Hacker News Reader

Comment by thedirt0115 | Hacker News Reader

Do you think that this will still be the case now that we have the internet? I wonder if the English of 3000 AD will be as different from 2000 AD as 2000 AD is from 1000 AD. I feel like the big players in tech have the capability to direct language evolution somewhat. Consider the pronunciation feature Google offers if you look up the definition of a word (the little speaker icon) -- the pronunciation they provide there could influence learners. I'm not suggesting anything insidious, just recognizing the potential that seems to be there.

View on HN

You make an interesting point, but I’m not sure I find it entirely convincing. To feel out the limits of your argument, what is it that you see as fundamentally different between the Internet and the dawn of recorded sound? The ubiquity, the geographical homogeneity, and ease of recording? Would the same argument apply to vocabulary and spelling of the written word?

I'm not trying to convince anyone, I myself don't know! Yes all around to your questions though, pretty much. Cheaper, faster, easier, etc. What do you think the effect of spellcheck technology will be on the rate of change of the spelling of words? We increasingly _let computers write for us!_ Google Smart Compose, Grammarly, etc. In my opinion, these things are leading to the homogenization of spelling, pronunciation, and even word choice all across the world.

Whilst I have no doubt that computerised spelling checking is standardising spelling, this has been a trend going back centuries. As writing has becoming more widespread, spelling and grammar has become more fixed. Shakespeare signed his name about a dozen different ways and the spelling we all agree on today only became standardised about a hundred years ago. Essentially, I don’t buy the argument that there’s something special about the Internet, it’s just that as widespread communication becomes more ubiquitous, the variability in that medium reduces - be it languages, vocabulary, grammatical style (I’d be interested to know if anyone has done a study into accent homogenisation).

My gut feeling is that as a species we are reducing the total variability whilst accelerating the change along the increasingly standardised forms I.e. I don’t think a US-UK English split would occur today but we are adding new words faster than ever

Interesting point.

These days I can visit Imgur and appreciate a joke that someone has made using only 4-5 memes. Also language is still evolving, and the Internet of the era forces changes, such as people becoming used to being limited to 140 letter limits etc.

But even then I'm sure change to the core language must be slower overall.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com