Comments on: To the Power of N http://dangerousintersection.org/2007/02/24/to-the-power-of-n/ Human Animals at the Crossroads of Culture, Science, Religion and Media Sun, 21 Mar 2010 19:40:28 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7.1 hourly 1 By: Dan Klarmann http://dangerousintersection.org/2007/02/24/to-the-power-of-n/comment-page-1/#comment-10400 Dan Klarmann Sat, 03 Mar 2007 20:55:11 +0000 http://dangerousintersection.org/?p=1102#comment-10400 I grant that Vicki's multiple degrees in languages and education may give her an advantage here. I used the term "teenagers" not to indicate the modern demographic classification, but rather as a familiar term for adolescents. That group that sociologists, anthropologists, and psychologists define by their differential behavior. One of these traits is to play with their cognitive tools, like language. Generally speaking, children accept what they are taught "because God said so," and adults keep doing what they are used to; what has always worked for them. Adolescents are the experimenters. They are the ones who will incorporate a word used by a traveler into the local dialect. They are the ones who initiate vowel shifts, slang, and exercise other mechanisms for linguistic memeological change. It is the adolescents who push language changes at home. Vicki's own examples support my point. Prep school kids and be-boppers (flappers, rappers, whatever) pull foreign dialects into their speech and invent their own words. I admit that I'm ignoring the effects of merging cultures, when adults are forced to create a mélange of language to communicate: Creoles, pidgins, and border languages. Why do Finland (next to Sweden) and Korea (far end of China) share a root language that is not related to any other language anywhere in between? Why can a modern Italian easily read Dante in the original, yet modern English speakers can't read the generations-more-modern Chaucer? Linguistics is a complex topic. I merely was indicating one easy-to-observe mechanism for phonological drift, and using it as a teaser to read more from the break. I grant that Vicki’s multiple degrees in languages and education may give her an advantage here. I used the term “teenagers” not to indicate the modern demographic classification, but rather as a familiar term for adolescents. That group that sociologists, anthropologists, and psychologists define by their differential behavior.

One of these traits is to play with their cognitive tools, like language. Generally speaking, children accept what they are taught “because God said so,” and adults keep doing what they are used to; what has always worked for them. Adolescents are the experimenters. They are the ones who will incorporate a word used by a traveler into the local dialect. They are the ones who initiate vowel shifts, slang, and exercise other mechanisms for linguistic memeological change.

It is the adolescents who push language changes at home. Vicki’s own examples support my point. Prep school kids and be-boppers (flappers, rappers, whatever) pull foreign dialects into their speech and invent their own words.

I admit that I’m ignoring the effects of merging cultures, when adults are forced to create a mélange of language to communicate: Creoles, pidgins, and border languages.

Why do Finland (next to Sweden) and Korea (far end of China) share a root language that is not related to any other language anywhere in between? Why can a modern Italian easily read Dante in the original, yet modern English speakers can’t read the generations-more-modern Chaucer?

Linguistics is a complex topic. I merely was indicating one easy-to-observe mechanism for phonological drift, and using it as a teaser to read more from the break.

]]> By: Vicki http://dangerousintersection.org/2007/02/24/to-the-power-of-n/comment-page-1/#comment-10390 Vicki Sat, 03 Mar 2007 06:32:55 +0000 http://dangerousintersection.org/?p=1102#comment-10390 Hi again: You write "Basically, why are so many words pronounced differently than they are spelled? The simple answer is, teenagers." Phonological shifts don't happen because of teenagers, it's way more complex than that. Morphologically speaking, teen culture (a very recent phenomenon) may have added a few words to the lexicon but it is mostly derivative of subcultures outside the power structure. Edwardian public school slang borrowed heavily from Cockney, and the whole history of teen culture and "coolness" in the USA is a story of continuous appropriation of African-American culture. Probably you were just reaching too hard for Whimsical here but I think most scientists of language would find this sort of blithe speculation a tad offensive. Hi again:

You write “Basically, why are so many words pronounced differently than they are spelled? The simple answer is, teenagers.”

Phonological shifts don’t happen because of teenagers, it’s way more complex than that. Morphologically speaking, teen culture (a very recent phenomenon) may have added a few words to the lexicon but it is mostly derivative of subcultures outside the power structure. Edwardian public school slang borrowed heavily from Cockney, and the whole history of teen culture and “coolness” in the USA is a story of continuous appropriation of African-American culture.

Probably you were just reaching too hard for Whimsical here but I think most scientists of language would find this sort of blithe speculation a tad offensive.

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