thoughts on language change
I promised more updates and some content, right? One of the possible topics is the stuff I do at uni, but most of it isn't very accessible, so I'll start with one linguistic topic that's in the media frequently, at least in Germany: language change.
You see, in Germany, we hear a lot about the so-called decline of our language. You can use wegen with the dative case now! No one uses the Konjunktiv II anymore! Oh, the times, oh the morals! Isn't it horrible? That must be why when you walk towards the 'Sprachwissenschaft' section of a bookshop, the first thing you see is books like Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod because clearly no one knows proper German anymore and it's up to the linguists to step in with a red pen and heroically, selflessly rescue the German language from the evil clutches of English!
Um. No. Let me make this very clear from the beginning: These works on 'proper German' should not fall under the heading of linguistics. Not even as 'popular science'. Because here's the thing: From a linguistic point of view, language does not decline.
First off, I need to make a distinction between language change and the perceived 'death' of a language. It can be argued that there are 'dead' languages. In the most popular case, Latin, it's debatable (different topic though), but have you ever heard of Polabian? I hadn't either before my Introduction to West Slavonic Languages, because it's one of those, but it's extinct. Why? Because there is no one left to speak it anymore. Literally. And there hasn't been anyone since the 18th century. Neither is there a language with another name that developped from it.
Books like those of Bastian Sick, however, claim that German is also dying. And let me tell you, it's not. A language that has an estimate of 120 million native speakers and 80 million non-native speakers is not dying by any definition of the word. It's not even declining (which would indicate that there was an ideal starting point from which the language is now moving towards a terminal point). The German language currently does one thing, just as any other language: it changes.
There is a book called Sick of Sick?, which was written by a linguist as a reaction to Bastian Sick's work. I've only read excerpts so far and it's not perfect, but at least it's linguistics. It takes things like where we commonly use and don't use Konjunktiv II these days and, most importantly, offers an explanation why we do it. Not what we should do. Spot the difference?
Linguistics should be descriptive, not prescriptive. Linguists observe language, either how it changes over time or how it looks at a particular moment in time (those two are strictly divided, but that's a whole different topic). We observe, and then we describe. We try to come up with reasons. There is no judgement involved. Nor should any self-respecting linguist go out into the world and tell people that they have their own language all wrong.
One more thing I'm sick of is those language critics praising the language of the likes of Goethe as ideal and everything we use today as inferior. Here, I have to thank one of my lecturers who likes to point out that some literary critics of Goethe's time were outraged by his use of language in Werther and dismissed it as too colloquial. I don't have a specific reference at hand, unfortunately, but I've read it. Same goes for essays on perceived language decline in German dating back to the 18th century. So you see, there is no point in time where the German language might have been 'ideal' as opposed to other, inferior times, which renders the whole concept of 'decline' flawed.
Now, people might say that there are rules to a language we need to preserve because we can't just have everyone talk the way they want to because we wouldn't understand each other anymore. That's also true. There are underlying rules to each language. When a German native speaker hears a sentence like Das ist Buch grün., their instinct tells them that it's off somehow. But there's a difference between shouting, 'Hey that's wrong!!' and observing, 'Ok, we have the verb between the determiner and the noun phrase. That's interesting because I haven't observed this before. Let's see why ...'
Granted, that was an extreme and somewhat nonsensical example. But take wegen. Back in the days, the Duden said: wegen: mit Genitiv. Now, it's something like, wegen: mit Genitiv, auch möglich mit Dativ because that reflects on how the majority of German speakers uses this word. The Duden itself is nothing other than a description of the German language at the time of its edition as used by the majority. Further down the road, it might well read: wegen: mit Dativ, auch mit Genitiv (archaisch). In terms of personal opinions, people might like or dislike this particular change, or any change really, but at the end of the day, for a professional linguist, it's simply a change.
All right then. For an overview, this should be enough. Cookies to all who read it. Comments/questions? :)
Originally posted at Dreamwidth | Leave a comment |
comment(s)
You see, in Germany, we hear a lot about the so-called decline of our language. You can use wegen with the dative case now! No one uses the Konjunktiv II anymore! Oh, the times, oh the morals! Isn't it horrible? That must be why when you walk towards the 'Sprachwissenschaft' section of a bookshop, the first thing you see is books like Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod because clearly no one knows proper German anymore and it's up to the linguists to step in with a red pen and heroically, selflessly rescue the German language from the evil clutches of English!
Um. No. Let me make this very clear from the beginning: These works on 'proper German' should not fall under the heading of linguistics. Not even as 'popular science'. Because here's the thing: From a linguistic point of view, language does not decline.
First off, I need to make a distinction between language change and the perceived 'death' of a language. It can be argued that there are 'dead' languages. In the most popular case, Latin, it's debatable (different topic though), but have you ever heard of Polabian? I hadn't either before my Introduction to West Slavonic Languages, because it's one of those, but it's extinct. Why? Because there is no one left to speak it anymore. Literally. And there hasn't been anyone since the 18th century. Neither is there a language with another name that developped from it.
Books like those of Bastian Sick, however, claim that German is also dying. And let me tell you, it's not. A language that has an estimate of 120 million native speakers and 80 million non-native speakers is not dying by any definition of the word. It's not even declining (which would indicate that there was an ideal starting point from which the language is now moving towards a terminal point). The German language currently does one thing, just as any other language: it changes.
There is a book called Sick of Sick?, which was written by a linguist as a reaction to Bastian Sick's work. I've only read excerpts so far and it's not perfect, but at least it's linguistics. It takes things like where we commonly use and don't use Konjunktiv II these days and, most importantly, offers an explanation why we do it. Not what we should do. Spot the difference?
Linguistics should be descriptive, not prescriptive. Linguists observe language, either how it changes over time or how it looks at a particular moment in time (those two are strictly divided, but that's a whole different topic). We observe, and then we describe. We try to come up with reasons. There is no judgement involved. Nor should any self-respecting linguist go out into the world and tell people that they have their own language all wrong.
One more thing I'm sick of is those language critics praising the language of the likes of Goethe as ideal and everything we use today as inferior. Here, I have to thank one of my lecturers who likes to point out that some literary critics of Goethe's time were outraged by his use of language in Werther and dismissed it as too colloquial. I don't have a specific reference at hand, unfortunately, but I've read it. Same goes for essays on perceived language decline in German dating back to the 18th century. So you see, there is no point in time where the German language might have been 'ideal' as opposed to other, inferior times, which renders the whole concept of 'decline' flawed.
Now, people might say that there are rules to a language we need to preserve because we can't just have everyone talk the way they want to because we wouldn't understand each other anymore. That's also true. There are underlying rules to each language. When a German native speaker hears a sentence like Das ist Buch grün., their instinct tells them that it's off somehow. But there's a difference between shouting, 'Hey that's wrong!!' and observing, 'Ok, we have the verb between the determiner and the noun phrase. That's interesting because I haven't observed this before. Let's see why ...'
Granted, that was an extreme and somewhat nonsensical example. But take wegen. Back in the days, the Duden said: wegen: mit Genitiv. Now, it's something like, wegen: mit Genitiv, auch möglich mit Dativ because that reflects on how the majority of German speakers uses this word. The Duden itself is nothing other than a description of the German language at the time of its edition as used by the majority. Further down the road, it might well read: wegen: mit Dativ, auch mit Genitiv (archaisch). In terms of personal opinions, people might like or dislike this particular change, or any change really, but at the end of the day, for a professional linguist, it's simply a change.
All right then. For an overview, this should be enough. Cookies to all who read it. Comments/questions? :)
Originally posted at Dreamwidth | Leave a comment |
comment(s)