How you think about language is wrong (Part 1)
The questions we're asking today are: Do languages change over time? Are standard languages natural? and Why do linguists only study spoken language?
Linguists get confused for other people all the time. The two questions I hear most are: 1.) How many languages do you speak? 2.) [something along the lines of] Do you want to work for a language academy? Does English even have one?
The first one has a quick answer: Linguists are not polyglots. Some are. Some are not.
In fact, most of the professors I had only spoke 1-2 languages fluently. They all knew a lot about different languages (e.g. how to study the sounds and syntactic structures), but not necessarily how to speak them fluently. While speaking multiple languages can help you make sense of linguistic theories, it’s not a prerequisite.
It’s important to note that the reverse is even more true: polyglots are not automatically linguists.
The second question—the one about working at a language academy—can start me on a rant. The short answer is that linguists and prescriptivists (i.e. people who work at language academies) have opposite views of language.
Linguists believe that language should be observed and described, as is. Prescriptivists believe that language should be preserved (to keep it from changing), that there is a correct and incorrect way to language, and that it is the job of a language academy to police language and to make sure the best forms are promoted.
So, no, I don’t ever want to work for a language academy.
But here’s the thing: prescriptivists far outnumber linguists. That means you’re probably way more familiar with their prescriptivist view of language.
In these first two newsletters, I’d like to introduce you to another way of viewing language, through a descriptivist lens.
The Linguistic Facts of Life (Lippi-Green)
Sociolinguist Rosina Lippi-Green starts her book English with an Accent by listing what she calls the five linguistic facts of life.
Before I present them, notice the word she uses—facts. These five tenants are based on research and data collection and are concepts all linguists would agree with (which says a lot because linguists love to disagree about theories).
Let’s get into them:
1.) Which languages never change?
The answer is: dead languages, or languages which are no longer spoken.
This makes sense.
English, for example, has more words than any other language in the world. That’s largely the case because, over its history, English has been in contact with several other languages.
Through contact, the language, including the vocabulary, has changed.
A fun, historical example:
Following the Norman Conquest (1066), the Middle English words cow, deer, and pig were used to talk about the actual animals. The French words beef, venison, and pork were used to describe the meat of the animals.
This distinction was a reflection of the fact that following the Norman Conquest the upper-class—which was made up of French speakers—were the only ones who were able to eat the meat of animals.
Overtime, in the 13th and 14th centuries, English-French bilingualism started to grow in England, and many of these French words entered the English language (Hernández, 2020).
The point is, the words didn’t just hop from French to Middle English.
English historically adapted to the new circumstances and these French words are a reflection of that.
Vocabulary isn’t the only part of language that changes over time—every part of language changes. The sounds, the syntax, the semantics all change.
Prepare yourself for a nerdier example:
If you’re into phonetics, maybe you’ve noticed that English has two diphthongs (vowel sounds that start as one vowel and change to another vowel in the same syllable) that have the sound /a/: 1.) /aI/, as in the first sound in island, and 2.) /aʊ/, as in the first sound in ouch.
The thing about diphthongs is that—and this is true for all languages in the world—the two sounds that make up the diphthong must exist separately in the language, too.
So, you need /a/ and /I/ in order to create the sound /aI/.
But today, there’s no /a/ in English. We have /æ/ and /ɑ/, but not this exact /a/, the low central vowel that exists in languages, like Spanish.
What happened? Well, those diphthongs are proof that English historically had an /a/, but no longer does. The sounds changed over time.
What’s the fuss?
When we look at historical examples, it’s obvious that yes, languages do, in fact, change. However, when we look at present-day examples, we never think that the “mistakes” we hear might just be language change in real time.
Conversations like, “Did you just say You did good? It’s you did well,” are ubiquitous.
From a descriptive lens, however, if more people say “you did good” instead of “you did well,” it might just be that language has changed and that grammar books are lagging behind.
That’s just an example of language change by English speakers in the U.S.
Considering that English is currently in contact with hundreds of languages, we need to realize that English is changing and will naturally sound different around the world. This means there will be new ways of pronouncing sounds, new words being added from other languages, new ways of forming words into sentences.
2.) Variation exists in every living language
Similar to how language changes over time, language itself, doesn’t necessarily exist.
Huh?
The way I think of it is you can take ten English speakers and they’re all going to have slight (to large) differences in the way they speak English. They all speak varieties of English.
Same is true of every living language: speakers are going to have different words, ways of pronouncing words, ways of forming the words into sentences, etc.
Within each group, the variety is going to differ because the speakers differ. Younger children will sound different from their parents; lawyers will sound different at work than at home; bilinguals will sound different from monolinguals.
The bottom line
Varieties are natural; standards are not natural.
Variety exists at every level, for every speaker. While many speakers say “I speak in a neutral, standard way,” this is never true (which will be a whole other newsletter). No variety is better than another. Varieties exist because speakers differ and their language reflect that.
3.) Written and spoken language are completely different
Most linguists study spoken language exclusively. When we talk about variations or syntactic rules, we’re basing it on language that humans speak. Not the one they write.
So, the good-versus-well example in section 1.) was an example in which someone said “you did good” aloud.
How are they different?
First, an obvious one: spoken language is much older than written language.
Before the printing press, everyone spoke the way they spoke. But, with the printing press, there began an economic question: It’s too expensive to print the Bible in ten varieties, so which variety do we choose?
To quote Lippi-Green on what happened next:
“The solution was to print the Bible in one variety of English, and then convince everybody that that was the best kind of English,” (p. 15).
Thus, began an industry that demanded respect and authority over the language, an industry fueled by teaching speakers the correct, proper way to write.
Still, today, we turn to language manuals for correct grammar and punctuation and dictionaries to tell use which words are, in fact, words.
Why does it matter?
This is important—it’s not that the standard existed as the perfect, best way to speak English.
Au contraire!
It’s that the economic and technological advancements of the time required a single variety to be promoted as the standard and they chose the language of the elite and then convinced speakers that the language of the elite was the best version of English.
It’s not that spoken language is better or worse than written language—they’re completely different.
Thus, if a language doesn’t have a written system, it doesn’t mean that it’s less of a language than a language that does have a written system.
Discussion
Thank you for reading this newsletter!
Today we learned three linguistic facts of life: 1.) All living languages change, 2.) Variation is normal and expected in every living language, 3.) Written and spoken language are completely different.
Next week, we’ll cover the last two linguistic facts of life (Lippi-Green).
Comment below (if you’re a paid subscriber) or reply to this email (anyone!) and let’s discuss:
Did you find any of these linguistic facts of life shocking or untrue? Why or why not?
Works Cited
Coronado Hernández, R. (2020). The influence of french on the middle english lexicon after the norman conquest.
Lippi-Green, R. (2012). English with an accent: Language, ideology, and discrimination in the United States. Routledge.