If new languages evolved from old languages, how come we don't see new languages evolving now?

Question

Stpolycarp77 pointed it out... I know where languages came from - God made them.

All these other examples are of language mico-evolution. You'll never see one language change into another.

Greg 57 and Spamandham got it right - they must have been designed.

Answer 1

Funny, but it's going to sail right over the heads of the creationists. And at least one person will fail to realize you're joking.

Edit: correction, at least six people will fail to realize you're joking.
Edit 2: eight.

Answer 2

English certainly is evolving, but not into a completely different language.
I'm no expert much as I act like it, but I would think that the separation between people before modern times communication-wise is what made it possible for such changes.
In the modern world we are so connected to each other over any global distance, the same logic that requires the members of a village to agree on a common language to function in that society now apply to a larger and larger "village". Thing is, besides a rapid language change made by a leader's paranoia, which is hardly practical in the modern world, the process is probably pretty slow, just a matter of the latest generation's idea of "cool." But without the separation that only a few rugged miles could once provide for divergence to take place in olden times, the "cool" kids now belong to the whole world, each smaller subdivision of the world having it's local "cool" ones looking to those above for their example.
As for the evolution of the languages we have now, it only seems less because of the lack of divergence needed for comparison.

Answer 3

I think people should just put there time into studying baby language. That is probably the hardest language to decipher. There are probably new languages evolving, but most likely very, very far away from here where we don't hear about it. And we don't even need to make a new language from an old language, because most languages just change there dialect, which pretty much makes the old language seem new. Ex: Spanish, there are so many different dialects to it, that it is hard for me to know which words to learn, to speak them right in the correct country.

Answer 4

The English language is evolving as we speak, so the speak. Take a look at the King James Bible. We do not talk like that now because our language has changed/ evolved. Take a some Old English or some Middle English from about 700 years ago and tell me that our language hasn't changed.

Answer 5

You wouldn't be able to perceive a new language evolve because its a slow process. As technology grows new words are needed to properly communicate. Often slang words get so popular they get accepted as real words. Imagine how the English language will sound in about 200 years with all the Spanish influence and new slang. Mexican Spanish is very different from Original Spanish is it a relatively new language??

Answer 6

They are, continously!!!
The only issue is that evolution(evolving) usually entails a lot more time than a human's lifetime.
Think of the differences between the english language, between England, US, Australia!!! (and these have only been evolving for a few hundred years max.)

In fact think of the differences between regions within the states, of course they are not new languages yet, but they usually evolve to being new dialects, untill it gets to a point where it is a n entirely new language!!!

Answer 7

LMAO at stpolycarp - if that was serious you really DO have a problem!
Language is constantly evolving, but over a longer period of time than you or I will notice. Read Shakespeare or earlier English poets/playwrights and you'll see the differances! I'm English and I have a real problem reading American books or newspapers - they just don't make grammatical sense to me, I have to read a passage 2 or 3 times to try to understand what is meant!

Answer 8

It would appear from your additional responses that you're looking for an answer that suits your own opinion rather than honestly seeking to understand other ideas.

First off.... "Intelligent Design" (i.e. "God designed it") has to do with biology. How language(s) evolve has to do with culture/society/geography/war/commerce/etc. Language evolution is not the same as biological evolution. If we could establish that the tower of Babel (a point in biblical history where God separated the peoples of the earth by giving them different languages) truly took place we'd still find the development of many languages past that point in time.

But back to your original question...

My daughters went to Haiti several years ago as part of a trip to help build a school. They realized very quickly that their knowledge of French (The French taught in schools in the U.S.) is not similar to the "French" spoken in Haiti. The "Creole" language spoken in that country has evolved into a language of its own (and continues to evolve), There are colleges in the U.S. that now that teach Haitian Creole as a separate language from French, among them the University of Kansas. The people of Haiti took the language of their former colonial rulers and have created a language of their own from it.

The same is true of languages in many areas of Africa and Asia where a "patois" (jargon or slang language) has developed through the years to allow people of many different languages to communicate with each other in commerce into more of a pidgin or creole language.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patois

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pidgin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creole_language

Check the above articles and you'll see that languages are continuing to evolve and be born.

Now.... One reason why new languages probably don't develop as much as they did hundreds (thousands) of years ago is that we're a lot more connected on this planet than we used to be (as someone above me also pointed out)..... TV, radio, the Internet and easier modes of travel bring us all together all over the world meaning that our language(s) tend to be more standardized. More people are educated around the globe now which has also furthered standardizing speech and decreased the liklihood of new languages developing.

And just as people above me within the answers to this question have pointed out, our current languages continue to change. These are not "micro-changes" (or whatever term you used). These are day to day changes in English which will probably effect our language 300-500 years from now in such a way that (if we jump into a time machine and go into the future) we would have trouble understanding what people 500 years from now are saying.

Have you ever tried to read Beowulf in the original Anglo Saxon or The Canterbury Tales in Chaucer's English? Heck... most of us would stumble through a lot of Shakespeare or the King James Bible. The English you speak and write in now is another language from what those people spoke. Our... language.... has..... e-v-o-l-v-e-d.... and it will continue to do so.

Answer 9

We do see changes in language now. Slang and the what words mean have changed. Just think of what the word gay means now compared to what it mean in the 1950's. Also things aren't swell or groovy anymore, they're phat or off the hook or whatever the current phrase is. I'm sure this is not just a phenomenon that happens in English. Changes in language are slow, but they do occur.

Answer 10

Evolution is a slow process.

50 years ago we weren't using words like "internet" or "cell phone". There are also slang words that are constantly being changed or added to the vocabulary of your typical citizen. It may not exactly be a whole new language, but English certainly has changed over the years.

Answer 11

With slang, you could make the argument that we are seeing such a thing. However, it's also worth considering that thousands of years ago, communications weren't as widespread as they are today. Perhaps with certain languages being used all over the globe, it becomes much more difficult for languages to evolve.