Language Change Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Language Change - Article Example They may be just expressing their opinions and fears rather than being concerned about the health of language itself. The article says that language change is triggered by social factors. These social factors make use of the existing gap in the structure of the language. The author believes that language change is of two major types. She gives an example of changes in English language. According to her, while the loss of‘t’ is a disruptive change, the loss of ‘h’ has a therapeutic effect on the language. The article then moves over to linking language change in humans to that of whales. During the breeding season, whales change their song. Change is not a correct word as only modification occurs in their song. When an accurate observation was made about the modification, it was seen that new sequences were created by joining middle and end of the phrases, omitting the middle part. This is very similar to change of language in human beings. The purpose of this example is to point out that human beings are not alone in the phenomenon of language change. Then the first question of the article is asked. Should language change be measured with the words like progress and decay? The author believes that arguments about ‘progress’ or ‘decay’ in language have tended to reflect the religious or philosophical preconceptions of their proponents. On the other hand there are people who base their language theories on the Darwin’s theory of evolution. Charles Darwin believed that a shorter and easier form of language gained an upper hand over other languages. So does this mean that a language that expresses more in fewer words is superior over others? The author says that this shouldn’t be the yardstick to measure the superiority of a language because shorter and easier forms of language often result in confusing homonyms. Hence, while analyzing a language change, both religions and