Are languages still evolving?

Question

How possible and practical is it to get rid of female and male genres, introduce neutral referring and expressing (some languages do not allow, but instead you have to clear if a group is female or male, or if you are female or male...)?
Some languages have a "You" and "you" but not a neutral option, etc.
Why is written language sign system so poor in expressing emotional intelligence? Could we start introducing formal introduction of smileys and other signs, colors, specific intonation signs, etc, now that we have the facilities...

Answer 1

Of course languages are evolving. They have always evolved and there is no reason to think that they will stop.

As for losing grammatical gender, it might simplify the learning of a new language, but sometimes, especially when referring to people, it provides a useful distinction. Admittedly, that distinction can, at times, be a disadvantage. For instance, if you are a man and you happened to bump into a former female friend and go out for a drink together, on returning home you could tell your wife - truthfully - that you had met a former friend and gone out for a drink together. You couldn't do that in German, where Freund specifically means a male friend. A female friend is Freundin - even if platonic. This applies to many other languages.

In an ideal language, you would be able to specify exactly how precise you wanted to be. So there would be a word for 'male friend', a word for 'female friend' and a word meaning just 'friend', e.g 'frendem', 'frendef' and 'frend' . This could be regularised throughout the language, so that, instead of just 'doctor', you would have 'dokterem', 'dokteref' and 'dokter'.

It might also be useful sometimes not to have to specifiy whether a noun is singular or plural, but to have that option, if one wanted it. Thus, one could have : 'frendemu' = 'a male friend'; 'frendems' = 'male friends'; 'frendem' = 'male friend or friends'.

Yes, I think it would be an excellent idea to bring in a formalised system of colours and emoticons to give a better representation of speech on paper. It would be an extension of the question mark and exclamation mark introduced, I seem to remember, during the Middle Ages. The question mark comes from Q (short for the Latin Quæstio ('I ask')) and the exclamation mark comes from I (short for the Latin for 'I shout' - I think it was Interiecio).

Answer 2

specific. a million French and chinese language have 2 distinctive root languages. 2 English is evolving all the time. 3 because of the fact they're Germans. 4 See 2. 5 there strengthen into no first. 6 English has ben evolving for over 1000 years. 7 some million/2 a million years in the past the human strategies had strengthen into sufficiently huge to formulate religious and philosophical suggestions. the upward push of the neocortex, that area of the strategies in touch in processing those larger order cognitive purposes which includes, self understanding, language and thoughts, is likewise to blame for the point of social complexity of people as a species. Language as a gadget for the replace of evermore complicated cultural suggestions and suggestion developed hand in hand with custom. faith demands a equipment of symbolic communication which includes language or writing, to be transmitted from one man or woman to a distinctive, “human religious thought and experience of right and incorrect for sure relax on a cognitive linguistic base”. (P. Lieberman)“If faith had to watch for the evolution of modern-day, articulate language, then it could have emerged presently earlier 50,000 years in the past.” (N Wade)

Answer 3

Yes, languages are still evolving. For example, if I told you to google something, you would probably know what I meant. How about ten years ago?

However, changing languages for political correctness is a potful of crap. The moves by the print media to 'desex' everything have lead to such unnatural things as "Each child should take their..." instead of the correct, understandable "Each child should take his..." Times are sad when changes into illiteracy are forced just because some crusader who would not know a gerundive from an adverbial clause thinks "that's sexist."

I do not want to imply that English should not change. There is no way to avoid that; it is normal and proper. My point is that the language itself will guide the changes. Politically correct forced changes are an unnatural line of evolution of a language.

Join the Society for the Preservation of Gender in English today! No dues, just a committment to keeping English sane.

Answer 4

Absolutely languages are still evolving.

I think much of the internet things like lol or rofl have alreayd made it into our language. Places like winkipedia are an example of how fast languages are changing. This is why it is an open source. Also if you look at inner cities around the world you find words that eventually make their way into common langue things like Dude, or waz up, I could go on for days.

But I agree there should be more neutral words in english languge. I know when I studyed Germna I like the Idea that the word "the is in 3 forms Der die and Das
Der is male
Die is female
Das is neutral

best wishes,

Ian Bach

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-maffXBw4eqgt97WCgUjX;_ylt=AouxJzUQQMoTRqlcdUxSOrPlAOJ3

Answer 5

Languages are always evolving, in a thousand years english as we know it will be very different, and same with any other language...Just look at the difference in accents and the use of words and slang around the world...it slowly starts to transform over time...this will go on for as long as we are around.

Answer 6

Yes. Even Sanskrit has had to accept some combinations for words defining objects which did not exist in Vedic times, such as upanetra - glasses

Answer 7

all modern languages continually evolve.

Answer 8

lol, yes, don't u think? :)