Herb,
Herb,
I suspect those articles are primarily written by the PR staffs of the
researchers' respective universities - many tend to show effects of what
I think of as the, "I don't know science, but I'll try to make this
zingy!" mindset (with sometimes humorous results; my favorite headline
thus far has been, "Forest Fires Can Pose Threat to Small Children"). I
use them primarily as a way to demonstrate to students that active work
on these topics is going on all the time. The Webster comment struck me
as a bit odd as well, unless you define "American English" as a national
variety - which then cannot exist until the region considers itself a
nation. That, however, is what could be called a nice distinction only
in one of the earlier senses of nice.
The vocabulary-based approach, despite its myriad shortcomings, probably
remains popular simply because it's doable - languages have a lot of
words, so you get more data points, and observing one showing up in a
text for the first time does tell you that at least one person was using
it at the time the text was written. From the phrasing in the article, I
couldn't tell whether or not "changes in vocabulary" could also include
"changes in the pronunciation of vocabulary," etc. They did seem to be
concentrating on "basic vocabulary" (and the definition of that would be
crucial); if that includes items like pronouns, and core vocabulary from
the "Swadesh list," etc. then it would be taking into account some
slower-changing areas of language. As usual, the devil will be in the
details.
Bill Spruiell
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of STAHLKE, HERBERT F
Sent: Friday, February 08, 2008 12:11 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Mini-article on language change (link)
Bill,
Thanks for that link. There've been a number of similar studies in the
past few years looking at language relationship and language change
through the lens of fairly coarse data, like vocabulary change. It's
certainly true that a language's vocabulary may change very rapidly, as
the vocabulary of English did at least a couple of times during the
Middle English period and a number of times since. Vocabulary is the
part of language most susceptible to cultural influence and to changes
in the environment it's spoken in. The 20th c. saw more rapid periods
of vocabulary change in English. What's more questionable is whether
such periods of rapid change occur as readily in phonology, morphology,
and grammar.
I question the article's contention that American English appeared when
Noah Webster produced his dictionary and speller. Webster's influence
grew slowly from 1784 through the first third of the 18th c., and he did
have some effect on the spelling of American English. However, there is
good evidence that American English was identified by people in Britain
as a distinct dialect as early as 1750.
Herb
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Spruiell, William C
Sent: 2008-02-07 15:39
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Mini-article on language change (link)
Dear All:
There's a science news site called Science Daily that serves as a kind
of one-stop press release service for university researchers. I read
over it every day or two to see if anything is listed that would be of
interest to my students; today, there's an interesting one on language
change:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080206154123.htm
The site's articles range from way-too-technical all the way to
way-too-cute, but this one's not at either extreme.
Bill Spruiell
Dept. of English
Central Michigan University
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