"All languages change over time, and vary from place to place. They may change as a result of social or political pressures, such as invasion, colonisation and immigration. New vocabulary is required for the latest inventions, such as transport, domestic appliances and industrial equipment, or for sporting, entertainment and leisure pursuits. But a language can also change by less obvious means" (British Library).
No two people on this planet speak identically. Even if both individuals grew up in the same family, place, are the same age, even twins, the way we speak is unique to each of us. Applied linguists are able to track a person's speaking and writing patterns, how they say words, what word they choose over others in certain contexts. It is actually extremely difficult to write or speak in the exact way that another person does.
Change is viewed in both positive and negative light. There are many that view that contemporary uses of languages to be degrading and harmful to society. In this I don't disagree: there are certain uses of English that I do not appreciate, such as vulgar music, profane terms, and abusive speaking. However, change is also positive. The British Library states:
"Most contemporary linguistic commentators accept that change in language, like change in society, is an unavoidable process — occasionally regrettable, but more often a means of refreshing and reinvigorating a language, providing alternatives that allow extremely subtle differences of expression. Certainly the academies established in France and Italy have had little success in preventing change in French or Italian, and perhaps the gradual shift in opinion of our most famous lexicographer, Dr Johnson, is instructive. A contemporary of Swift, Dr Johnson, wrote in 1747 of his desire to produce a dictionary by which the pronunciation of our language may be fixed and its purity preserved, but on completing the project ten years later he acknowledges in his introduction that:
Those who have been persuaded to think well of my design, require that it should fix our language and put a stop to those alterations which time and chance have hitherto been suffered to make in it without opposition. With this consequence I will confess that I flattered myself for a while; but now begin to fear that I have indulged expectation which neither reason nor experience can justify.
Johnson clearly realised that any attempt to fix the language was futile. Like it or not, language is always changing and English will continue to do so in many creative and — to some perhaps — frustrating ways."
Really, this statement says it all. Even though changes in language, even if this is referring to just English, can be frustrating, it is part of the creative process. We can learn to manipulate and produce language in a myriad of ways that allow us to be part of that process.
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