Dialect Divergence (Philological Room) Language Learning Forum

Dialect Divergence
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joan.carles Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6333 days ago 332 posts - 342 votes Speaks: Spanish, Catalan, French, English^C1, English^C2, Mandarin Studies: Hungarian, Russian, Georgian	Message 9 of 11 11 August 2007 at 12:07pm \| IP Logged
	Yes, not all changes will survive in 50 years. There are many expressions that become very popular thanks to the TV or mass media that one day are heard everywhere and next day they fall into oblivion. But the cummulated effect of expressions and changes coming and going make languages change. we don't know which ones will remain and which ones won't, but we can witness that languages, far from being static, are in continuous change. 1 person has voted this message useful
Karakorum Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6569 days ago 201 posts - 232 votes Speaks: English, Arabic (Written) Studies: French, German	Message 10 of 11 13 August 2007 at 5:47pm \| IP Logged
	The Arabic continuum is an interesting subject to observe recent and contemporary trends in divergence/convergence. The trends change dramatically though (for a long time they were diverging, now Arabic dialects are quickly converging), so I am not sure exactly where it's heading. 1 person has voted this message useful
Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map	Message 11 of 11 14 August 2007 at 4:59am \| IP Logged
	Lexicology can change fast, and only afterwards you can see whether a certain fad ever became a regular part of the language. Syntactic changes are somewhat more resistant (if you omit certain fixed expressions where rebel spirits delight in violating a certain rule), and the same applies to changes in phonology. If a change has caught on in more or less all cases where it might be applied (instead of just a few selected words or idioms) then it has a good change of surviving. For instance the tendency in French is that the vowel "œ" (oe) is dying out these days, and instead people the e-sound (è). In a generation or two this change may well be completed. In Danish we had a soft g a few generations ago (very close to the Modern Greek γ), but nowadays I doubt that the majority of Danes would even be capable of pronouncing it. And the a's have become noticeably flatter and closer to an open e, almost to the extent that the sounds coalesce. Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis (the times change, and we change with them) 1 person has voted this message useful

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joan.carles Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6333 days ago 332 posts - 342 votes Speaks: Spanish, Catalan, French, English^C1, English^C2, Mandarin Studies: Hungarian, Russian, Georgian	Message 9 of 11 11 August 2007 at 12:07pm \| IP Logged
	Yes, not all changes will survive in 50 years. There are many expressions that become very popular thanks to the TV or mass media that one day are heard everywhere and next day they fall into oblivion. But the cummulated effect of expressions and changes coming and going make languages change. we don't know which ones will remain and which ones won't, but we can witness that languages, far from being static, are in continuous change. 1 person has voted this message useful
Karakorum Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6569 days ago 201 posts - 232 votes Speaks: English, Arabic (Written) Studies: French, German	Message 10 of 11 13 August 2007 at 5:47pm \| IP Logged
	The Arabic continuum is an interesting subject to observe recent and contemporary trends in divergence/convergence. The trends change dramatically though (for a long time they were diverging, now Arabic dialects are quickly converging), so I am not sure exactly where it's heading. 1 person has voted this message useful
Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map	Message 11 of 11 14 August 2007 at 4:59am \| IP Logged
	Lexicology can change fast, and only afterwards you can see whether a certain fad ever became a regular part of the language. Syntactic changes are somewhat more resistant (if you omit certain fixed expressions where rebel spirits delight in violating a certain rule), and the same applies to changes in phonology. If a change has caught on in more or less all cases where it might be applied (instead of just a few selected words or idioms) then it has a good change of surviving. For instance the tendency in French is that the vowel "œ" (oe) is dying out these days, and instead people the e-sound (è). In a generation or two this change may well be completed. In Danish we had a soft g a few generations ago (very close to the Modern Greek γ), but nowadays I doubt that the majority of Danes would even be capable of pronouncing it. And the a's have become noticeably flatter and closer to an open e, almost to the extent that the sounds coalesce. Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis (the times change, and we change with them) 1 person has voted this message useful