Nonetheless

January 30, 2012

I really like how that one word is actually three words put together. It’s just fascinating because I could type "none the less," and it’s still the same concept said the same way. There’s a similar occurrence of various words out there such as "alot" versus "a lot." The grammatically correct version is "a lot." Alright is another one, even MS Word didn’t catch that mistake. All right is right, but alright is not all right—according to the English major people like myself. But why the change?

Well, languages are like people. They are always changing in some shape or form. Sometimes we worry about how a change may be destructive, dialect wise usually, but certainly it’s all good. Anything that makes the language too difficult to read or understand isn’t long to survive into future generations of the majority of native speakers, or native speakers of the specific dialect. Dialects are fun, but that’s for another blog entirely.

What I re-learned the other day in my English language studies class is that there are certain languages called Pidgins (not the bird which is spelled "pigeon;" don’t feel bad because I thought the same thing in my Intro to Language course when I first heard it) and Creoles. These both are newly forming languages that combine elements and vocabulary of two or more languages. The Pidgin occurs between the two speakers of two distinct languages that they are native to, whereas the Creole is the person who grows up hearing family speaking the Pidgin language and it thus becomes that person’s native language rather than one of the two distinct languages. Neat! Right? I thought so.

So when you’re learning a new language, you in fact are learning in a pidgin like manner. You have to use the language you know to get the language you want. The fact that languages can be very similar in certain instances is really helpful. That has to say something about how human brains work for communication. I think it’s a real wonder that we can learn all of these various language systems.

Sometimes, this diversity leads to their sharing of certain words, concepts, and grammar. This changes them as more languages become acquainted, but languages change because they are always striving for the most efficient way to communicate as well, even between languages. It's much like computer companies continue to strive to make the best computers possible. It’s all a process, and it’s all progress.

Languages are nifty, and if you want to learn a new one or need practice with one that you learned back in high school, I would recommend Mango Languages. It has a panoply of courses, from beginner to intermediate to advanced—and it even helps with pronunciation. Who knows, maybe you could create your own pidgin language between English, German, Spanish, and a little Japanese thrown in. I'm sure no one will understand you, but who cares; you've got your own language!

Hooray for languages!

~Cody C.
Parkville Branch