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From: deb5@midway.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: Shakespeare's Future
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References: <5d8a07$nma@darla.visi.com> <33024E51.744F@trl.telstra.com.au> <330382E3.5549@stanleyassoc.com> <AF2CE6BA966880FAF@max1-38.hk.super.net>
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 19:20:28 GMT
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In article <AF2CE6BA966880FAF@max1-38.hk.super.net>,
Desmond Sin <dcmsin@hk.super.net> wrote:
>In article <330382E3.5549@stanleyassoc.com>,
>"bronwyn_m." <bjm@stanleyassoc.com> wrote:
>
>>Actually, I think that is untrue.  I think there is a very good chance
>>of there being an English language we could understand in 1000 years
>>(provided of course there is still a society on this planet). Yes, the
>>spoken language changes faster than the written, however there has been
>>painfully little change in the language since the invention of printing.
>>Printing has standardized the language (spelling in particular).  While
>>we may not understand an English speaker of 500 years ago, we could
>>certainly understand a speaker of 200 years ago. 
>
>We need to define what we mean by "we could understand". If "we" refers to
>a small number of scholars, then perhaps. But if "we" means a substantial
>part of the population, then this is most probably wouldn't be the case.
>
>Let me take Chinese as an example. In my days as a student, we had to study
>some old Chinese texts written perhaps 200 or 300 years agao. Most of the
>Chinese characters were recognizable, yet we couldn't understand a thing.
>The teacher had to "translate" the texts for us because the grammatical
>rules and usage are so vastly different from the language we use today.

Actually, Chinese is a very bad example.  Until the turn of the century,
the standard written language of China, so-called "Classical Chinese", was
vastly different from any of the modern spoken dialects.  The situation is
paralleled by the use of Latin in the West.  The typical modern Spanish
speaker can't understand Latin texts from 200 years ago any better than 
the typical Mandarin speaker can read Classical Chinese texts.

The problem with predicting language change is that it's so...
unpredictable.  Who could've predicted, a thousand years ago, that
millions of Chinese would be speaking the local dialect the tiny island
just conquered by the French?  Who could have predicted it even three-
hundred years ago?  Who could have predicted that we would stop writing
in Latin or that Esperanto would even be invented?  Who could have 
predicted the Great Vowel Shift (or the Northern Vowel Shift or the New
Zealand Vowel Shift) in English, the transformation of [e:] to [wa]
(orthographically <oi>) in Standard French, or the emergence of the 
"ba-construction" in modern Mandarin?
-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
