Why we need English 2.0

11-17-2008: I wrote this, in ignorance of a lot of truth about language.  As Seth pointed out, most of my complaints were aimed at written English standards, as determined by some abstract association of English scholars, dictionary authors, and organizations like the MLA.  All other rants were naively uninformed.

English has been changing since it’s creation, just like any language. The difference between American English and most other languages is the incredible amount of hybridization that is constantly occuring. As referred to as a cultural melting pot, the States are also a great linguistic melting pot.

So which version becomes 2.0? Ebonics? 1337 Speak? TexMex? Engrish? or what? Well this is part of the problem and the reason that there hasn’t been a huge movement to renovate our language. The concept isn’t really all that new, nations have been implimenting new standards for languages and alphabets since mass communication has been possible, and somewhat before. Korea for example created an original phonetic alphabet in the 20th century and it only took a little over half a century for it to become the primarily used written alphabet.

My ideas for 2.0

-Remember when you learned the alphabet in school? How they tried to explain long vowels and short vowels and they used little symbols to designate which made which sounds. Why don’t we see these after learning about them, they would make reading english much more user-friendly and much more easily standardized so as to prevent the changing pronunciations of “oo” versus “u” versus “o.” Why does the sound have to depend on the word it’s in? Doesn’t this seem a little stupid?

-Along the same lines as above, get rid of types of phonetics that are rare or outdated. Most people mispronounce “climb” as “clime” anyway, so why not change the spelling? The dictionary could be re-written, they make new editions frequently anyway.

-Get rid of stupid grammar rules. I have to hand it to the guys in charge on this one, they’re working on it. It is now somewhat acceptable to verbify words and split infinitives, but there are still a large amount of pointless grammatical rules that are being maintained for reasons no better than tradition.

-I could list a hundred and one specific instances of things that are stupid, but I’m getting tired of ranting, I think you probably get the point.

I do however recognize the challenge that reworking the entire language (and quite a hefty language we have) poses to everyone, speakers and writers alike. What would we have to do to actually change it? Make people interested in simplifying it, on a large scale. That’s really all it takes.

Jargon

Jargon is in my humble opinion, the most annoying linguistic dilemma EVER.  Definitively Jargon is a terminology used within specific fields of work, interest, or society.  It’s a problem because people that use Jargon want to keep using it and aren’t interested in communicating to people outside of their jargon-using group.  As I’ve said before anything that inhibits communication is a problem.

Nowadays with great things like the internet we have access to a lot more information than we did some time ago.  People have however extended the use of jargon from spoken words to written words.  It’s very difficult for people that are not-proficient in a specific field to understand instructions that are heavily laden with jargon.  The conundrum being that one can’t learn proper use of the jargon without already knowing it.  It’s paradoxical and incredibly frustrating for many people including myself.

To most members of older generations than mine (born in 1986) ours seems to have a jargon.  With modern high-tech playtoys like I-pods, DVD players, PS2s, Halo, LAN parties, AIM, and anything else beyond e-mail on the internet we’ve linguistically separated ourselves from them.  It’s a problem, and we could help to solve it by using more general terminology for items whenever we can.  Instead of an I-pod you can refer to it to your grandparents as “a music player,” a DVD as a “movie” a PS2 as a “Video game system.”  If you need to use specifics then go for it, but general terms are better for understanding between the ages.

So… Be considerate of those that don’t follow your line of speech.  Please?

Names

It’s really amazing, this mp3 by John Hodgman and Jonathon Coulton exemplifies some interesting aspects of what I’ve been pondering with respect to linguistics and names. The names of 700 hoboes… Why not? They could be any kind of person’s names but William Fenimore Cooper (famous author) the Hobo just sounds more interesting.

I really would like to do a descriptive comparative analysis of naming conventions across time and cultures.

Abbrev.

Briefing myself quickly on the topic by browsing Wikipedia’s article I’m realizing I do not wish to go into to much detail, as much as merely muse.

I was working construction this evening with a part-time carpenter and a painter/artist/paint-salesman. We were putting up sheetrock for a ceiling. It seemed newly interesting to me the way the carpenter, John, used abbreviations. He simply labeled things like “C” for chimney, “CL” (with the L crossing through the C) for Center Line, “TL” for total length. These are clearly personal use, not intended for anyone else to see, interpret, or even understand. The idea made me think of something I realize time and time again working construction: human tool-use. There’s always an easier way to do something, but sometimes figuring out what that easier way is takes longer than doing it the hard way. Linguistic tools are becoming more and more interesting to me the more I see them used in practical day-to-day activity. Things like non-standard abbreviations are just tools, and it’s interesting somewhat that we use language not just for communicating ideas to others, but also to help with our own mental facilitation.

Just musing.

Root of my interest

F-word is one of the reasons why I became interested in linguistics.

Things I’d Like to talk about

I’ve been really busy lately and pretty frustrated with some projects I’m working on, but as incentive for me to write I’m going to post some ideas I’ve had or things I’ve been thinking about.

Memes: phrases and words that are used almost like trends or fads, particularly seen in school and college environments either locally or globally used (ex: “sweet” “daves!” “tubular”) also how they change with time.

Naming Conventions: How different cultures appropriate names to various things whether they be people or places. For example, Japanese family names are often derived from the area where ancestors were from (Yamashita = under the mountain), whereas in Anglo-european instances surnames frequently derived from professions (Smith, Carpenter, Thatcher).

I’d also like to discuss the observance of the phonetics of a speaker’s native tongue based on the accents observed in second, third, and later languages.

Drift

One of the many linguistic dilemmas that we face today is drift. Drift is essentially what happens when a language changes over time due primarily to isolation and specialization. Isolation occurs when a society is not exposed to the varied dialects and slang that develop elsewhere. When I talk about specialization I am referring to the idea that in specific regions words are developed or modified because of special needs or interests that do not exist elsewhere. Drift is a problem because it inhibits communication.

A friend of mine complained about this problem in an anecdote. He encountered a man in regular daily activity whom he could not understand and whom he assumed could not understand him. My friend believed that the man he encountered was speaking English, but he could not make sense out of his words. The discussion of drift moved to questioning whether or not drift actually was a problem, and why nothing was being done to standardize English so this problem did not continue to occur.

In order to address the problem of drift an understanding of why it occurs has to be reached. A professor from Bucknell University attempts to track drift in a web-format lecture. For those reading that do not understand the linguistic terminology used there, the following is a general explanation.

- Education of language, starting in infancy. If you remember words or phrases that you learned as a child, to later realize you had not correctly learned, then you understand well how a loss occurs.

- Use of foreign vocabulary pronounced with a local phonological theme. Celtics (Kel-tiks) becomes Sel-tiks, Notre dame (No-trè Daam) becomes No-ter Daim, et cetera (et kay-ter-ah) becomes (et-se-tra). The last example also exemplifies the dropping of a syllable.

- The opposite of the prior example also causes drift. This is where local words are pronounced with a foreign phonological theme. Most people are familiar with this, whenever you hear what sounds like an “Asian” accent (I use quotes because this is a linguistic stereotype, but use it for general understanding’s sake. I recognize that there are many different phonologies associated with each Eastern Asian language and dialect), or even a Scottish or Queens English accent.

To the question of whether or not drift is a problem I say, yes. In my opinion anything that inhibits communication of ideas from person to person is a problem. Drift will often continue to the point of mutual non-understanding between linguistic regions.

Is anything being done about drift? We like to think that standard english is taught in schools, and in fact it is. However there are problems with this as well. Once cultural or regional dialects are established they are often associated with personal identity, which is a very important facet of child development. Teachers often stereotype these dialects as lesser, improper, and uncivilized. Similarly teachers often exercise linguistic discrimination, which is detrimental to the development of personal identity in children.

How do we balance cultural identity with a standardized language dialect? Can written language be standardized more easily than spoken language to maintain understanding? In today’s world of mass media and connectivity will we find other alternatives to spoken language for establishing and maintaining global understanding?