Caucasian artists, and not only sell to teens who would have a hard time hearing that music on the low wattage short-distance ghetto radio coverage, but also were told by their parents not to listen to that "Devil's Music". So, the Caucasian Cover versions generally sold much, much more than the original R&B versions, and African-American artists who had a new hit burgeoning, often had its progress slowed to a trickle, when the lazier Caucasian teens, who didn't want to take the extra effort to find the original version in a ghetto record shop, and didn't want to hide it from their parents for fear of being punished, and losing it anyway, chose to buy the watered-down version.
All through the 1950s through the 1970s, we had words for a new recording by someone of an old song: (Remake), and the covering up of a burgeoning potential hit song: (Cover). The two words had very different meanings, and even though Remake was dropped out of the language in the early 1980s, and Cover then was changed to mean what Remake had before, leaving no word for expressing the concept of a Cover, (which most often had at least a short-term or several year negative effect on the livelihood of the original artist and independent record company), people might want to express that concept to people today, because the principles to be learned by understanding those historical circumstances still have relevance today.
A similar situation, although less drastic to this point, is occurring in Dutch language today. I just don't want to have my primary languages become simpler and simpler, and thus, less able to express and convey meaning to those with whom we are attempting to communicate.
One might suppose that The Inuits in Canada and Greenland don't need 750 words for types of snow and ice, now that most of them live in wood houses in towns. But, I wonder about that.
(2) As far as I know, So Long, for us always meant "Enjoy the best of good luck and good health during the entire period (however long) between when we part now and when we again see each other!"
(3) WOW!!!! That is really shocking!!! When I first visited Germany in the 1950s as a child, from The Netherlands NOBODY spoke English. Not even in their tourist industry! When I first returned as an adult in 1964, ONLY a few of the bigger tourist kiosks and absolute main tourist sites had maybe one person who could only speak a little bit of English. Virtually NO ONE of the basic population spoke English. Lots more people spoke French, and they hated The French. How far they have come!!! Thanks to computers, and the language of computers and instructions for them. AMAZING!!! Even in the 1980s and 1990s if you resided there and didn't speak German you were lost! You couldn't function. Luckily, when I lived mainly in Bremen for 6 years during the 1990s, and my Hochdeutsch (Standard German)wasn't all that good, I could lapse into Plattdeutsch(as Dutch is, more or less a western dialect of Low German, and reasonably close), and make myself understood, as most of the people I knew had grandparents who spoke their local Low German dialect. Despite my being among all university educated people, most of them spoke virtually NO English at all (having had maybe 2 years of classes in school, but no practical experience), and the few, who could speak a little, didn't want to, because they were embarrassed at how poor a level it was.
(4) Changing the traditional meanings of old words was covered in my comment on #1, related to changing the meaning of "cover" to take the place of remake.
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Topic: How Times Have Changed! (Read 4520 times)
