I intend to post things in Dutch (my native language) as well as English (my preferred language) about language, languages, linguistics and related topics. The topics will be quite varied, ranging from, for example, the etymology (origin) of words and the path they have taken to their current use to grammatical constructions, from phonetics and the International Phonetic Alphabet to linguistic development throughout the ages and whatever else I deem interesting. Also, there might be an excursion sometimes during which I rant and vent my frustrations about other real-world topics. These represent my relatively poorly informed opinion on matters outside my specialist subject and should not be seen as authoritative, or, for that matter, taken too seriously.
We all have a different relationship with our language and a person's attitude towards it, I feel, can be placed somewhere of the spectrum of casual indifference ("as long as they understand what I mean, spelling, grammar, punctuation, word use and phrasing don't really matter") to a hypersensitive notion of equating mastery of the language to intelligence and the ability to think ("if you don't know the ins and outs of the language perfectly, you are obviously retarded and not fit to function in civilized society"). Neither extreme is desirable.
Those who have adopted the former attitude will find that they frequently will be subject to ridicule and scorn and it will be harder for them to be taken seriously when presenting something in writing. If they use words "wrong" or mispronounce them (very easily done in English in particular), it can lead to fairly embarrassing situations. I cannot say this with certainty, but I suspect that this attitude has to do with a certain amount of pragmatic thought that characterizes our age as well as a shift in what we deem important. For whatever reasons, society equates usefulness of knowledge with the capacity to use that knowledge to generate money. For example, the bulk of the exact sciences are seen as useful, because they frequently lead to billion-dollar inventions and well-paid jobs. The humanities and, to a certain extent, the social sciences, seldom if ever lead to such a financial boost and are therefore dismissed as not worth pursuing or even as something akin to a hobby. This might be a new phenomenon, but I have not done an extensive study to see how people viewed the humanities in the past and if there ever actually was such a thing as a broad level of admiration of the arts, or if it was merely seen as something that people pursued who were well-off in society.
Those who lean towards the latter option should be aware that no one uses any language, whether it be their own or not, perfectly and that language changes. This appears to be a timeless problem, because ever since people have begun writing about their language - and they have been doing so for quite a few centuries - and its use, there have been complaints about the younger generations as well as people perceived as intellectually inferior. These linguistic innovations tend to be seen as an abomination, as a degeneration and corruption of the language, which will carry us all to the precipice of the abyss and plummet us into a thousand years of despair, during which time we will be so intellectually backward that we simply have no choice but to return to cave paintings and hoarse grunting of monosyllabic imperatives. This, demonstrably, is nonsense.
These people would do well to remember that they do not communicate on a daily basis in the Old English of Beowulf, the Middle English of Chaucer and Spenser or, for that matter, the Elizabethan English made world-famous by William Shakespeare. (Obviously, this also goes for Dutch, French and all the other languages spoken by people around the world with significant numbers of people who whine about a decline in standards.) Language changes over time and languages strive for a midway point in the dynamic equilibrium between expressive capacity on one hand and a simplicity that facilitates its use on the other. Language did not come into being to satisfy the aesthetic whims of the intellectual elite, but rather as a tool that facilitated cooperation for the tribal monkeys known as humans. Furthermore, the sounds of a language change over time, which often has consequences for the grammar and therefore the structure of a language. There is a continuous influx of new words and new terms, as well as words that are banished to the realm of the obsolete. This can happen because the objects and concepts they describe are no longer commonplace, or simply because they are replaced by different words. In that sense, words are a little bit like living beings, in that they come into being, experience a level of success during which they thrive and eventually die out. The success of a word depends on what it describes. Words like father, cow, nose, tooth, foot, brother, daughter, eight, work, snow and acre are incredibly old and have been reconstructed for Proto Indo-European (the parent language for a lot of the languages ranging from Iceland to India). More on Proto Indo-European, abbreviated as PIE, in due time.
For a large part, our attitude towards language is determined by the position our scholars have taken on the matter. Up until about the mid-twentieth century this attitude was largely dominated by a prescriptive one, which means that the rules for the language had been drawn up, based largely on the norms of literature and high culture, and subsequently taught to those fortunate enough to receive an education as correct and proper. Literature, however, had different norms and standards than colloquial varieties of a language, which means that there was a gap between the lucky few who were educated and the overwhelming majority of people who used the language on a daily basis as it actually existed at this time. These varieties interacted with each other to a certain extent, but for the most part those who spoke the language in its colloquial variety, or any variety that deviated from the norm, were seen as intellectually unsound and their language as base.
Socioeconomic positions and education were not the only driving factor behind promoting the standard language in a form perceived as more pure. Cultural influence, mostly centered around capitals of nations, also was a driving factor behind the elevation of the language of high culture as something superior, since these regions usually started playing a leading role in the production of more literature. In France, this role was fulfilled by Paris, in England by London, in The Netherlands by the dialects of Flanders and Brabant, after that those of Holland (the Dutch pronunciation of the standard language is largely based on the old dialect of Haarlem, a little bit west of Amsterdam) and later by the city of Amsterdam, in the Czech Republic (first as Bohemia, then as Czechoslovakia and since the Velvet Revolution as the independent Czech Republic) this has been Prague. As a result, dialects, a term that is notoriously difficult to define and which is largely based on political grounds, were also seen as inferior, an attitude that pervades in most countries to the present day.
This does not mean, of course, that the standard or standardized language and those who promote it, are inherently evil devil spawn hellbent on the destruction of anything that is different. Standardized languages have had a hard time from their inception, since they were based on the vernacular of a relatively small region in a country. They had to be promoted and fight for their existence. They also have merit, since they allow us to communicate with speakers of our language throughout a country or even, in the case of English, French, Spanish, etc, with speakers across several countries.
There is much more to be said on the dynamics of the standard language between regional variations, other languages (for instance, in former colonies) and linguae franca, in which one language influences completely different languages outside its immediate sphere of influence, but that would mean that this introduction would turn into a little bit of an extensive scholarly publication. Suffice it to say that these fears and complaints about decline in language use are based on the wrong idea, namely that one stage of the language is intrinsically superior to another, often more contemporary, form. Those who adopt a fully prescriptive view of language use are fighting a losing battle: full preservation of a language without wanting to change anything leads to its demise. New words, forms, figures of speech, and so on, only enrich the language and adjust it to the needs of the time.
That's all well and good, but does that mean we shouldn't care if people don't know how to properly write the word definitely, or place apostrophes wrong, or use completely different tenses than the ones they're supposed to use? No. Just because the prescriptive extreme does not offer a useful approach, does not mean we should move to the other extreme and just let everybody write things however they want to, phrase things in a manner that is often unintelligible and not care about the standard language. The answer, I feel, lies somewhere in the middle: you should care about how you spell, phrase and structure things, because it will determine how well you can get your point across. Just make sure that in the process you don't fetishize use of the language in question that corresponds to all the intricate rules and start dehumanizing those who make mistakes by belittling them and labeling them as stupid. After all, if you said something you thought was correct and somebody corrected you and called you a moron, would you seize that opportunity to learn, or would you start one of those delightfully tedious internet fights that ultimately form a tremendous waste of time and energy and are extremely unproductive. Correct, if you must, but don't belittle. Accept that change is inherent to life and therefore language. Don't fear knowledge, but seek to gain it instead. Stray beyond what you know and expose yourself to different views. Knowing something and understanding something does not mean you have to agree with it. Be wary of what is posted on the Internet, since the majority of it is not edited, filtered or managed and often written with an agenda. Read like a filter, not a sponge. And care, care a great deal about a lot of different things. Useful tenets to life, I would imagine.
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