The death of Latin gave way for other languages to step up and take the role as the universal language. Since Latin was too hard to comprehend, it was replaced by the even more complex and confusing language of English, derived from the Germanic language. Since its takeover, traditional English has evolved greatly as well. When English made its way to the Americas, it became almost an entirely new language. The Americans made all of these rules and exceptions for "proper" grammatical structure, making the language the huge organized mess that it is today.
Nowadays, American English is complete chaos. The proper way of grammatical structure and speech still exists, but nobody knows anything about it. Instead of following the rules, people just make up slang, which will also evolve over time. Generation after generation of slang will create a subspecies of the American English language, one that is only understandable by certain people. For example, the ghetto community of America have devised such an intricate system of slang that even I cannot comprehend. Technically, we're still speaking the same language, but the language has evolved so much that it is only coherent to a select few.
As with most things, evolution in language is unavoidable. Language changes to better fit the intellect of the people speaking it. Back then, people were smart, so they spoke a language that was organized and formulaic. Everyone understood one another, and communication was easy. Now, because there are still smart people and a new population of "unsmart" people, language has been divided into two. Those of intellect like me and you have our own language that allows us to speak like normal and civilized human beings. Those not of intellect have made adaptations to their language to better suit their intellectual capabilities, thus creating a language that is constantly changing and never comprehensible.
Language will never stop evolving, but at this rate, we're soon to be better off not speaking at all. Other countries like those in Asia and Europe have it all figured out. Their systems of language follow patterns, making communication much easier. But for some reason, American English just can't get it quite right.
I actually remember hearing that Latin evolved into the Romance Languages and that English was a Germanic language that was only derived fifty percent from Latin. I think this could explain why English is so hard to learn and comprehend to some people. But in addition to this, English also has it subspecies of the language like you said making it even harder to comprehend and understand. The English language is changing all the time with people using slang words and other colloquial terms. For example, today kids use the term "yolo" to represent the idea that you only live once. Along with common everyday slang words that we don't even realize we use like "whatcha" or "wanna" are constantly being used. Some slang words have been completely adopted to the English language along with other colloquial terms like "y'all" or other terms from people down South that they are seen and heard as a norm now. All of the subspecies of English although they can be difficult to understand is a sign of our languages evolution. The language is constantly changing adding new terms that could be slang or colloquial terms showing evolution. It's fun to think what new words will pop up next in our language. Who knows how our language will evolve in the future?
ReplyDeleteEnglish is such a complicated language for no reason. I think Tommy's right when he says that the reason for that, at least in part, is English's various parent-languages that differ from each other so much. I think the idea that a "sub-species" of English is evolving is interesting, and I laughed when you put it so nicely that all the dumb people are making up for their stupidity by making up slang as they go along. I don't know if I agree that people used to be smarter in general back in the day, but it can't be argued that there's at least a general correlation between excessive use of slang and lack of education.
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