is the internet the cause of the decline in the English language?

Answer 1

No, of course. That is only the "prelude" and one of the plausible excuses for that phenomenon,which can be observed quite everywhere. Unfortunately, we live in one confused world, that reverberates on every facet in our lives, also to the language culture and strictly speaking to the decline of English.
Best of luck!

Answer 2

There is no decline.

Language change is a natural part of language development. If we didn't have language change, we wouldn't be able to use our language to talk about new things. For example, if English were somehow frozen in Shakespeare's time, we wouldn't have words like "computer", of course. But we also wouldn't have words like "car", "refrigerator", and "pencil", words that we find everyday. So I don't see why language change is necessarily bad. In fact, I feel that language change is what makes language such a vital system of communication.

Secondly, many people look at the breaking of grammar rules as a sign of language degradation, when it's actually what's been going on for a long time. The grammar rules that most people think are important (such as not ending a sentence with a preposition, not using double negative, not splitting an infinitive, and so on) were mostly created in the 1700s. The grammarians of the time analyzed the language of the people around them and discovered that people sometimes used different words in the same situation. They thought that was illogical, so they set about to abolish the variation in language by creating rules. The effect was not that far-reaching, though, because people don't learn to speak their native languages from grammar books. Therefore, native speakers of English simply continued doing what native speakers of English had been doing for hundreds of years. In other words, if there's a grammar rule about it, you can be pretty sure that that feature of English has existed for at least a few hundred years. People who think that breaking of grammar rules means that the language is somehow changing away from previous forms that followed the rules are mistaken.

I submit that people who complain about the language use on the Internet these days are simply reacting to the fact that there are different varieties. The Internet has created new genres of communication that didn't exist before. It seems natural that new types of language would develop to be used in those genres. People use language to identify ourselves as members of groups. My suspicion is, if you think the language is bad or not understandable, you are not a member of that group.

Answer 3

Probably, it's also taking over the world's youth. Everyone gets addicted to this vast internet wasteland and they lose touch with reality. They find fake lives and porn more interesting then their own life and would much rather stay inside then go outside which would cause human interaction. "Myspace" isn't helping either.

Then again, it could be all of the foreigners coming to what's left of the English speaking countries speaking either Spanish, french, German, some sort of arabian language, etc. who all could care less about even attempting to learn the English. language. This makes the citizens who aren't foreigners want to learn what they are saying, so they pick up a new language, in some cases dropping English altogether.

So, it could be a number of things. But the internet is taking everything we learned in English class, doses it in gasoline, and lights it on fire. It makes us very illiterate.

Hope that was what you were looking for.

Answer 4

Language does not perch on a static point from which it can "decline". Language is organic and ever changing like the ocean. The "decline", though, may be the difference from the point where you stopped keeping up and where language kept going.

Answer 5

No languages constantly evolve. William Shakespeare would likely think that the English language has been in decline ever since his day. We think of it as a decline but it's really just evolution.

Answer 6

The decline of the English language is the culmination of a lot of bastardizations which become incorporated into street speak -- hip hop, techno-buzz, ethnic slang and other components are coming together to create sick 'conversatin' (sic).

Answer 7

English is not declining. It's just changing as it has been doing since English came into being centuries ago.

Answer 8

No, not the cause ... but it doesn't help.

There's no doubt that the internet exacerbates the decline of the language by presenting poor speech, spelling, and grammar with equal weight alongside better examples. When books were the primary source of information dissemination, editors worked to keep writers' ignorance in check. Who edits (or even checks the references of) information found on the web?

As to causes, look to pervasive laziness, society's acceptance (and even celebration) of unashamed ignorance, and the widespread tolerance of mediocrity we call "inclusiveness."

I weep for the future.

Answer 9

No. People are. We are the ones sitting at the keyboard doing the programming.

Answer 10

No, people's lack of respect for themselves and others is.