Language innovation?

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Chester Myers
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Language innovation?

Postby Chester Myers » 2021-04-20, 6:13

Hey guys, have you ever heard of any crazy ideas about changing your current language to something else different? Like a language innovation :D Also, do you think there’ll be any changes of your national language in the far future?

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linguoboy
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Re: Language innovation?

Postby linguoboy » 2021-04-26, 15:35

There are changes to my national language in the present. Singular they is becoming enshrined in the standard not just for persons whose gender identity is unknown (e.g. "Somebody left their phone on the bench") but for persons who do not identify as strictly male or female (e.g. "Drew is bringing their partner, if that's okay"). In addition, "you all"/"y'all" is rapidly going from a regionalism associated with Southern and African-American speech to the preferred second-person plural pronoun and its adoption by people for whom this is not a native element in their speech is having some interesting consequences. (Last week, I heard someone say "your all" where I would have "y'all's"--more than once, so I assume it wasn't an error.)

And that's just the pronouns!
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

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mōdgethanc
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Re: Language innovation?

Postby mōdgethanc » 2021-05-03, 14:13

Yes, this happens all the time. Many languages have some kind of regulatory body (often called an academy or something like that) which tries to plan changes like this and sometimes might coin new words. Whether they catch on is another thing.

For English there are a bunch of ideas for overhauling its spelling, most of which suck, but an even farther-reaching idea is Anglish, which would get rid of almost all word roots that don't come from Anglo-Saxon (Old English) and make up new words for them. Right now it's mainly used by a few hobbyists online but whole articles can be written in it. I don't write in Anglish myself but I do often switch out words that don't come from Anglo-Saxon for ones that do. Often I think this makes a text easier to read and feels more grounded.
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Re: Language innovation?

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-05-09, 4:35

If you wait long enough, any language will change into something completely different all by itself anyway.


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