The Evolution of Language

"Why is there this American English and then the English that is used in England?"

Rosa asked me this question in the middle of this week's Advanced Conversation class. I conduct this class for about half a dozen English language learners on Thursday evenings at the public library. My students have tested out of all the other levels of ESOL offered through Project Learn, but still wish to increase their fluency. These two hours become something of a hybrid between a casual conversation group and an English grammar class.

When Rosa posed her question, we had been discussing the word "haste," both its definition as a noun and its verb form. I had mentioned that the verb "hasten" is not very common in American speech, that it might sound pretentious, and that Brits might use it more frequently than Americans.

I countered her inquiry with one of my own.

"So, why is the Spanish spoken in Mexico different from the Spanish spoken in Spain?"

A gratifying collective "aaahhh" arose from the other students. Rosa smiled a bit herself, but was not so quick to concede the point.

"But they left Mexico a long time ago," she said, meaning, I am sure, the Conquistadors. "And the Spanish we use in Mexico is our own."

"It's exactly the same thing in America," I said. "If we went back two hundred and fifty years, everyone on this spot would be speaking more or less the same as they were speaking in England at the time."

I went on to explain how any time a group is geographically separated from another group for a period of time, the language of that group will change in its own way, most likely in a different way from how the same language may change in the original group. Language changes to reflect the way people really talk to each other in the real world. I also mentioned how a lot of different immigrant groups have come to America over the years, and a bit of the language of each group has become part of American English.

Before we could return to the lesson we had been working on—a few paragraphs of narrative with inconsistent verb tenses I had asked them to correct—Rosa had another great question.

"But, we hear people saying things all the time, and sometimes they are saying things wrong. How do we know when they are saying things wrong, or if they are right? We are still learning, so how do we know?"

She told us a brief story about when she was cleaning houses at one point, and a man had used a colorful, oblique slang term to indicate that he needed to use the bathroom. It was a phrase Rosa was not familiar with, so she had to ask a colleague to interpret it for her. She was visibly disgusted by the phrase, which involved something about a kitchen.

"Yes," I conceded with sympathy, "You are in a difficult spot. You will hear people say things incorrectly, use poor grammar and slang. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. We are all here to improve our English speaking skills, and all I can do is teach you the best I can."

"But," Rosa said, furrowing her brow, "Are there words people use that are not in the dictionary? Aren't they wrong?"

"Oh, you'll hear all kinds of things on the street you won't find in a dictionary," I said. "Language is fluid, and it changes all the time."

I explained how there are people who work for the dictionary companies whose job it is to read widely and determine which new words are becoming common parts of everyday speech, and which words have fallen out of use. These words are added to or subtracted from our dictionaries every few years.

"Particularly when it comes to technology," I said, "New words appear all the time. Take for example this word."

I wrote fax on the white board.

"Do you guys even know what a fax is? Does anyone fax anymore?"

Ying and Yuwei nodded in acknowledgement, so I continued.

"This word came from this word," I said, writing facsimile above it. Yuwei pronounced it "fak-smile," so I said it aloud for them.

"A facsimile is a copy. When those machines came out, where you could put a piece of paper in the machine here in Akron, and a person in, say, Chicago would receive a copy of that same paper, we started using the word facsimile in everyday speech. Then, because we like to shorten our words, it eventually became just fax."

General nods of understanding encouraged me.

"And how about this word?"

I wrote text on the white board.

"Of course, text is a word that has been around for a long time," I said. "But until about five or ten years ago, we never used it as a verb."

Here I added –ing to it and wrote texted next to it.

"Now, it’s very common to say, 'he texted me,' or 'I'm texting you now.' See how that works? And now these words are in our dictionary, where they weren't at some point in the past."

As I spoke and the lesson unfolded in a way I hadn't anticipated, I had a feeling of déjà-vu. I can remember Dr. Jeantet, one of my college French professors, delivering almost the identical lesson during an undergrad class. And the words of Dr. Palacas, my favorite linguistics professor, also echoed in my mind. He was the first person to convince me that language is fluid, that it changes constantly, and that those changes are generally nothing to fear. I had been an adamant defender of rigid grammar rules, a denier of the plasticity of language until I took his class. He also taught me the difference between descriptive and prescriptive grammar, something that helped me ease off on my Nazi-like corrections to friends' grammar. (I know that friends of mine who read this will scoff, but really, I used to be much more annoying than I am now.)

We continued working on the verb tenses in the narrative I had given the class as homework and took a couple of forays into other grammatical points. When we were done, Rosa stuck around for a few minutes, telling me about a trip she and her husband had taken to Switzerland one time. Her husband is American and speaks only a little Spanish, something Rosa is helping him with. He speaks no French, so when they were in the French-speaking section of Switzerland, Rosa had to interpret for him. She found it a nice turnaround, a kind of level playing field where he got to experience a bit of how she feels in America most days.

I do feel for my students who are trying to learn English amid a cacophony of slang and casual misuse. Sure, I can explain how the examples they bring me are incorrect and how to say them in a more grammatical way. But how can they distinguish between the English they should use and the English that makes them sound even less fluent? How do any of us know what is "right" and what is "wrong" when people talk to us?

I think the answer is to read as much good writing as possible. By seeing ideas expressed well in prose, whether it's in a news source or a novel, one begins to absorb the grammar and syntax of effective English without the artificiality of grammar lessons.

In the meantime, we all just have to continue to tread water in the turbulent river of an ever-changing language, occasionally bumping into the crags of slang or the stony dams of Grammar Nazis.

Van said that when she recently said to someone, "I'm free on Saturday," that person corrected her by saying this: "It should be 'I will be free on Saturday." She wondered if they were right.

"Not really," I said. "Both of those are perfectly acceptable. They mean the same thing. That person was just being overly prescriptive."

And that is the most fitting example of how not only language, but we ourselves can change. Ten years ago, I might have been that overly prescriptive person, wielding my grammar as a weapon of intimidation. I'd like to think I've evolved beyond that.