(no subject)
[Y]e knowe ek (also) that in [the] fourme of speche is chaunge,
With-inne a thousand zeer (years), and wordes tho (then)
That hadden pris (value), how wonder (wonderfully) nyce (stupid) and straunge
Us thinketh hem; and zet thei spake hem so,
And spedde (succeeded) as well in loue (love) as men now do.
Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde
Its funny that William Labov has spent his life proving something that Chaucer knew a LONG time ago. This paper I'm writing is stupid.
Language is fluid and changes because it has a lot of human speakers. It annoys me to hear lamenting rants about how we're losing the beauty and structure of our "once-beautiful language". Change is not a deterioration of language, its not a negative thing. At one point, English, Latin, Greek, Hittite, Gaelic, Czech and Kurdish were all mutually intelligible dialects of Indo-European. Doesnt that say anything about language change? Its going to happen. Language will be as effective as it always has been, and in 50 years the beautiful language you thought you were losing will sound as old as Chaucer, and speakers of the "slang" you so vehemently rebelled against will be lamenting their children's use of bad English.
This rant was spawned by an annoying editorial in The Pittsburgh Courier about ebonics in the classroom and how it "rears its ugly head" repeatedly. The best part was that his article had grammar errors that even the newspaper missed. Funny how quick to judge others' "bad" language they were. Idiots.
By the way, did you know that Jakob and Wilhem Grimm (fairy tale guys) were brilliant linguists? I thought htat was interesting....