History of Language Standardization
Or, Why You Should Stop Being A Snoot
Snoot
adjective | \ˈsnü-tē\
having or showing the insulting attitude of people who think that they are better, smarter, or more important than other people
Language
noun | \ˈlaŋ-gwij\
the system of words or signs that people use to express thoughts and feelings to each other
Verbal Language
Evolution
- Body Evolution
- Motor Skills
- Brain Size
Localization
- Globalization wasn't a thing
- Isolated pockets
- Reinforced, not shared
Written Language
Alphabetic
- Ay, Bee, See
- \ˈa-pəl\
When Not In Rome
- Christianization of Britain
- Anglo-Saxon Sounds meet Roman Alphabet
- æ, þ, ð, ȝ
Orthographic Representation
- Localization of Monks
- Localization of Dialects
- Gradual Process
Pronounciation
- Read the Letters
- Analyze the Possible Sound Strings
- Use Context
Written Norms
- Organically cultivated
- There is always lag
- No enforcement
English History In A Nutshell
Meet Meat
Mate Great
Divine Divinity
Shoppe Name
Knight Gnat
Neighbor Bough
Why?
Why Not?
Language as Politics
- Late 1700s
- Noah Webster
- theater / theatre
- color / colour
- recognize / recognise
- Ben Franklin
- c, j, q, w, x, and y
Language Purity
- Minimize foreign influence
- Snoots
- A Dictionary of Modern American Usage
Authoritative Guidance
- Who watches the watchers?
- Not Democratic
- Not Based on Tradition
Usage Wars
- Webster's Third: "OK" and "ain't"
- "A dictionary should have no traffic with ... artificial notions of correctness of superiority. It should be descriptive and not prescriptive."
Prescriptivism
- There is only one right way
Descriptivism
- Language changes constantly
- Change is normal
- Spoken language is the language
- Correctness rests upon usage
- All usage is relative
Usage vs. Ethics
- "That mushroom is poisonous."
- "Did you seen the car keys of me?"
- "There are many reasons why lawyers lie, some better than others."
Philosophical Descriptivism
- Grammar is mere decoration
- Noam Chomsky
- The Pants Analogy
"I was attacked by a bear!"
"Goddamn bear tried to kill me!"
"That ursine juggernaut bethought to sup upon my person!"
Correct English
- Standard Written English
- Dialects
- Rural Southern
- Latino English
- Black English
- Maine Yankee
- East-Texas Bayou
- Boston Blue Collar
- etc.
Do you want to associate or dissociate with them?
What's Next?
- SWE Snowball
- DFW Essay
Bright Horizons
- Technology
- Democracy
Language will always evolve to suit the needs of the speakers.
Sources
-
History of Spelling: http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~kemmer/Histengl/spelling.html
-
Great English Vowel Shift: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift
-
King James Version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_James_Version
-
Johnson's Dictionary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Dictionary_of_the_English_Language
-
Noah Webster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah_Webster
-
DFW Essay: http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/DFW_present_tense.html
History of Language Standardization
By zach fedor
History of Language Standardization
Or, Why You Should Stop Being a Snoot
- 1,316