
Why Has Language Changed So Much So Fast? ‘Because Internet’ - pseudolus
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/22/books/review-because-internet-understanding-new-rules-language-gretchen-mcculloch.html
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aznpwnzor
Unfortunately the review doesn't address this but there are multiple factors
that can explain this while keeping the mutation rate of language the same.

It may be hard to separate the 3 factors that come to mind:

1\. higher volume of communication. (more people than ever write/read more
than ever)

2\. lower bar for observable/written down communication. (anybody can write
publicly/permanently)

3\. faster transmission of previously local slang. (more groups that
previously would have kept their slang to themselves are interacting than
ever, e.g. your non black friends ruining the word "ratchet" before 2014
ended)

and by slang here, I mean both verbal and grammatical

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Alex3917
All the factors you mention are true of course, but I'm not sure any of them
really explain it. In my mind the Internet is something like a skate park for
language, where you have this global infrastructure for developing, rewarding,
and disseminating new tricks.

Just increasing the volume of people writing books and letters doesn't get you
K5 or 4chan.

~~~
EGreg
New tricks? I feel like in the past, everyone had language tricks. Speaking in
fun ways, clever one liners and turns of phrase of the type Mark Twain or
Churchill would employ were commonplace. People didn’t have videogames,
facebook and other stuff to amuse themselves, or express themselves through.
They found ways to do it through language.

Just pick up any book that captures how people spoke in the 19th and first
part of the 20th century. Language was sport.

~~~
pretendscholar
The written word is only part of it.for example, the self imposed constraints
of the twitter can increase the need to pack more into one message coupled
with the ability to add an image creates weird selective pressures on
language.

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_emacsomancer_
Separating actual language from things like orthography is important here. I'm
not sure language itself has changed at a significantly different rate than in
the past. Internet communication environments do favour changing orthographic
norms, which is still interesting, but not the same thing as language change.

~~~
coldtea
> _I 'm not sure language itself has changed at a significantly different rate
> than in the past. Internet communication environments do favour changing
> orthographic norms, which is still interesting, but not the same thing as
> language change._

Orthography is just the spelling part of the language.

But there's a lot of change to the vocabulary because of internet (new term
adoption and foreign word travel are now much faster).

There are also several new syntactic forms (e.g. in memes etc) that might
still appear "out of the language" for the more conservative, but are
inevitable destined to become part of it as the generations grown with them
mature (and they are already all over even "traditional" print media, books,
etc. -- even bizarro forms like "doge speak").

And since english is the dominant web/movies/pop culture language, even more
change has incurred in smaller languages, where turns of phrase and syntactic
forms from english adopted wholesale by younger speakers ("anglicisms").

~~~
marcus_holmes
I find this fascinating. I'm learning German at the moment, and the
traditional "y"-sound for the letter "j" is not used in words borrowed from
English ("jeans", "jogging", etc). And there are so many words borrowed from
English!

Also, I know German people who find it easier to have conversations on some
subjects in English, even between native German speakers. I can't work out if
this is the equivalent of chefs having to learn French; the language of
technology is English, so if you want to talk about tech, you need to learn
English. Or whether the world's language is becoming more Anglicised and so
it's just easier to use English for modern conversations.

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devchix
Oddly enough, Lane Greene of The Economist 6 days ago argued that language by
and large has _not_ changed so fast, despite the Internet, citing the same
book.

The Intelligence podcast 2019-07-17, near the 14:08 mark.
[https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9yc3MuYWNhc3QuY2...](https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9yc3MuYWNhc3QuY29tL3RoZWludGVsbGlnZW5jZXBvZGNhc3Q%3D&episode=MjA5N2IwZWItMDVmMy00NDNkLTk5NmYtNjgxZjRhYzk5M2Fj)

I have not read the book, I'm surprised it (or maybe just its title) is
involved in making two opposing cases.

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b0b10101
I heard the same podcast and the argument is actually the same as this line
from the article:

"“One type of writing hasn’t replaced the other,” McCulloch writes, taking
care to emphasize that the situation between formal language and internet
language isn’t zero-sum."

It's just that The Economist made this division much more explicit, and used
it as the basis for their argument while the NYT relegates it to a single line
at the end of the article...

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vikramkr
Its interesting- at first blush I would think that the internet would slow
down language evolution by linking together communities in a way that prevents
that natural genetic drift of languages between nearby towns with limited
intertown travel from happening. Instead, the constraints and form of the
medium has created an explosion in linguistic evolution and growth. What an
exciting linguistic time to be alive!

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foldingmoney
Yes.

~~~
benj111
What an exciting linguistic time to be alive and the best you can muster is
'yes'? How about an 'undoubtedly', 'most assuredly', or a good old pirate
'yarr'.

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alexpotato
This brings up a larger point about culture and shared experience.

I remember being in high school in the late 90's and reading OpEds about how
the internet was going to diminish varied viewpoints since we would all be
getting our information from the same sources. Keep in mind: this was around
the same time that there was an Internet Yellow Pages so the thought was a
small selection of sites plus "global" access would lead to this phenomenon.

Flash forward to today. With Twitter, Netflix, Pandora etc etc you can create
your own stream of media that is unique to you. Or you can create your own
echo chamber on Facebook. I wonder what it will look like 10 years from now
for teenagers from different parts of the US. Will they have any kind of
shared references?

I remember reading that something on the order of 100 million people watched
the finale of M _A_ S*H. It made shared experience so easy vs today. Then I
also think of the time before newspapers or radio and realize that shared
experiences across millions of people is probably only a recent phenomenon.
E.g. if you were from a small town in medieval Europe you probably had a
totally different set of legends/stories etc from the next town over.

In other words, I'm very curious to see where these trends take us.

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19870213
Tom Scotts tie-in for the book: 'why typing like this is sometimes okay.'
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS4X1JfX6_Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS4X1JfX6_Q)

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sjcsjc
Not terribly relevant, but about 20 years ago I noticed that a Canadian
visitor to our UK home opened every conversation with the word "so". It
sounded extremely strange to me, and I really didn't like it.

Now, 20 years later, I find I begin nearly every conversation with the word
"so".

~~~
malvosenior
You were right 20 years ago :)

I hate it when people do this as it sounds super condescending. Literally
talking down to someone like you would a small child that needed to be taught
a lesson.

I think starting a thought with “So,” is some unholy mix of pseudo-California
valley talk (not that valley) and upper middle class liberal arts in-speak.

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yojex
So this might seem weird, but there are many people who do not at all feel
that way. I can't even begin to imagine what feels condescending about someone
using "so" as a filler word.

For people with a bit of social anxiety, it can serve as an easy and
comfortable lead-in to share a thought when they can't think of a better way.

~~~
malvosenior
I think if you read your reply with and without the “so”, you’ll see what I
mean.

Your second paragraph is probably one of the reasons people do it but it’s
also the reason it come off passive aggressive, which when disagreeing with
someone sounds condescending.

~~~
yojex
I included it in my reply to see what you thought of it :)

I hadn't considered it in the context of disagreement; I think I can see how
that could rub people the wrong way.

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nikofeyn
books like this always seem so superficial. the internet did not create
people’s want to play with language. it maybe acted as a catalyst, but the
fundamental nature of humans being playful with language has always been
around. i learned this through an interview with noam chomsky. he mentioned
that the fastest moving languages are usually the more local, village or
tribal like languages, that these people are very playful with language
because they aren’t bound by rules. it was the introduction of national
languages like german, french, mandarin, etc. that slowed the evolution and
playfulness of languages in those regions, which have many dialects that are
sort of dying out.

~~~
weq
Pidgeon, spoken in alot of the islands nations, is used as a bridge like
language for local dialects. IMO its the first example of what this book is
referring too.

~~~
frenchy
The word is "pidgin", and don't think this is really a good example of that.
These language features are being used by native english speakers to
communicate with other native english speakers. A pidgin is not normally used
to communicate between speakers of the same language.

Note that some languages that are collquially refered to as pidgins, aren't
(e.g. Tok Pisin).

~~~
orthoxerox
I think Tok Pisin is referred to as a pidgin quite officially. That's what
Pisin in its name is.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
Tok Pisin is classified as a creole, not a pidgin. While its origins go back
to a pidgin, hence the name, it is no longer a pidgin.

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Cannibusted
Yeah kids talk funny nowadays!

Not really,... it's always been like that with children.

It is disturbing how many adults do it, trying to act 'cool' and talking like
that.

~~~
ironmagma
Why is it disturbing? Sometimes we pick up colloquialisms unconsciously, and
besides, one cannot and should not try to resist societal change indefinitely.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Well, when _I_ do it, it's mainly to annoy my kids...

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ohduran
Well, I beg to disagree. People keep resorting to the same tricks they've been
using for ages to command and control each other. In that sense, nothing has
changed: language is a promise we make to each other on a future yet to be
seen. Since I read Language in Thought and Action, by S.I. Hayakawa, I see all
things related to language in a different way.

If you want to find more, I posted some notes on the book here:
[https://alvaroduran.me/language-in-though-and-
action](https://alvaroduran.me/language-in-though-and-action)

Edit: orthography corrections. Which is still language, though ;)

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Causality1
>Or make that “hey!!!!!” Exclamation points, unlike the period, have so far
escaped obsolescence in customarily punctuation-free online interaction; if
anything, they’ve been cheapened by overuse,

That's a point I personally disagree with. My impression is that exclamation
points typically serve as indicators of an older, rather than younger author,
especially if they're included in a joke. If someone sends you a meme or
copypasta that ends in an exclamation point it's almost always boomer humor.
"Because Jill's real name is Randy!" etc.

~~~
ARandomerDude
I'm in my early 30s and I usually use "!" to convey genuineness. For example
"That was so helpful! Thank you!" or "It was great to see you! Thanks for
dropping by while you were in town!"

~~~
Causality1
>"It was great to see you! Thanks for dropping by while you were in town!"

They didn't already know you enjoyed seeing them? Saying things like that
after the fact instead of to the person's face as you said goodbye is more
"old person behavior". You sound like a Facebook user.

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markdown
I've been annoyed lately by Americanisms creeping into conversation in my
little corner of the world. Silly things like "come with" instead of "come
with me" and "it's cold out" instead of "it's cold outside". The internet is a
major influence by Hollywood hasn't lost its place.

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JofArnold
To anyone who’s interested in how language changes and the history of words in
general I highly recommend listening to The Allusionist podcast.

And to anyone who thinks that language is sacred and has to be spoken and
written like it is in the Oxford English Dictionary I also highly recommend
listening to The Allusionist podcast.

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petecox
More coverage of Gretchen's book is quoted on her daily linguistics blog:

[https://allthingslinguistic.com/post/186456220892/reviews-
of...](https://allthingslinguistic.com/post/186456220892/reviews-of-because-
internet)

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meerita
Internet has brought tons of new slang, acronyms and abreviations including a
huge amount of ortography problems thanks to the higher volume of
communication and the speed we can communicate right now.

