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Popularity is the single biggest factor that evolves a language. Language rules are put around the commonality, not the other way around. Popularity always trum
by sedatk 6y ago
Popularity is the single biggest factor that evolves a language. Language rules are put around the commonality, not the other way around. Popularity always trumps in the evolution of spoken language.
For whatever it's worth, Google's own definition also has it, which is from Oxford: https://www.google.com/search?q=myth+definition https://www.google.com/search?q=myth+definition
- austincheney 6y agoNot historically. Occitan was once far more popular than English by both royalty and total speakers. It was the language of English king Richard the Lion Heart who couldn’t speak English. Now it’s dead and most people have never heard of it. Not even conquest had anything to do with it. My name comes from High Norman which was also more popular than English and is also dead. Britain was also more popular than English even after being displaced by Saxon invaders. Mongol and it’s short lived Phags-pa script were very popular but they lacked influence and never caught on. Written Arabic has remained stable and largely resisted evolution regardless of growing and contracting popularity over a large geography. This is even true in programming. Most programmers seem to hate JavaScript and yet it has emerged as the most prolific programming language. Popular ideas about supplanting it or replacing it have proven ineffective or completely imaginary. The only moderately successful attempt to displace JavaScript is TypeScript, a superset that fully embraces JavaScript. Popularity is an argument ignorant people hide behind when evidence is too inconvenient.