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Originally Posted by grant
Are you expert or even remotely educated in Linguistics, Cognitive Science/Psychology or anything in that realm?
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Actually, I have taken multiple college-level linguistic courses and have studied (although am not yet fluent in) over 5 languages. I also have over 8 college-level courses in Psychology, Educational Psychology, Cognitive Learning, and Cultural Anthropology.
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Language shifts all of the time.
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This is true. Language has shifted, and at certain points in history, it has shifted more quickly than others. Usually languages that utilise print as a medium shift more slowly than strictly oral languages. But that does not mean that it is getting *better* as it shifts.
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If your great-grandparents heard the way you speak they would be appalled.
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This is also true. Why would they be apalled, do you think?
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Does that make them better than you?
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Does that make them better people? No. Does it mean they were actually using a fuller, better structured and less slang based version of the language? Absolutely.
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Does that make the English you speak the language of a semi-educated sub-group of society?
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It means that the verbage, vocabulary and grammar used "nowadays" is less rich, and generally is not "as good" as it was even 50 years ago. Most linguists agree that the English of Shakespeare's time was probably the peak of the language, and especially American English is now in decline.
Serbo-Croatian, however, is actually splitting into two separate languages, Serbian and Croatian. It's rather like British English and American English, only they are independantly becoming more rich, we're seeing additions to the language, instead of bastardizations and laziness inherant in the dialects of American English we are seeing recently.
So overall, yeah, I think it is a reflection of the society in question.
