rate of language change

JoatSimeon at aol.com JoatSimeon at aol.com
Tue Apr 13 13:37:27 UTC 1999


>larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk writes:

>My late mother, who had little education, was keenly aware of some of the
>differences between her own speech and her children's speech.

-- moving between different languages, sociolects or dialects is not exactly
the same thing as the general process of linguistic change.

Eg., my grandmother, who was from a small town in inland Lancashire, spoke
slightly old-fashioned "BBC English", herself, learned from her parents and
in her boarding school prior to World War One; it differed from my own
General American only in accent.

She could "do" broad Lancashire, though, which was very different. English
regional/class dialects have converged strongly with Standard English over
the past generation or two; but this is not in itself a process of change
within Standard English, if you see what I mean.



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