Devolution of the English Language...

The Devolution of the English Language

I think we are witnessing the devolution of the English language through text messaging and e-mails.  I am guilty of participating in this grass roots linguistic terrorism as I am getting more proficient at wrtng n sntnc frgmnts wth n vwls.  My generation has also seen the death of cursive writing.  I am no longer able to write paragraphs like the one you are now reading cursive writing technique on three ring binder paper, or foolscap because my hand will invariably cramp up and go into spasms.  I have given up hand writing skills for the comfort of the keyboard, and with practice I can now “type” faster than I can write by hand.  Yes, the typewriter yet another dinosaur along with carbon paper, LP’s, cassettes, landlines, phone booths and telegrams  have all passed into the oblivion of extinction. 

It was a pivotal year, 1981, I was introduced to my first home computer while teaching in Ashmont, Alberta a small village of 70 inhabitants, an epi-center for technical change. It was an Apple-e computer with a monochromatic screen and a dot matrix printer. I recall the staff was in absolute awe at this new technology. At the time I didn’t think the portable computer had a future, just as I predicted self serve gas stations with convenience stores had no future in our culture, after all who would buy bread and dairy products at a location that sold petroleum products?  To my way of reasoning it was counterintuitive just as I knew, deep in my heart, that the computer was a passing fad.  

Sadly, I said the same thing about margarine when it was first distributed in a plastic pouch with a drop of dye that had to be mixed together with a forceful kneading action.  Thus are my insights and why I live a poor man in a small desert nation, but that aside I’d like to reach my primary point about the devolution of language.

Language evolves and changes over time from region to region and from culture to culture.  For example, Americans, Aussies, Kiwis, Brits and Canucks all speak English, with the exception of the Scottish.  I’m still not certain what they are saying or if it is even a Latin derivative.  Shakespeare wrote in a distinctive cadence and rhythmic pattern that must be interpreted to frustrated students in English classes around the world today. We have gone from the sonnet to the rap song and beyond.  Where will technology and culture take us in terms of language devolution? 

Apparently, there are now over one million English words, but most people can be functionally literate with a vocabulary of just a few thousand words. Words are dropped from everyday usage at a slow rate and new technical, scientific, dialect and slang terms are added at an increasing rate, thus the constant change in language usage and adaptations.  Most people do not speak in descriptive terms nor do they elaborate on details and observations from daily life.  A parent may ask their child, “What did you learn in school today?”

“Nothing”

But of course it is the communication from child to parent through body language, in this case, that conveys the real message.   Sometimes we don’t even need words.

We depend on the memo, lists, text messages and sticky notes for the written word. To our peril, linguistic devolution will lead to some futuristic time, perhaps next Thursday at 2 pm, when students will be allowed, as it would be by then standard practice, to submit their assignments via text messaging in “essays” consisting of 25 words or less with out the use of vowels or proper citations.

Marty Rempel