4 ms·

Indeed, dictionaries and governments are just writing down what's already happening in the language. In a way language is one of the only truly democratic inst

Indeed, dictionaries and governments are just writing down what's already happening in the language. In a way language is one of the only truly democratic institutions. We all vote for new words and new pronunciations by using them or not using them. The collective action of all these choices is the language.

duped 2y ago
That's not always accurate, many of these government bodies fight the evolution of the vernacular and suppress dialects or loanwords.
- metaphor 2y ago
  This. For example, in the Mariana Islands, there are two independent othography committees that have been low-key duking it out over an indigenous language with less than 50k native speakers; see these brief highlights[1; p. 11 onward] from a recognized scholar of the language for a small sampling. In the CNMI, the language is routinely spoken (i.e. English is a second language in most households) and the CNMI's othography committee has taken a conservative approach, focusing on simple written rules that capture sound as spoken, and biasing its orthography towards serving as an optimal language preservation mechanism...which makes objective sense given its target population is overwhelmingly fluent. In Guam, however, the spoken language was nearing generational extinction largely driven by American colonial influence not dissimilar to the going concern of native Hawaiians. Ironically, Guam's better funded orthography committee has taken a much more liberal approach in establishing new written rules and spellings (e.g. CHamoru is the official spelling of the language/people written into law as of 2017; yes, the letter CH is now entirely capitalized in a proper noun; previously Chamoru, as opposed to the prevailing and historically consistent Chamorro in the CNMI). There's also been a recent resurgence of language adoption by the native youth cohort on Guam largely motivated by grassroots sociopolitical identity movement. This hipster generation has taken it upon themselves to replace an ever growing number of established words adopted during colonial rule hundreds of years ago with all but forgotten words of the ancient tongue...which I suppose is fair game as language evolution goes, but it's gotten to a point of irony where these changes are throwing off the elder native-speaking generation responsible for passing on the language to their progeny, e.g. family (English) --> familia (Spanish adopted) --> manggåfa (antiquated is the new hip). In contrast, no such shift in zeitgeist is happening in the CNMI. [1] https://people.ucsc.edu/~schung/orthog_differences.pdf#page=11 https://people.ucsc.edu/~schung/orthog_differences.pdf#page=...
schroeding 2y ago
Eh, I wouldn't agree with that. In Germany, we had multiple top-down orthographic reforms in the past (e.g. Rechtschreibreform 1996, had many many significant, brand-new changes to make spelling and speaking more consistent) which were pretty forced, i.e. was not organic at all. I'm not saying it was bad, I like the current state of the German language - but it was not organic or democratic. Germanys equivalent to The Daily Mail even had an entire campaign against it with stickers and all. And there is no true way to "vote with your feet" if you get punished for violating the official orthography. Not to mention other sources of non-organic language change, like e.g. suppressing dia- or sociolects, but I also don't want to delve (hehe) too far. :P
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- nobody9999 2y ago
  >And there is no true way to "vote with your feet" if you get punished for violating the official orthography. Ich hat das nicht verstanden. Ich kann mit meinem fusse wahlen. Wie konnte ich fur schlecte Deutsch bestraft werden? Ich wohne nicht in Deutschland. Und ja, meinem Deutsch ist sehr schlecht. Das stimmt. Kommen sie damit klar. Edit: Fixed (without really improving) my terrible german.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- int_19h 2y ago
  Nation-states generally tend to be hostile towards dialects historically because they are seen as disruptive to "national unity", and in more extreme cases, as latent separatism. And it feels like, because larger nation-states usually have more history of separatism (having forcibly assimilated more distinct local cultures), they also tend to be more touchy about that.
  - majewsky 2y ago
    As a German, I don't think this applies to Germany all that much. For example, multiple German states have enshrined in their constitutions a specific protection for several minority languages (mostly Germanic languages like Low German or Danish, but also the Slavic language of Sorbian that's native to Brandenburg and Saxony). If anything, the state and county governments are working to preserve those local varieties.

duped 2y ago

That's not always accurate, many of these government bodies fight the evolution of the vernacular and suppress dialects or loanwords.

metaphor 2y ago
This. For example, in the Mariana Islands, there are two independent othography committees that have been low-key duking it out over an indigenous language with less than 50k native speakers; see these brief highlights[1; p. 11 onward] from a recognized scholar of the language for a small sampling. In the CNMI, the language is routinely spoken (i.e. English is a second language in most households) and the CNMI's othography committee has taken a conservative approach, focusing on simple written rules that capture sound as spoken, and biasing its orthography towards serving as an optimal language preservation mechanism...which makes objective sense given its target population is overwhelmingly fluent. In Guam, however, the spoken language was nearing generational extinction largely driven by American colonial influence not dissimilar to the going concern of native Hawaiians. Ironically, Guam's better funded orthography committee has taken a much more liberal approach in establishing new written rules and spellings (e.g. CHamoru is the official spelling of the language/people written into law as of 2017; yes, the letter CH is now entirely capitalized in a proper noun; previously Chamoru, as opposed to the prevailing and historically consistent Chamorro in the CNMI). There's also been a recent resurgence of language adoption by the native youth cohort on Guam largely motivated by grassroots sociopolitical identity movement. This hipster generation has taken it upon themselves to replace an ever growing number of established words adopted during colonial rule hundreds of years ago with all but forgotten words of the ancient tongue...which I suppose is fair game as language evolution goes, but it's gotten to a point of irony where these changes are throwing off the elder native-speaking generation responsible for passing on the language to their progeny, e.g. family (English) --> familia (Spanish adopted) --> manggåfa (antiquated is the new hip). In contrast, no such shift in zeitgeist is happening in the CNMI. [1] https://people.ucsc.edu/~schung/orthog_differences.pdf#page=11 https://people.ucsc.edu/~schung/orthog_differences.pdf#page=...

schroeding 2y ago

Eh, I wouldn't agree with that. In Germany, we had multiple top-down orthographic reforms in the past (e.g. Rechtschreibreform 1996, had many many significant, brand-new changes to make spelling and speaking more consistent) which were pretty forced, i.e. was not organic at all. I'm not saying it was bad, I like the current state of the German language - but it was not organic or democratic. Germanys equivalent to The Daily Mail even had an entire campaign against it with stickers and all. And there is no true way to "vote with your feet" if you get punished for violating the official orthography. Not to mention other sources of non-organic language change, like e.g. suppressing dia- or sociolects, but I also don't want to delve (hehe) too far. :P

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
nobody9999 2y ago
>And there is no true way to "vote with your feet" if you get punished for violating the official orthography. Ich hat das nicht verstanden. Ich kann mit meinem fusse wahlen. Wie konnte ich fur schlecte Deutsch bestraft werden? Ich wohne nicht in Deutschland. Und ja, meinem Deutsch ist sehr schlecht. Das stimmt. Kommen sie damit klar. Edit: Fixed (without really improving) my terrible german.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
int_19h 2y ago
Nation-states generally tend to be hostile towards dialects historically because they are seen as disruptive to "national unity", and in more extreme cases, as latent separatism. And it feels like, because larger nation-states usually have more history of separatism (having forcibly assimilated more distinct local cultures), they also tend to be more touchy about that.
- majewsky 2y ago
  As a German, I don't think this applies to Germany all that much. For example, multiple German states have enshrined in their constitutions a specific protection for several minority languages (mostly Germanic languages like Low German or Danish, but also the Slavic language of Sorbian that's native to Brandenburg and Saxony). If anything, the state and county governments are working to preserve those local varieties.