The English Language: How Language Change In The Past?

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Languages change. An inevitable change; however, somehow they manage to stay around and are spoken for hundreds maybe even thousands of years. Languages are a fundamental element of human daily life. With language, humans are able to talk to their families and friends, conduct business deals, gain an education, the list goes on and on. What if in twenty years, the language humans speak today were not understood? What about fifty? Or even one hundred? Would humans be able to adapt to the changes in language as they had in the past? This essay will view John H. McWhorter 's article, "What the World Will Speak in 2115;" (2015) and discuss how languages have changed in the past, what might happen in the future with languages, and if English will …show more content…

If one were to read books from Shakespeare, which were written between the years 1589 through 1613 (Shakespeare 's Works: A Timeline, n.d.), one would notice that the English language used to be quite different, numerous people today would have a difficult time reading these books. If a person from Shakespeare 's time were to read the written English language of today, they would also be confused as to why the language looks and is spoken so differently. These changes to the English language have been caused through a process called simplification. The Vikings were the ones who changed the English language according to McWhorter. When they invaded England, they married the English women. Through their marriage the Viking men learned a little English; except it was a "broken" English, they had removed the gender assignment to words to simplify it. Naturally, at one point the Vikings would procreate with their English wives. The children would hear their father 's "broken" English and would learn to speak this form. Through this they would learn the errors that their fathers made and then make the same ones. Eventually this eradicated the gender assignment to words, different word cases, and complex grammar that was originally there (McWhorter, 2015). These changes have led to the English language becoming what we know

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