DrPepper - language and convention

[aavv]

These different languages of the modern age is a catastrophe truly. I see everyday how languages slowly decay and withers. And computers play a part in this. Errors and misinterpretations don't get corrected, thus leaving the reader/writer believing he or she understands right.
Swedish grammar will soon be dead. Kids of today don't understand the grammar of their own language. At least 75% of our youth use the wrong words for ackusative and dative (in other words swedish language loses yet another function, making it much more primitive).
And the "auto-word" function of modern cellular phones have made a huge damage teenagers, rendering their spelling to often faulty. Unless something is done we will have even more idiots in society. (My present estimation is about 99%)
Educate yourselves for all you're worth, while you can stuid people!
(Why am I saying this here?)

Don't know if somebody cares about it, just felt like to answer.

A language is what all of it's speakers produce everyday. Ortography is a convention. The language you learn at school is one of the possible choices that is originaly built for that and other purposes.

There's no primitive/simple languages, all languages are similarly complex. The difference lies on the processes that each language emphasises the most. In some languages the speakers focus on morphologic features, such as the swedish declinations you mentioned, while others, like portuguese and all the other romanic languages, tend to have prepositions and sensitiveness to the linear order of the constituents inside the sentence to define the exact same funtion. Some bantu languages, a family of languages spoken in a great part of the african continent, use dozens of complex morphemes to define each situation in such an accurate way that in some cases a single word would be enough to define the whole situation and how wrong you are at the same time. That doesn't mean they are more complex.

Languages go through lots of different situations in their history and there's no better way to define particular languages than by saying they are polymorphic and in perpetual variation thrugh time.

Ortography rules are a completely different issue: if ortography is meant to be a mean to allow all speakers of a language to understand each other in the best way possible, and if that way implies some norms or conventions, then I have to fully agree that the rules must be strict in a due space or time. But even those can't be completely away from reality and must represent what reality is.

[Ky.Jelly]

before i really say something daft, can i get the definition of :

Ortography
morphologic
morphemes
polymorphic

then i might understand it a little more

[aavv]

heh, sorry about the bad spelling and nerdness of those words i used.

orthography - the right way of writing a word

morpheme - the smallest thing that has a meaning in a language. Take the word 'logic' for instance: you can have 'logical' (logic+al). 'al' is a morpheme. Other examples: logicness, logician, where 'ness' and 'ian' are morphemes that change the base meaning of the word 'logic'

morphologic - a process/thing that regards the functioning of those morphemes

polymorphic (actually it's 'polymorphous', i spelled it badly) - something that has or can have various shapes/stages


a good tip is http://dictionary.cambridge.org/ . works great

[Ky.Jelly]

thanks, i was going to use a dictionary to find it out but i figured if you explained it here then 100 other people wouldnt have to look at dictionarys as well, i do have my own views on current language "modification" but ill write wen im not at work

[DrPepper]

...and all the other romanic languages, tend to have prepositions and sensitiveness to the linear order of the constituents inside the sentence to define the exact same funtion.

Well, all the romanic languages decends from latin, wich has a minimum amount of prepositions, and just in a few cases have to be written linear, because latin is well preserved, in that sense that it is clear and have not been that much altered by time.

What I must point out is that generally people seems to get so angered (or something) while reading my slightly exaggerated "doomsday prophecy", that they get insulted, thus biting "back" to defend a territory not even attacked.
What I'm pointing at is the increased (alarming!) rate of linguistic degeneration. When students after nine years in school cannot even spell their native tounge _because of_ cellular phones and internet chatting something is wrong. 5 years ago this problem was nonexistant. Now it is a fact. What's so wrong with trying to aid your fellow humans?

Panta Rei - No light without dark, no war without peace

[chux]

morpheme - the smallest thing that has a meaning in a language. Take the word 'logic' for instance: you can have 'logical' (logic+al). 'al' is a morpheme. Other examples: logicness, logician, where 'ness' and 'ian' are morphemes that change the base meaning of the word 'logic'

aka: 'affix'?
Before you ask, I know what an affix is, but I dont know if thats what you mean of not...blehh

Anyway, I can see what DrP means, I hate it when people use 'r' instead of 'are' and 'u', 'y', etc. Its not any harder than whriting the actual word...
Also, people these days cant use punctuation!! (heh, a little joke there)
I keep seeing people misusing apostrophe's (another little joke, and an example!). I learnt how to punctuate at a really young age, and now i can do it...! Why can other people not? Takes too long probably. People prefer to write shorter words and use no punctuation. I know Ive used hardly any here, but if i needed to write something important...
The only times I use puctuation is when i write words that dont make sense without it. Like 'I'll' is just 'ill'...confusing. And 'we'll' becomes 'well', heh! But I can spell, and use grammar...its not hard people!
And James, the full stop designates a shortened word. An Initial. Writing James.N. makes no sense

[aavv]

You got me wrong, i didn't get mad nor something, i just like this sort of discussions that involve linguistics. i also think your view is too conservative, and, to say the least, wrong.


I was replying mainly to this part of your original message:

These different languages of the modern age is a catastrophe truly. I see everyday how languages slowly decay and withers. (...) Swedish grammar will soon be dead. Kids of today don't understand the grammar of their own language. At least 75% of our youth use the wrong words for ackusative and dative (in other words swedish language loses yet another function, making it much more primitive).

Ortography is part of a language, and I agree with some of what you said concerning its degeneration. But what you point out in the excerpts quoted above is the evolution of a language, not just of its ortography. Concerning this issue, i must admit that you focused a particularly sensitive point these days, as these ortography phenomena grow wider and wider and its interpretation tends to be the one you share.


Back to that 'linguistic degeneration' you speak of: latin vs. romanic languages. 1. as you said, all the romanic languages descend from latin. 2. latin, just like swedish, had declensions, case endings, etc, while the romanic languages don't. 3. the romanic languages aren't a degeneration from latin, an are far from being either more poor or rich than latin was. They just evolved from it. What people speak is what is the language you have. If everybody starts speaking swedish carelessly of case endings, that's what swedish will be in a few decades. if the swedish authorities don't make swedish ortography evolve as the language does, you'll be preserving ancient swedish (i said swedish, but it could be any language/country)

Some time ago, English had case endings too, like most of the germanic family languages. Remember Shakespeare: thou, thy, thee, etc. Today the use of case endings in everyday-english is almost confined to the genitive -'s in "DrPepper's" and to some words like you, your, yours. It's almost gone. Does this means nowadays' english is simpler or less complex or whatever?

Well, all the romanic languages decends from latin, wich has a minimum amount of prepositions, and just in a few cases have to be written linear, because latin is well preserved, in that sense that it is clear and have not been that much altered by time.

Latin is well conserved because all the latin you can see nowadays is either ancient latin or a recreation of ancient latin. Latin is a dead tongue, that is almost only meant to be read/translated. That's why it ias so well conserved. if you meant that it's well conserved in the romanic languages, that's untrue.


Regarding ortography, i don't think the situation is that alarming, even if some situations are going beyond what is acceptable. people tend to simplify things. just look at a dictionary: you have 'n.' for noun, 'trans. v.' for transitive verb, etc. i wrote 'etc' instead of 'etcetera'. you'll see yourself writing vd. for vide, e.g. for 'exempli gratia' (for example), and so on, and so on. If you have a systematic use of some words and short time/space, you'll shorten them to their simpler way. i used to criticize it too before i realized i was doing it with words like the ones i pointed out above. It's alarming if people don't know how to write at all, but i guess it's not even sligtly condemning if you do it only in chats or mobile phone messages or whatever. But i agree thatt those spelling errors mobile phones and text processing programs allow should be far better and that they are aiding the spelling errors at school and everyday life.


heh and that's a fucking large message that would be a lot faster to write if i had abreviated some commonly abbreviated words, and equally easy to read for you.

[aavv]

morpheme - the smallest thing that has a meaning in a language. Take the word 'logic' for instance: you can have 'logical' (logic+al). 'al' is a morpheme. Other examples: logicness, logician, where 'ness' and 'ian' are morphemes that change the base meaning of the word 'logic'

aka: 'affix'?
Before you ask, I know what an affix is, but I dont know if thats what you mean of not...blehh

A word root is a morpheme too. in unbelievable you have three morphemes (un+believe+able) but only un- and -able are affixes. A morpheme is the smallest bit of language that has its own meaning: un- means 'non' or something, believe- means believe, and '-able' that is an english suffix to form adjectives, i guess.

I learnt how to punctuate at a really young age, and now i can do it...! Why can other people not? Takes too long probably. People prefer to write shorter words and use no punctuation. I know Ive used hardly any here, but if i needed to write something important...

My point exactly.

[DrPepper]

You got me wrong, i didn't get mad nor something, i just like this sort of discussions that involve linguistics. i also think your view is too conservative, and, to say the least, wrong.

It wasn't (<--oh there I go! abbreviating) saying that you got mad. It was a "delayed" response to Luther's "Konservativa moralhora!" (="conservative moralist whore!"), or actually to one general issue all kinds of online discussions tend to have: The amount of unprovoked insults and personal attacks that goes with forums and chat-rooms. I don't understand why it has to be impossible to keep a friendly tone even though you disagree in certain subjects.
Again this is absolutely not directed towards you, the reason I wrote it was that your informal tone was so utterly different from the general treatment a deviating opinion recieves in the "online world" that I just had to comment on it. Sorry.
Oh and I am also interested in linguistic discussions, of course! As goes for my view, I don't think such a subjective phenomena as a view can be "wrong". That is, for that matter, not a reason not to discuss it! You learn and grow so much from discussing and arguing, different views are added to your registry or system or whatever you want to call it.

Ortography is part of a language, and I agree with some of what you said concerning its degeneration. But what you point out in the excerpts quoted above is the evolution of a language, not just of its ortography.

Of course you cannot steer a language. Time will equal change. And I must say that I have nothing against languages "evolving" (But it is a dangerous word, because of its origin, to use about a language, it can, subconciously, make you think that the language is a "living", independent "being" - I would refer to it as code or a tool for cummunicating. I prefer to use the word "development", but this is a really narrow sidetrack), because there are lot of things I, with others, would like to implement.
As for the word written "tekniker"(and lots of similar problem-related words) it can be read as [tekniker] or [tekníker] (sorry for not using real phonetics) thus meaning either "technicians" or "techniques". There are situations where they're impossible to tell apart. So I'm actually rebellious (som much for conservative!) and write those kind of words with accents.
Because, of course the utmost (only?) purpose for languages is understanding, therefore they should be as clear as possible.

Back to that 'linguistic degeneration' you speak of: latin vs. romanic languages.(...) 3. the romanic languages aren't a degeneration from latin, an are far from being either more poor or rich than latin was.

You are "right" (again, I have these doubts about "right" and "wrong" in these kind of questions) concerning how you cannot say a language is greater or poorer at a common level, at the every-day usage. You cannot say that some cultures/nations understand each other better or worse, this I guess is very equal throughout the entire world. There you have a point. But, I absolutely think a language can become poorer in certain other aspects.
An example: The only language in wich you can actually discuss certain (quite lot of them I say) philosophic issues is ancient greek. This has to do with the language-philosophical theory, the one that language forms certain ways of thought (abstract ideas like eternity etc.) Here to the point: The culture, and language, in wich those discussions were brought to form were the ancient Greek culture. When translated to other languages misunderstandings and misinterpretations are very common. It usually ends with taking the greek word and writing a long explanation to it. Is that not at least a sign of a richer language? The same goes for latin poetry and much more.

Some time ago, English had case endings too, like most of the germanic family languages. Remember Shakespeare: thou, thy, thee, etc. Today the use of case endings in everyday-english is almost confined to the genitive -'s (...) Does this means nowadays' english is simpler or less complex or whatever?

I don't know how Englishmen solve the misunderstandings that follow that reduction:
1: "I have better friends than you"
this could mean both (in olde english)
A: "I hath better friends than thou"(hast) or
B: "I hath better friends than thee"
Anyway that was actually a translation of the same problem (the one mentioned before) in swedish. The problem is that "1" in that form is used for both "A" and "B". This leads to lots of misunderstandings. I don't know if I should call the language simpler or more complex, but, at least harder to understand; more ineffective.

Latin is well conserved because all the latin you can see nowadays is either ancient latin or a recreation of ancient latin. Latin is a dead tongue, that is almost only meant to be read/translated. That's why it ias so well conserved. if you meant that it's well conserved in the romanic languages, that's untrue.

I meant that the actual (ancient) latin is well conserved. Oh, and don't forget it's the official language in the Vatican! They would be insulted hearing you calling their language dead...

It's alarming if people don't know how to write at all, but i guess it's not even sligtly condemning if you do it only in chats or mobile phone messages or whatever.

Yes, I guess I was indistinct (I don't call myself Ho Scoteinos for no reason ), once again. The alarming issue about the teenagers was that they cannot spell at all IRL, because of the cellular phones!!!
The youth of today really are careless, most with shortsighted plans involving quick fortune or pleasure, no thoughts to the future. But then I guess this is what our modern society shapes us to (This is going off topic, if I would continue I could write ten pages, so I'll stop here, you know the general direction I was heading at).

Non schola sed vita. /Tore