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How Language Correlates to It's Respective Society


alexander

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I analyze, hopefully through my many posts it has become clear just how much i tend to analyze, any and every topic, and sometimes i come to random conclusions, but i really dont think they are not based on real evidence. So in this thread i really wanted to talk about the correlation between a language and the society that it is used in.

 

From knowing a few languages and a couple of cultures, some things kind of jump out as you start looking into how a language fits the society. You may not think that it does, but I truly suggest you think about the aspects or rules of a language and it's application and once you correlate it to the daily activities and do so for multiple countries and regions, as a pattern emerges.

 

Take some aspects of Russian for example, a language with strictly defined rules, but the rules have many exclusions and irregularities, every one of which is the right way to do something for a particular situation or a verb, or a tense, or a subject. And those are also well-defined, thus you will be corrected if you say something that follows a rule's irregularity rule incorrectly.

 

Similarly with the Russian way of life and politics, there are many laws defined, and situations described in contracts, but Russian way is to immediately try to find irregularities and exclusions to the rules and abuse them to the max. Similarly to the society, everything that stands out from the norm has to either stand on its own and stay quiet, or has to fit into the norm of life. This is the reason everyone is taught how to write with their right hand, and why any movements away from the direction of the majority have to keep quiet and at times secretive, to not be noticed and pass by the main "Ruledar" (a device used to measure the following of rules)

 

Now lets discuss American English, american english is a language of a few rules, compared to other languages. And even those rules are merely guidelines that you can follow to sound correct, but really you can live your life just sticking to some direction, and still be perceived correct. Daz why settn'ses liek dis dunn not make no sense, and this does not bother anyone because it still gets the general point across.

 

This reflects in the society how? Well, while there are some norms, standing out is merely the show of the individuality, thus being normal is all about not being like others. As long as you go with the general direction of living, while someone may not understand you and the principals, they really dont care, as long as you dont touch them in any way. Laws, hell, law system reflects these traits as well, rules are written, broken, changed, broken, overruled, precedented, overruled, and noone knows what is right to begin with.

 

Finally i will finish with using this pattern (which i have tracked in the french and spanish societies, brittain and more, and some other slavic-like/based societies, like polland, ukraine, belarus, etc), it's not a pattern until it makes a careful but checkable prediction.

 

I have been meaning to study Japanese for a very long time, but i still know little about it, so i will use their society to try to predict the structures of the language. Firstly, the japanese society is based on tradition and definitiveness, if something has been decided once, that is the way it is. You dont dare to cross it, this is evident when you watch movies and shows that shows daily life in Japan. In japan you wouldn't dare to cross an empty street in the middle of the night without a green light. Why? that's the way it is, you would just feel wrong and unprotected somehow, because no japanese person would do it. You are to be correct all the time, there is a specific etiquete to follow, you have to know it and follow it to be welcome in Japanese society. You have to meet a certain way for the situation, you have to leave a certain way, you have to do everything a certain way or you are wrong and you will likely be misunderstood and/or corrected.

 

Prediction of a language that is based in such society is simple enough, Japanese has to be a language that follows a strict structure. You do something a certain way because the rule says so, and there is no other right way. As is japan the language should be a mix of cultures, but an old mix of cultures that has had time to blend together into one...

 

Anyhow, sharing some random thoughts, hopefully someone would like to post on their language echo in their society and we can discuss this if you guys choose to.

 

Hope you enjoy :confused:

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Though I don't know if what you're saying is conclusive, it is an interesting idea none the less. But you would have to show if any real correlation exists between ones language and how the society functions. Sociology is a hard field to make any definite claims in anyway, because there may be a bit of cultural relativism, at least with this example.

Now lets discuss American English, american english is a language of a few rules, compared to other languages. And even those rules are merely guidelines that you can follow to sound correct, but really you can live your life just sticking to some direction, and still be perceived correct. Daz why settn'ses liek dis dunn not make no sense, and this does not bother anyone because it still gets the general point across.

In terms of syntax, English has just as many 'rules' as other languages, generally speaking. It seems like the kind of rules you are referring to are prescriptive rules, and how they are dealt with in a given society. Prescriptive grammar rules tell how a language should be spoken, and not how it truly is spoken by its users. The problem with prescriptive grammar rules is that they are mostly arbitrary. However, if you are referring to a language's syntax, you will have to show how that reflects ones society, and I'm not sure how it would do so.

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Alexander,

 

There is an American English that has as many rules as any other language. There is also a lot of slang. There are a few dialects and several versions of American English that are possibly dialect but probably strong regional variations.

 

I'm sure you already know the style guides, but just in case, I'll suggest a few. Sometimes I use Chicago style, The Chicago Manual of Style Online. It is meant mostly for scholarly writing. I learned AP style, AP Stylebook Online [2009], when I wrote for newspapers. My favorite stylebook, though, is Strunk and White, Strunk & White Summary. Unfortunately, the full text of Strunk and White is not available online. That is unfortunate because one of the authors, E.B. White, was a humorist, so the book is very entertaining. I do not know which rules are used for scientific writing. Could anybody help me with that?

 

My own style is an internalized amalgamation of the three sources listed above, depending on the type of writing required at the moment. I do not vary from the amalgamation except for emphasis or humor--or by mistake.

 

Now lets discuss American English, american english is a language of a few rules, compared to other languages. And even those rules are merely guidelines that you can follow to sound correct, but really you can live your life just sticking to some direction, and still be perceived correct.

 

(There are two comma splices in those sentences, the "a" before few is superfluous and misleading, the clause "you can live your life just sticking to some direction" is awkward, and beginning a sentence with "and" would not be acceptable for publication.)

 

I would suggest that Americans do encounter the rules of language. For example, they encounter them in newspapers every day. They also encounter violations of those rules in those newspapers every day, but those violations are not intentional. They are sloppy editing.

 

If your contact with American English is entirely online, I can understand how you would get an impression that American English has no rules. You must remember that forums, including this one, are open to everyone and accept all posts regardless of their adherence to the rules. I have complained about that many times, but I understand the openness of the moderators to ideas, no matter how poorly expressed. (The "that" in the previous sentence has an unclear antecedent.)

 

At the beginning of "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," Mark Twain writes ("writes" is past progressive tense) the following "Explanatory:"

 

 

In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect; the ordinary "Pike County" dialect; and four modified varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by guesswork; but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech.

 

I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and not succeeding.

 

 

It is also a mistake to suppose that people who blog are representative of what is acceptable in American English.

 

--lemit

 

p.s. The possessive of "it" does not have an apostrophe.

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I would suggest that Americans do encounter the rules of language. For example, they encounter them in newspapers every day. They also encounter violations of those rules in those newspapers every day, but those violations are not intentional. They are sloppy editing.
I do not know which rules are used for scientific writing. Could anybody help me with that?

Every understandable sentence is one that conforms to the syntax of its language. It seems you are committing the same prescriptive misapplication of rules as the OP. The 'rules' you are talking about are arbitrary rules of correctness. However, the rules that are used in style guides seem to omit or restrict the syntactic guidlines that are actually used in language. The fact that style guides are constantly changing reflects their arbitrary nature. Plus, style guides apply less to spoken language, as they are used mainly for continuity in writing.

There is an American English that has as many rules as any other language. There is also a lot of slang. There are a few dialects and several versions of American English that are possibly dialect but probably strong regional variations.

It may not seem like it, but slang used in regional dialects is considered to have its own grammatical rules that the speakers use (perhaps unknowingly). Even 'African-American Vernacular' has its own grammatical patterning.

We are talking about two different kinds of grammar here. Syntax in linguistics has been grossly misconstrued by 'classroom grammar' -- the kind that nit-picks misplaced modefiers & comma splices. It doesn't matter where you put a period or where quotation marks go or what you capitalize in a spoken sentence, as these rules do not apply. Syntax rules are (more) universal and can be applied to languages that don't have a written system.

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Miranda,

 

Wow!

 

It looks like my fears in (of,for,?) having a linguist around have been realized.

 

But seriously, thanks for the corrections. I'll look forward to more in the future because, no matter how much information I might send, my goal is still to learn. Please continue to help me reach that goal.

 

--lemit

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But seriously, thanks for the corrections. I'll look forward to more in the future because, no matter how much information I might send, my goal is still to learn. Please continue to help me reach that goal.

No worries. We are all learning here.

:naughty:

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In terms of syntax, English has just as many 'rules' as other languages, generally speaking.

Personally i'd beg to differ, i know 3 languages, 2 i speak fluently (english and russian) and one i know enough to get me around (french), but not as much as i'd like, and i'm also familiar with structures of other languages (spanish, greek, some others). Of all, as far as language goes, english is among the languages with the fewest rules, there are still many, but comparatively to some other languages (french, spanish, russian, polish, icelandic) English has fewer rules. Besides that's not the point i was trying to make.

Edit:

It may not seem like it, but slang used in regional dialects is considered to have its own grammatical rules that the speakers use (perhaps unknowingly). Even 'African-American Vernacular' has its own grammatical patterning.

We are talking about two different kinds of grammar here. Syntax in linguistics has been grossly misconstrued by 'classroom grammar' -- the kind that nit-picks misplaced modefiers & comma splices. It doesn't matter where you put a period or where quotation marks go or what you capitalize in a spoken sentence, as these rules do not apply. Syntax rules are (more) universal and can be applied to languages that don't have a written system.

thank you for clarifying the point i was trying to make with the first part of this post, while i was being an idiot and thinking you didn't understand what i meant :naughty:

End Edit

 

There is an American English that has as many rules as any other language

Once again, i'd beg to differ, if you wanna try to convince me otherwise, draw a linguistic comparison between American English, French, Russian, Arabic and Japanese, i think you will soon realize the point i was trying to make.

 

(There are two comma splices in those sentences, the "a" before few is superfluous and misleading, the clause "you can live your life just sticking to some direction" is awkward, and beginning a sentence with "and" would not be acceptable for publication.)

You are starting to remind me of my English teachers, I dont have a need to write with grammatic accuracy to get my point across. While i full and well realize that most of the time i have problems with my writing, to me what matters much more is the idea of expressing my idea while i have a hold of it, so shush.

 

If your contact with American English is entirely online

I live in the US

 

"writes" is past progressive tense

Yes, but here is where you are not getting my point. The verb "to write" has only but a few forms

"write" present simple

"wites" present progressive

"wrote" past simple

"was writing" past progressive

"has written" present perfect simple

"has been writing" present perfect progressive

"had written" past perfect simple

"had been writing" past perfect progressive

"will write" future I simple

"will be writing" future I progressive

"will have written" future II simple

"will have been writing" future II progressive

"would write" conditional I simple

"would be writing" conditional I progressive

"would have written" conditional II simple

"would have been writing" conditional II progressive

 

Basically these are all the forms that this verb would be used in, and the only real "forms" of the verb are "write" "writes" "writing" and "written". Here's a comparison to Russian:

 

In Russian the verb write is "писать"

писать - present

 

пишу - present progressive own (as in "i am writing")

пишешь - present progressive you (single) (as in "you are writing")

пишем - present progressive we (as in "we are writing"

пишете - present progressive you (plural) (as in "you all are writing")

пишет - present progressive not own (as in he/she/it is "writing")

пишут - present progressive they (as in they are writing)

 

написать - present perfect simple

написал - present perfect own/he

написала - present perfect she

написало - present perfect it

написали - present perfect we/they

 

писал - past progressive he

писала - past progressive she

писало - past progressive it

писали - past progressive we/they

 

Past perfect when describing an action of an inanimate object

написан - past perfect as in it was written, addressing a male object, like a story, but not a fairy tale

написано - past perfect as in it was written down, addressing an object neither male nor female nature, such as a work (not every meaning of work actually applies here either)

написана - past perfect as in it was written down, addressing a single letter, or a female object, such as a novel or a book

написаны - past perfect as in they were written down, addressing a lot of letters, adressing a lot of books

 

написать - future perfect

напишу - future perfect own

напишешь - future perfect you (single)

напишем - future perfect we

напишете - future perfect you (plural)

напишет - future perfect he/she/it

напишут - future perfect they

 

писать - future progressive (the only real repeat so far)

 

(this didnt quite fit the english rules, or at least i could not find anything i can reference to you, so)

напиши - as in write down, when addressing someone (single)

напишите - as in write down, when addressing someone (plural or formal)

 

Lemit, it does not matter which language has more rules then the other, the point i am trying to make really pertains more to spoken language rather then published language, even though if we look at this point historically, writing is all we have for data; but for modern-day world i am really speaking more about spoken word, rather then written word anyways, and i think i should have clarified that from the get-go.

 

Furthermore, i would like to expand some thoughts and provide more clarification for others.

 

Firstly when i say society, i am really trying to describe it's particular locale, ofcourse since some people see a bit of sociology in this, and no i have never taken sociology, a culture of people that i call a particular locale of a society, actually includes traditions, language, history and many other aspects of life, they are all intimately tied together.

 

I am really talking more about the spoken word here, and i am not talking about micro locales and only individual groups of people, i am talking about spoken language for a rather large part of the population. In American English i am referring to Southern speak and the ghetto speak (otherwise relating to lower class (and once again don't nitpick terms here, trying the best i can) in urban and suburban populated areas). Those are both rather large chunks of the US population, or do you also disagree?

 

Another point i should make is that i think that language evolves with changes to the way of life of a locale. Thus giving us a formula that can approximately describe some aspects of life throughout history of people, only based on spoken or written material we can find at the time (very helpful if its material about local dialects by a linguist, but how much can we really ask for here?). In other words, from looking at the evolution of the language, we can approximately know the evolution of the locale, and visa versa, from the history of people we can approximate the changes in language that were most likely (some more likely then others) taking place, and while this does not give us really a starting point or a finishing point, it can really color in the mostly black and white picture of history, sometimes gaining us insight into people's minds (beliefs, goals, attitude, fears, etc).

 

Well, thats all i got for now...

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Another point i should make is that i think that language evolves with changes to the way of life of a locale. Thus giving us a formula that can approximately describe some aspects of life throughout history of people, only based on spoken or written material we can find at the time (very helpful if its material about local dialects by a linguist, but how much can we really ask for here?). In other words, from looking at the evolution of the language, we can approximately know the evolution of the locale, and visa versa, from the history of people we can approximate the changes in language that were most likely (some more likely then others) taking place, and while this does not give us really a starting point or a finishing point, it can really color in the mostly black and white picture of history, sometimes gaining us insight into people's minds (beliefs, goals, attitude, fears, etc).

I agree with what you say here, though I wish I had more evidence to back up this idea. A languages evolution is based on the usage of its speakers. If a language reflects the thoughts and beliefs of a society, then surely studying overall language evolution can reveal something about the history of a given culture. This is the fun of historical linguistics, with semantics and pragmatics thrown in there, too.

What other observations have you made?

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I'm glad you support that thought as well. That is really coming out of a conversation i had with someone, as i was trying to describe the points i was trying to make in the first post, and this person had the same problems Lemit did. Once we got beyond all that, since she took 4 years of sociology it i had to define to her what i mean by a society, thats when i came up with using locale to really narrow down the meaning of that term. But yeah it just came across as a realization, and that was quickly backed up by recalling some recent history (within last 3-400 years) of a few countries and collectively objectively looking at the direction of the language of the region and the direction of that locale of society.

 

So this next thought i've had is kind of a shot from the hip, this deals with the beauty of the language, dealing with cleanliness, the evolution of intonation, the elegance of the language with respect to the ease of life in a given region. Now, i am ofcourse not saying that in those regions life is and was easy or hard for people, every person, so don't nitpick, but i think as a general, life is easier in more prosperous regions that are not really engulfed in a lot of internal conflicts, where close societies industrialized and made life easier to live then in places where land is hard to work, industrialization is still not achieved, and people have a hard time living. I think that a language really evolves into a much cleaner version, a much more artistic form when the people stop having to worry about food for their family tomorrow. Working people have a tendency to use language for the purpose of communicating a request or a command to another person, this is true with farmers, wariors, etc, where you need to say something but it is short, no intonation, just really the use of language for its most basic use. When you stop having that need to communicate for the purpose of surviving, it seems that using the language in a much more social way in groups to exchange creative ideas and explain abstraction, makes the language develop curves, makes it flow better, makes it sound much more well-rounded and makes it easier to express oneself in. And also dont take this as in industrialization does this, it is evident when people really start gathering in larger groups and forming much more complex society. Also this may be connected to regions, so where French was developing in a lush climate where plants grow well and people started gathering in large towns with structure to ease their lifestyles, Arabic language developed in a land that is basically a desert, with mountains that stick through like spikes, with civilization centered around sources of water, and in a hostile region commonly shattered by conflicts and waring people...

 

How would you take to this idea?

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I'm glad you support that thought as well. That is really coming out of a conversation i had with someone, as i was trying to describe the points i was trying to make in the first post, and this person had the same problems Lemit did. Once we got beyond all that, since she took 4 years of sociology it i had to define to her what i mean by a society, thats when i came up with using locale to really narrow down the meaning of that term. But yeah it just came across as a realization, and that was quickly backed up by recalling some recent history (within last 3-400 years) of a few countries and collectively objectively looking at the direction of the language of the region and the direction of that locale of society.

 

So this next thought i've had is kind of a shot from the hip, this deals with the beauty of the language, dealing with cleanliness, the evolution of intonation, the elegance of the language with respect to the ease of life in a given region. Now, i am ofcourse not saying that in those regions life is and was easy or hard for people, every person, so don't nitpick, but i think as a general, life is easier in more prosperous regions that are not really engulfed in a lot of internal conflicts, where close societies industrialized and made life easier to live then in places where land is hard to work, industrialization is still not achieved, and people have a hard time living. I think that a language really evolves into a much cleaner version, a much more artistic form when the people stop having to worry about food for their family tomorrow. Working people have a tendency to use language for the purpose of communicating a request or a command to another person, this is true with farmers, wariors, etc, where you need to say something but it is short, no intonation, just really the use of language for its most basic use. When you stop having that need to communicate for the purpose of surviving, it seems that using the language in a much more social way in groups to exchange creative ideas and explain abstraction, makes the language develop curves, makes it flow better, makes it sound much more well-rounded and makes it easier to express oneself in. And also dont take this as in industrialization does this, it is evident when people really start gathering in larger groups and forming much more complex society. Also this may be connected to regions, so where French was developing in a lush climate where plants grow well and people started gathering in large towns with structure to ease their lifestyles, Arabic language developed in a land that is basically a desert, with mountains that stick through like spikes, with civilization centered around sources of water, and in a hostile region commonly shattered by conflicts and waring people...

 

How would you take to this idea?

 

I think it's a wonderful idea. We always accept without question the idea that art, music, and even literature reflect the world in which they are formed. So, why wouldn't the building material of literature--language--also reflect the world in which it is formed.

 

I have always believed the clean, crisp style of American writing might in part result from the fact that much of our tradition developed from journalism, where cleanliness is truly next to godliness, although I think they'd say that differently (even the religion editors). There are also some aspects of frontier life and immigration that might have made simplicity a virtue.

 

The study of language relative to region is linguistic geography. I've always been fascinated by it. Thanks for reminding me of that fascination.

 

--lemit

 

p.s. I still think there are as many rules for American English as for other forms of other languages. If I ever figure out how to transmit that idea electronically, I will.

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Interesting to talk about the evolution of the US public and the language. (Miranda this is something of an example of the whole history's reflection in language thing)

 

So we start this brief journey from the time just before the colonies rebelled against Britain. We start with the middle class British English, language that while being the language of Shakespeare, was really at the level of middle working class people, not the brilliantness of Mark Twain and Edgar Alan Poe-type language, loaders at the docks-type, with seldom a gentleman and trained troops languages mixed in. Most of the early population of the US still spoke British English, we see that as the colonies start breaking apart, a new level of the US people really starts surfacing, the free expression and the stride for looking like the nobility, the language starts its initial reform to sound closer to higher class people, eventually a war erupts and US become increasingly isolated from the rest of the world, yet the colonies, due to the fact that they are already made up of multiple nationalities, start greatly reforming the language, blending in other cultures, that's how the strong "r" sounds start breaking up british, and more german lingo enters the dictionary. The American civil war marks the splitting of the southern accents, as the south becomes increasingly more isolated for a long period of time, they develop their own way to speak, also they didn't want to be like the north either, so that lingo splits into its own subgroup and evolves separately from the northern people. The difference between farming and industrialization is great, the people in the north idol great independent thinkers, politicians, philosophers, scientists, the northern language picks up scientific terms, books start being written, artwork created, people start writing poetry, language takes a profound turn, and evolving into a cleaner, gentler form, not unlike higher class British, but because it evolves on a different continent and is shaped by a multitude of nationalities it takes a further split from its origins. Not that the American people at the time want to be like the British anyways. Southern language then remains in a more primitive form, a form, like i described, that uses the language to communicate needs and actions, not used to describe ideas and art. With more immigration to the US from all over the world, American English picks up more terms from those languages, also it continues to be shaped into a more intellectual language, with more books, papers and great authors, the language in the north becomes close to what the written language today really is, but with more and more waves or workers into the country, the spoken language starts getting subdivided, and stops its development, and starts morphing in microlocales. In big cities you can now tell which part of the city the person is from, based on how they speak, simply because people from different countries stick together, their speech in their microlocale morphs to the form closer to their own country's. This continues in the spoken word as waves of people come over. Eventually, closer to WWI the large waves stop, and the language finally has the ability to catch up with changes, in the previous stage, because people stuck together, they eventually outgrew streets, and people from one country or another would go to different cities, because they knew that there would be more of themselves like in those areas then in others, thus now cities have growing microlocales, and with waves of immigration stopping they start mixing together and forming city locales. We say Boston accent, or New York accent, or Chicago accent for that very reason, because the few microlocales merged, and were unlike the microlocales in the other cities, the city speak becomes fairly stable. It also becomes harder to tell which part of the city someone is from. Oh also throughout this time the higher class, still remains higher class, they live in a sort of isolation from the rest of the world, using higher level American established in the earlier years. Now, the states are filled with workers, the spoken language, for all its intents and purposes takes a turn back to the primitive state. Workers are interested in work, thus the idols of the previous era of the US stop becoming interesting, also at this time the country plunges into the great depression, further isolating lower and upper classes, the language suffers more by loosing more and more of its elegance towards a "workers" lingo. Fast forward to the appearance of mass media (radio and television). At this point the country is starting to come out of depression, or rather is out of depression. Slowly the hectic life of hard workers slows down, and people start settling the suburbs. With introduction of the mass radio, the language increases in elegance a bit, but the problem is that people don't continue idolizing great minds, but start really following careers of singers and pretenders that started like themselves, didn't have to go to school, but ended up famous. This, after WWII and introduction of Television is what started driving this society from this micro peak back into a valley. The more we idolize the mass media, the less we see the need for learning, and the language once again plunges into becoming more and more dumb, that's how we arrive at today, with a large portion of the population not being able to put together a sentence that makes any sense according to the written word, the media mostly deprives the population that had at one point looked up to great philosophers and minds (Like Abraham Lincoln for example), which increased their drive for education and becoming independent thinkers, now looks up to pop stars, and people of the mass media. As written language becomes more and more extinct and most people take their "local news" as all they need to know and care about, this is sad as there is a need for locales to interact to drive one-another's standards up, and that, in large part is causing this downslope of thinking, and dumbing down of the spoken word currently.

 

Sorry there are gaps in this story, i really dont have time to pull out history and go through each epoch and give you specifics, but this is the general curve of the events and the reflection of those events on the language (once again mainly spoken)

 

That's all i have for now...

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As written language becomes more and more extinct and most people take their "local news" as all they need to know and care about, this is sad as there is a need for locales to interact to drive one-another's standards up, and that, in large part is causing this downslope of thinking, and dumbing down of the spoken word currently.

I half agree. I don’t know if I would go as far as saying that the spoken word is being ‘dumbed down’, because personally, I don’t think any language shift is really in a negative direction (unless it was in some extreme 1984 situation). However, the dumbing down of society can be quite prevalent in some cases, and it is unfortunate that there has been a gradual lack of appreciation for educating oneself. There used to be a time (at least in Western philosophy) when the elite were not necessarily the wealthiest, but the most educated individuals. It was out of this mindset that the university was created. But it seems that now there are plenty of individuals in college, but are not educationally at the collegiate level. As much as I dislike prescriptivism, I do support literacy, and I have found it a bit embarrassing to be among some of my peers who cannot write a discernable sentence let alone any scholarly work.

This was a bit of a tangent from the topic of the thread, sorry. :shrug:

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This was a bit of a tangent from the topic of the thread, sorry.

Well actually, not at all. In order to gather information about how events influence language we really have to look at the social aspect of time, and the best time to study is now, simply because we have the most data available, once you build up that data, you can then make educated assumptions about past events/influences, which gives you more data yet to make assumptions about the future.

 

Let me Numb3rify you (i dont know if you watch "Numb3rs", personally a fan of the show because of all the science therein)

Imagine that you are trying to describe a moving snail. Looking at it for the first time, you have no clue where the snail will go, this makes it hard to even reasonably predict the movement of the snail in the near future. You can study it's physical structure and the use of muscles for the snail to move the body, this gives you information that you can use to describe snail's motion and by that give you limits of thereof. You gather all the data you can about the current state, speed, direction, heading, position of the moving organs, etc. Now having this data certainly you can make some preditcion about the near future, but to build up a bigger picture you can look at the snail's slime trail and by that figure out its past movements, giving you information on likely behavior, obstacle avoidance and gain a better perspective about the general directionality of the movement. This would be compounded if you study the previous trips made by the snail as well, gaining you more data and patterns. Having this bit of information combined with limits and current state of the snail, you can reasonably predict, even without knowing the terrain the snail will encounter, the general direction, and possible actions that snail will take if it encounters certain obstacles in more then just near future.

 

So by describing current US society's influence on the language we merely gain data about how certain actions might influence other languages :shrug:

 

I don’t know if I would go as far as saying that the spoken word is being ‘dumbed down’, because personally, I don’t think any language shift is really in a negative direction

Oh no, i really agree with you here, there is no negative direction, even imagining a graph if a language development you can really judge the time vs language elegance, and that is a very subjective graph, where the negative direction merely indicates the lessening of the elegance for the time. Also, if you want to speak philosophically, there is no good or bad, they are all relatives of each other and depend on what direction you look at. It's like looking at an indefinite line, and trying to determine where is the line's beginning and where is it's end...

 

It was out of this mindset that the university was created.

Until capitalistic needs made sure that only inspired people with wealthy parents can extend their education in those, because normal people that live on the need to learn, can not possibly afford such institutions... Take it from a college dropout (i hope to eventually return)...

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  • 3 weeks later...
I agree with what you say here, though I wish I had more evidence to back up this idea. A languages evolution is based on the usage of its speakers. If a language reflects the thoughts and beliefs of a society, then surely studying overall language evolution can reveal something about the history of a given culture. This is the fun of historical linguistics, with semantics and pragmatics thrown in there, too.

What other observations have you made?

Would it be possible to analyze editions of dictionaries, and periodical articles to demographic indexes (political issues, crime, etc.) of the corresponding eras, and reach some general descriptions not unlike the OP's hypothesis of the Japanese language?
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Dictionary and dictionary revisions would be a good starting place, but this is not necessarily fully accurate as by far not all words that get used in every-day life would be in the dictionary, and would not always mean the same thing as the dictionary states. Other forms of verbal communication would be perhaps of a better use, analyzing literature would provide better clues, but certainly some events would be reflected in the dictionary by defining new words that will describe that event. It's just more data for the model, the more you have, the more accurate and detailed of a description you can make...

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Oh, upon my research, i have found what it is i have been describing here. I was just doing some reading up on the Network theory, when it sort of hit me, this whole idea is a form of a social network analysis; traffic analysis, just like computer network analysis, where by looking at patterns of communication between nodes, one can eventually build up a picture about the whole network, in our case, we analyze social nodes, be that person or people or groups of groups, and their intercommunication to build a picture about the society at the time. Just like in the network theory, the more data we have, the better picture we can paint :turtle:

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