29 ms·

They kind of do. In my language there exists a central "governing" body that decides what is correct, and some "incorrect" regionalisms are disappearing because

• FredPret 3y ago
  When that happens, it’s likely more about politics and social status than the governing body. Ie, the governing body decrees that the regionalisms from the dominant region is the definitive version of the language. But it might be considered cool to speak that way even without a governing body.
• mardifoufs 3y ago
  Are you referring to french? Because, if anything, french in France has an insane quantity of slangs and has an extremely emergent vocabulary. Much more so than any English speaking country I can think of. Quebec isn't really influenced by the Académie française yet has a much more "correct" usage of the language generally speaking. Maybe it's a totally different language but still it goes to show that even a very prestigious central authority doesn't make a language better or less prone to diverge. Regardless of the reason, French is evolving much more quickly than English.
  • nrdvana 3y ago
    But maybe that's beside the point. If someone wants to "learn French" they can learn by the official rules and communicate with other french-speaking people regardless of how many slang variants exist in France. They can also probably watch French television and understand it. The point of esperonto was to make it easier to learn. French is regular, but extremely complicated. English is complicated and has a million special cases. Both languages are hard enough to master that society starts to judge a person's intelligence by how well they know the rules and special cases.