The Evolution of Language and its Effects on Society
When does the power of words overtake the power of the thoughts behind them, and when does the new meanings of these words begin to degenerate their original meanings? Words like cool, groovy, rad, delicious, etc. are used in a classical slang form that today is rather popular and revered. These words in just a few decades have transformed from their original meanings into slang, and then into popular usage. A question as to what kinds of words and what meanings in a word are eligible to be accepted into popular usage without degenerating a standard of education.
Text speech: Originally the words of text speech were used for old cell phones and pagers, which required the multiple presses of a single button to select a single letter. Due to the lettering style of phones, using three letters, to text, up to three times as many button presses were required than letters in the actual word. To make a short hand of this system, clever twists and turns changed words like 'text' into 'txt', 'cool' into 'kul' and even short popular phrases like 'be right back' into 'brb'. With the advent of texting systems, this is partially understood. But the argument of how this invention has impacted the languages and how we learn them must also be heard. It can be said that because of texting, it was acceptable to write in short handed abbreviated systems. However, it transfered from the touch-pad of a phone onto the keyboard, and thus chat speech was born. With technology becoming a household commodity, the keyboard slowly is replacing pen and paper. With the keyboard comes the more common chat speech that has infiltrated the literature of our time. Without proper spelling and grammar, our language is once again evolving rapidly. But is this rapid evolution for the better?
Text speech allows grammatical errors and spelling errors. Little is systematic about the text language, having no truly set way to spell or write out the sometimes lengthy acronyms. 'rotflmfao' or, translated 'Rolling on the floor laughing my fucking ass off'. It can be written a number of different ways, and it can be taken to mean a number of things as well. This method of writing has become the norm for most children on the technology ages. Evolution is only natural, and it is impossible to think our language would evolve. However, certain steps can be taken so that it evolves into a meaningful system, rather than a defunct system that will not pass its genes on properly to the next generation. When there are no rules for learning a language, then learning itself can be threatened. If one does not know the original steps of their language or how it evolved, they cannot clearly understand how new words are developed.
It can be cited that a number of different aspects of modern life have lead to this advent.
1. Technology has lead to the laziness of the population where it has taken total priority over manual skills.
2. The evolution of the language into text speech has come from the need to further compact as much meaning into a single entity as possible.
3. Having a flowing system created launched the ability for the laymen to create new acronyms and 'txt' words.
4. It is perhaps due to the popularization of technology and its lack of manual improvement requirements that allows for the misspelled words to pass on from one to the next human being.
Text speech is but one piece of the linguistic puzzle. There are also the rather bewildering misspellings of words such as 'America'. Amarika is seen to be a common spelling of this with the youth. Words have letters left off of them, leaving words to be butchered. It is not a form of language that does this, nor is it being evolved. This is directly due to lack of education on spelling and literature. 'Lik' has replaced 'like'; 'wat' replaces 'What'; 'sup' has replaced 'What's up', and these words are not used simply in non-formal letters and in the proper context, but all the time. Mass lack of education and laziness of population could surely be a possible blame on this.
Society has evolved by learning, and from that comes technology that no longer requires manual intelligence. Irony is the word for it. Because of the invention of the intelligent yester years, the population have become the bastardization of today. Because of the very technology that was created out of genius, laziness, butchery, and ill education are permitted to roam free.
So true, My friend in Toronto refuses to use any short form text speak, it's kind of reassuring that at least one person I talk to other than you has a respect for proper grammar and spelling.
Soultrip, trippin' out on soul and high on life! who needs hate?
