The English Language is Dead

a reply to: beyondknowledge2

sounds like a mix of French and Scandinavian

a reply to: TheTardis
tryna" "finna" "bouta
Lol I use those words and more. You will hear me say bof instead of both. I only speak like this though with folks I grew up with and those who won't be offended by such butchery. Otherwise I am quite eloquent, and with my kids I always teach them as proper as possible. Like saying May I instead of Can I, or making sure to say because instead of cuz.

But like some others who have replied I grew up in the southern USA and well, we just speak some type of way. It's not like most of us write this way. It's just how we speak. Although sometimes I am too stoned and get lazy when I write on here.

that word.
i don't think it means
what you think it means, prepare to die!

lol.



well i grew up with people from the "old country"

lot's of broken english and such.

originally posted by: TheTardis
I am not sure if this is just a US problem or worldwide and I don't know if it can be more contributed to kids listening to ghetto music and idolizing the ghetto "gansta" lifestyle or if this can be attributed to texting and this entire generation of kids growing up with a smartphone in their hands but with that said is anyone else completely sick of words like "tryna" "finna" "bouta" and every other strange lazy contraction they can make. These kids use them as real words and it seems like every meme I see on social media was written by someone using ebonics. Is it so hard to use the English langues the way it was intended? And done even get me started on "sale", "sail" and "sell". I am no English teacher and I did go to public schools but this is getting out of hand.

Did you not learn about archaic language and how English has evolved over the centuries at school or later life?

Language and English has always evolved, it's why we speak English instead of Hugano and using Shakespearean nomenclature is outdated - Americans dropped the 'u' and replaced 's' with 'z' in English words over 100 years ago due to lazy/contractions and not being able to spell the correct English like 'colour', 'criticise' etc....

need good teachers.

Anglo-Saxon: The root of the English language and it was at one time atrocious... More often spoken than written or spelled and when that changed a standard was made where not only did it require proper spelling but enunciation.

I couldn't imagine how it would be with what is called: Kanji; As it can be seen in nature. Words seen in tree branches and cracks that have formed in architecture... I'm surprised there isn't really any imagery(photographs) of such a thing as an occurrence being pointed out as a form of art.

Every generation has their slang terms; Some of those words have stuck around and are used by other generations as accepted slang and some of them haven't.

Anyone saying words like that and singing like that; Only shoots their musical aspirations in the foot... So I doubt those already established as a recording artist speaking and singing like that care.

a reply to: Crowfoot

there is a reason the oldest schools i the world where built during the Anglo-Saxon period as the likes of alfred realised that without access to the old knowledge that peoples where lost, his schools where to not just teach people the old languages to read the old texts but also the local languages to..

perhaps one of the most important insights into the thinking of Anglo-Saxon england is king alfreds preface to gregory's pastoral care..

an important passage that highlights their thinking

When I considered all this I remembered also how I saw, before it had been all ravaged and burnt, how the churches throughout the whole of England stood filled with treasures and books, and there was also a great multitude of God’s servants, but they had very little knowledge of the books, for they could not understand anything of them, because they were not written in their own language. As if they had said: “Our forefathers, who formerly held these places, loved wisdom, and through it they obtained wealth and bequeathed it to us. In this we can still see their tracks, but we cannot follow them, and therefore we have lost both the wealth and the wisdom, because we would not incline our hearts after their example.”

as such all the oldest schools in the world and england tend to be religious schools and Anglo-Saxon england unique for the volume and variety of non glosses of the Vulgate in circulation as they taught translated between the old and local to bequesh each new generation the knowledge of the old..

a reply to: bastion

Lol. They couldn't spell color with a 'u'? That's funny.

My favorite thing about British English is the fake accent they gave themselves after America kicked their butts in the revolutionary war.

This has been a good read. To be clear, I live in Oklahoma, trust me, I have seen and heard some butchered language and I grew up through the 70's and 80's while coming into adulthood in the 90's. I am educated and understand the history of language. With that said what I am seeing lately is more and more educated suburban kids trying to purposely use ghetto or inner city slang that they see and hear. Its more of a trend of kids purposely using these kinds of words to sound cool. I dont think it is truly the language morphing into something else. It reminds me of when the movie "boys in the hood" came out or "friday" and all of the kids wanted to be gangsta after that and idolized that culture. If you really look at the words in many cases its lazy speak like leaving out letters or using one letter to replace a few or one sound to replace a few. Then in other cases they actually make the word longer or harder to say just so it sounds different. Its honestly a bit baffling in some cases. But in reality not a lot has changed in the the average midwest to mid south dialect of english in the last 50 years. Well except maybe the use of "Rad, Bad, Dude, gnarly, bro" and a few others that inject themselves for a while and then go back away. lol

How to say you're a boomer without saying you're a boomer.

Joking aside though, you have it the opposite way round. The fact that a language is changing means it is alive, whereas dead languages (like Latin) do not change. Anyway, I'll leave you with a verse from the fantastic medieval poem The Green Knight and it's proper English.....

SIÞEN þe sege and þe assaut watz sesed at Troye,
Þe borȝ brittened and brent to brondeȝ and askez,
Þe tulk þat þe trammes of tresoun þer wroȝt
Watz tried for his tricherie, þe trewest on erthe:
Hit watz Ennias þe athel, and his highe kynde,
Þat siþen depreced prouinces, and patrounes bicome
Welneȝe of al þe wele in þe west iles.
Fro riche Romulus to Rome ricchis hym swyþe,
With gret bobbaunce þat burȝe he biges vpon fyrst,
And neuenes hit his aune nome, as hit now hat;
Tirius to Tuskan and teldes bigynnes,
Langaberde in Lumbardie lyftes vp homes,
And fer ouer þe French flod Felix Brutus
On mony bonkkes ful brode Bretayn he settez
wyth wynne,
Where werre and wrake and wonder
Bi syþez hatz wont þerinne,
And oft boþe blysse and blunder
Ful skete hatz skyfted synne.
Ande quen þis Bretayn watz bigged bi þis burn rych,
Bolde bredden þerinne, baret þat lofden,
In mony turned tyme tene þat wroȝten.
Mo ferlyes on þis folde han fallen here oft
Þen in any oþer þat I wot, syn þat ilk tyme.
Bot of alle þat here bult, of Bretaygne kynges,
Ay watz Arthur þe hendest, as I haf herde telle.

originally posted by: Dfairlite
a reply to: bastion

Lol. They couldn't spell color with a 'u'? That's funny.

My favorite thing about British English is the fake accent they gave themselves after America kicked their butts in the revolutionary war.

the fun part is Americans not seeing the revolutionary war was the step required to take out Britains main economic adversary in france as without the revolutionary war britain would never has become the hyper power it did.. the lingua franca might still be french rather than English..

my favourite is the ritalin kiddies replacing the word "than" with "then"

"i like this more then that"

then that what?

what?

a reply to: TheTardis

can i help put that in perspective what you seem to be seeing is the usual youth thinking its kicking at the establishment and adopting laquage to annoy the older generations to set themselves apart as modern radicals.

but then as kids we can be incredibly literal with language i still inwardly cringe when i hear myself say when served "thank you kindly" I can hear that internal voice say "say thank you" meaning in a kindly tone and it comes out as the literal "thank you kindly" or when i hear myself say "bless you me" when sneeze alone.

I still say some odd things which get me strane sideways looks like i say i'm going to "repair to bed" i have no idea where that comes from as i'm from poor working class stock not a single middle class bone in my body..

i am sure in the future those kids will have similar hangups with the words they are using now..

a reply to: twoturtles

Being Southern AND Native, I grew up with lots of abbreviated words. Jeet? Innit? Skoden. Finta. etc. It's funny, but if you text someone using proper English and punctuation, they actually think you're being rude.

The "ratchet" thing reminds me of a joke.

Mechanic: Anyone got a 5/8 ratchet?

Girl: I'm 5'3"

A lot of it is down to kids on phones and social media.

Lazy text speak.

"Prolly" really irritates me.

Innit, tho, blud?

While I'm feeling grumpy, why do I keep hearing "Can I get....."?

Usually from smug beardy hipster tw@ts with a man bag asking for a soya flat white something or other.

I don't speak Starbucks.

Harrumph.

originally posted by: TheTardis
I am not sure if this is just a US problem or worldwide and I don't know if it can be more contributed to kids listening to ghetto music and idolizing the ghetto "gansta" lifestyle or if this can be attributed to texting and this entire generation of kids growing up with a smartphone in their hands but with that said is anyone else completely sick of words like "tryna" "finna" "bouta" and every other strange lazy contraction they can make. These kids use them as real words and it seems like every meme I see on social media was written by someone using ebonics. Is it so hard to use the English langues the way it was intended? And done even get me started on "sale", "sail" and "sell". I am no English teacher and I did go to public schools but this is getting out of hand.

The ironic thing is, black "culture" is really poor European culture.

But I can't dress up like my favorite black character for halloween.

originally posted by: sarahvital
need good teachers.

LOL!

originally posted by: Oldcarpy2
While I'm feeling grumpy, why do I keep hearing "Can I get....."?

Harrump.

My kids started using that question when placing orders at restaurants in their teens and now they're in their twenties and one son is still using that phrase to place orders.

If I was a waiter, I would say "no you cannot" , then say hahaha I'm just kidding.

But so far after 15 years, not one has said that to my 24-year-old.

a reply to: BlackmoonJester

i was in the canteen at work in my teens as an older maintenance guy came in and one f the finance girls asked "can i have a screwdriver" to which the old guy replied "i'm not a driver" i'm sure its one of those set up lines like sky hooks or elbow grease questions but i'd never heard it before and laughed so hard my drink came out of my nose..