Language - Finding the Middle Ground

In most walks of life, a good grasp of communicative skill is useful, if not necessary. I know that, for many people, the finer points of language, the English language in particular, is harder to grasp than wet soap.

For myself, however (and I don’t wish to brag), these principles and rules come relatively naturally. I can tell when I’m looking at a split infinitive, if you should use “practice” or “practise”, and I like that. Recently, however, a thought occurred to me: why? Why should one learn the intricate details of language that will inevitably be lost, probably within my lifetime?

Diachronic variation, the change in language over time, is one of the fundamental tools in the development of any language. We need only look at Shakespeare or Chaucer to see the extremity of this. If such a thing is to continue throughout the history of our language, including the now, is there any reason to cling on to words that have become archaic and obsolete?

In my humble opinion, yes, there is. Without a doubt, the language we have inherited is crucial to forming our futures, as well as observing our past. Firstly, looking to the future, we see the advent of Facebook and Twitter. Such tools restrict our language, forcing us to look to acronyms such as “brb” or “gtg”. Whilst these are useful in such limited scenarios, it haunts me to hear them uttered in the real world. Whilst these new words, for we must accept them as such, carry the very purpose of their predecessors, I think we must all agree there is something missing?

The utterance of three modest letters is hardly a breath, and gives so little emotion in its expression. This is shown nowhere better than with “lol”. “Lol” is slowly replacing genuine laughter in conversation, leading to such droll conversations as we may have being ruined by what seems to be a lack of effort even to react. Certainly, the words we already have, and the way that we use them, are capable of giving so much deeper an expression, and thus expand our knowledge. “Lol”, after all, can be used to represent the smallest half-hearted chuckle to the most uproarious bellow.

Now we come to the preservation of our linguistic past, and once more we come to the question of why. The answer here is a simple one: because we owe everything to it. From the smallest utterance of a foreign invader, to the greatest works of literature, the words of our ancestors are responsible for changing the way we think, the way we act, and our worldly understanding. Would Milton have been the influence he is if Paradise Lost were written last week? Would Shakespeare have revolutionised theatre if he were working now? These writers were the perfection of their times, and survive because of this. Although the world may have moved on, we can still draw upon them for inspiration, because they have such different mannerisms to us. They encapsulate a period in our history, and we should be proud to remember it.

That is not to say, however, that words such as “quoth” still have a place in the modern tongue. On the contrary, in some cases it is a fine thing we have moved on. I would rather our language improved and received criticism than stayed the same for all eternity. I simply feel that much of what we have has been built upon over the course of so many centuries, establishing a clearer communicative ability, and much more depth of emotion for our writers. It would seem a terrible shame for such a process to reverse, especially since the internet also brings the potential for a published opinion from so many more. It would be nice to see it expressed in the best possible language.

“Juliet: Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Romeo: Brb, gtg, cul8r, lol.” - Shakespeare, 2009