xkcd: Period Speech

This recent comment on xkcd reminded me of how we now regard English texts, especially in class. For many of us, reading our first Shakespearean play was nearly impossible; we needed a modern English version right beside us to even begin understanding the play. (Who knew wherefore = why?)

I guess you could call this a Theory of Knowledge (TOK) moment.

Since the English language is still alive (ie. new words are being added, number of speakers isn’t stagnant or dwindling), one begins to wonder how much our language will change in the next few centuries. Shakespeare’s plays were written less than 4 centuries ago, yet it is very hard to understand it. The Declaration of Independence was written less than two and a half centuries ago, yet it feels as if there’s a lot of awkward phrasing in it. The Gettysburg Address is quite understandable, but it was written a mere 150 years ago. Arguably, the English language could change either a lot or very little.

Those who say that the English language will change a lot point to the language use on Internet forums and in text messaging, which have both drastically altered what is considered to be normal speech in English. Who would’ve thought that “words” like LOL or w00t would be published in dictionaries as “legit” words? With the Internet allowing us to become a smaller global community, the rate of change has clearly increased. Things that would’ve taken months to do now take minutes or even seconds. Telecommunications are almost instantaneous. Language, they claim, is no exception.

On the other hand, we have those who claim that the English language will remain relatively stable for the foreseable future. Granted, there will be a lot of new words from other languages and new developments, but the basic foundation and speech patterns will remain the same due to the fact that has all been recorded. The culture from Shakespeare’s time has almost been completely lost due to the passage of time, but our modern culture (for better or for worse) has been nearly completely preserved in our archival materials, our libraries and in our common knowledge (more people = more brainpower = more memory = more aspects of culture preserved). With so much of our culture and language preserved, they argue that any significant deviation will quickly wither off (especially with so many people who point out spelling and grammatical mistakes online).

So with all these new developments in technology and culture, will the English language (or any language for that matter) be able to withstand the passage of time in its current state? Perhaps it will be significantly altered. Or it could be virtually the same. In TOK, the safest answer would probably be ‘somewhere in the middle’ with some justification from both sides.

When they invent time machines in the future, send me a postcard written in the language of the time. (In legible writing, please). I’d like to prove xkcd right (or wrong).

Related posts:

1. IB Graduation Speech