Change and What Remains

[Stanley Friesen]

At 10:16 AM 10/4/99 +0100, Larry Trask wrote:
>I don't see how.  A living language never remains identical from one
>generation to the next.  See below.

On the other hand, the minor changes that occur often are evanescent, and
short-lived.  Fashion has a great deal to do with this.

>The English that I speak is, in a reasonable sense, a daughter of the
>English my parents spoke.  And the English the young people are speaking
>back home, which is already noticeably different from my own, can be
>regarded as a daughter of the English I speak.

I am not sure this is a reasonable interpretation: see below.

>My 22-year-old niece has acquired some of the vowel changes collectively
>known as the Northern Cities Shift.  As a result, her vowel system is
>conspicuously different from mine, and I occasionally have trouble
>understanding her.

I suspect that this is because her *peers* at school speak that way.
Certainly I doubt that this is really such a new development that it could
reasonably be called a "daughter" dialect of your dialect.  Northern cities
have had a distinct dialect of English for as long as I can remember, even
if it is now becoming somewhat more distinct.  In short, her change in
speech pattern is not due to simple inter-generational change, but rather
to local dialect differences.

Take the case of *my* niece.  When she was about two or three her parent
moved with her to Melbourne, Australia.  She quickly picked up a Melbourne
"accent", while her parents did not.  A few years ago they moved back to
the States, to Chicago.  Within about six months after school started my
niece had *lost* her Melbourne accent.  I suspect the case of your niece is
similar.

>All of the several generations can talk to one another, just as I could
>talk to my grandparents when they were alive.  But my grandparents
>didn't sound exactly like my parents, either.  And my Aunt Catherine,
>who's now pushing 100, sounds remarkably different from the youngsters,
>and even from me.

And how much of that is due to regional dialect differences?  My parents
and myself speak in very similar manners, as do most of my nieces and
nephews.  Almost no differences are discernable among us.

[My grandparent spoke somewhat differently, but then they learned English
as a second language, and still had a slight Low German accent all their
lives].

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May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at ix.netcom.com