Is your mother language deteriorating in your country, especially in the younger generation?

Question

In Japan, they say the younger generation people don't use proper Japanese. They even say it's worse year by year. I don't know it's bad or just changing. How about in your country? If so, why do you think it's happening? Is it bad or good?

Answer 1

Part of the deterioration of any language is also the fact that it evolves. Good or bad, it just happens. Slang terms have always been around, and those change too, over time. But I feel certain rules will always remain, and though they may not be observed in the everyday language, they are still used in formal situations.

Answer 2

1. Languages always change.
2. Our opinion of language forms is a reflection of the people who use these language forms.

Put these together and you will get:
3. If you think that the forms used by the younger generation are "deteriorated", this means that you don't like young people.

Change is not always decay. Language changes because people make it change. We wouldn't change it unless we thought it would serve us. How could a deteriorated form serve us better?

Answer 3

Languages do not deteriorate unless they are in an advanced state of becoming extinct. Languages are constantly changing from one generation to the next. It is a perfectly natural process and happens all the time in all languages. When I was learning Shoshoni (Native American language), the younger teachers (in their 60's) always said "So and so speaks better than me" (someone in their 80's). Language is constantly changing. It does NOT deteriorate.

Answer 4

Yes (germany). Too many english words creep into the language, such as "shopping", "wellness" etc. The reason is slick marketing. Products sound more interesting if they have a foreign name and the people peddling products try to make themselves look smarter than they are by using foreign words.
Granted, language changes as cultures change, but I think there has to be a degree of integrity there. I don't mind change, but not all change is good.

Answer 5

I really don't think I am able to understand the difference between the deterioration of language and the evolution of language. Language is certainly not a static thing..it does and should change.

Answer 6

I do hate the Spanish that is spoken not only in my own South American country but mostly in Hispanic USA, but this doesn't mean that my language is being deteriorated. Languages are living things and they behave as they wish or need to, whether I like it or not.

Answer 7

I'm Tlingit, an Alaskan Native, and yes, the language is deteriorating. But that's because of the colonization of the Americas.

Answer 8

1. Silent communication reduces the use of language.
More people play games with computers,
listen to music with oneself with earphones....,
[chating] is done with text Messenger and SMS...
less people are socializing face to face...

It is the same in Hong Kong.
Cantonese is a basically more verbal than written which has its own problems.

2. Political reason in Hong Kong.
Jobs, schools, etc increasingly require Mandarin - the official language of mainland China (The People's Republic of China).


3. According to CIA Fact Book statistics... Hong Kong birth rate is 0.95 baby per woman. (Hong Kong lifestyle are too expensive, too busy and too perssurized to have babies). However, 1/3 mothers in hospitals to give birth are from mainland China.
Those babies naturally will speak Mandarin. So native Cantonese speakers are quickly decreasing in numbers.

:::><:::: BAD & SAD

Answer 9

oh yeah..definitely. I myself dont understand some of the words and phrases that my parents use in my mother tongue. Though I make a concious effort to use my mother tongue more, I am forced to use English more often; especially because India is such a diverse country.

Answer 10

yes...english is going the way of the dodo in the united states...