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There is an ancient perception that one's own language is degraded, that the language of older literature is more vital, more robust, richer. You can find this
by panglott 12y ago
There is an ancient perception that one's own language is degraded, that the language of older literature is more vital, more robust, richer. You can find this strain of thought in English literature for hundreds of years, in French, and in classical Latin and Greek, and many other literary traditions, I'm sure.
There must be some basic cognitive bias here, like valorizing too highly the literature you loved in your youth, while discounting the creative innovations of your own age.
- kissickas 12y agoOr by cherry-picking the greatest works of century-long periods and comparing them to the endless onslaught of terrible works today. That said, even if there is a selective bias, that doesn't make it any less useful to preserve backwards compatibility so we can understand those great works.
- PepeGomez 12y agoOr maybe old language looks "richer", because you can easily notice grammar used in old literature that is no longer used in modern speech, but it's very hard to spot grammar that didn't exist yet.