How Technology Is Shaping Language

An anonymous reader writes "This is an interesting article about how technology is shaping the English language, which touches on the fate of the current crop of (sometimes silly) tech-inspired words, and anticipates an increased blurring of the line between the written and spoken word. Professor David Crystal, honorary professor at the School of Linguistics and English Studies at the University of Bangor, says, 'This kind of ludicity [linguistic playfulness] is very attractive for a while. People keep it going and then it sort of falls out of use. Exactly how long it will go on for is unclear but it's like any game, any novelty, any linguistic novelty — I can't see it lasting. If you look back 10 years ago to the kind of clever-clever things that were going on in the 1990s — MUDs and MOOs — all the early game strategies and lots of very interesting language features coming up as people tried to develop a style of language that would suit the technology. Well, that technology's history now and the language has gone with it.'"

Comments

Language changes, get over it

[elrous0]

Why would a linguist of all people have such a romantic attachment to the idea of an unchanging English language?

Only dead languages don't change, and that's NOT a good sign for your culture. I have no desire to see English go the way of Latin, and certainly don't want to see the political collapse that would be necessary for that to happen.