After reading a few things from the past and today, I've come across the expected peculiarities of change over time.

My question to you is: What influences will have an impact on our language in the long run? What do you think it will sound/look like?

rap music on the ghetto people - and those who idolize it.

assimilation. stealing words from other cultures and languages. corrupted pronunciations of existing words.

pretty much the same way it has developed for the past 500 years.

(09-01-2014 08:04 PM)oklalittledixie Wrote:  rap music on the ghetto people - and those who idolize it.

Actually that's probably older than most dialects in America.

(09-01-2014 08:07 PM)nomad2u2001 Wrote:  

(09-01-2014 08:04 PM)oklalittledixie Wrote:  rap music on the ghetto people - and those who idolize it.

Actually that's probably older than most dialects in America.

Rap music lingo is older than Gullah.

Interesting.

Word

(09-01-2014 08:09 PM)oklalittledixie Wrote:  

(09-01-2014 08:07 PM)nomad2u2001 Wrote:  

(09-01-2014 08:04 PM)oklalittledixie Wrote:  rap music on the ghetto people - and those who idolize it.

Actually that's probably older than most dialects in America.

Rap music lingo is older than Gullah.

Interesting.

Word

Who said Gullah? I said most. But there have been rappers from that area, who have influenced the music. Most rappers also have roots in the south, even if they're from up north. There are some parts of AAVE that have been around since Chaucer.

Also, rap lingo isn't a dialect. It comes from an already existing dialect.

We'll see regional dialects continue to disappear over time. You already see it in southern cities. Places like Atlanta, Charlotte, and Raleigh have lost almost all of their southern dialect in the urban / suburban areas. Have to get out to the exurbs / rural areas before you encounter that with regularity now.

(09-01-2014 08:15 PM)smudge12 Wrote:  I think that over time, English will become more efficient. In particular, I believe articles will slowly be phased out (as they have been in most other languages), as well as other transitional words. I also wouldn't be surprised if "shortcut" grammar mostly associated with texting becomes more ingrained into regular vernacular as we transition into a completely digitized world.

I thought the same thing as soon as I saw the OP. I have a good friend who has 2 sons in college and those boys write everything as if they were texting and have difficulty composing real sentences with proper grammar. Those 2 kids think we'll eventually transition to that style of writing and then those LOLs and WTFs will someday have ways to pronounce them.

(09-01-2014 08:17 PM)nomad2u2001 Wrote:  Also, rap lingo isn't a dialect. It comes from an already existing dialect.

Word up.

Eventually everyone will sound like they might have come from the South.

Everything has an affect on our language, particularly rap

Like, ya know, this is a totally...um...1980s.

(09-01-2014 08:06 PM)EagleX Wrote:  assimilation. stealing words from other cultures and languages. corrupted pronunciations of existing words.

pretty much the same way it has developed for the past 500 years.

Yeah. Texting will play a big part. Jeopardy had a recent category called "SLANGUAGE", which itself is a modification of the language. I think words like this will catch on more quickly b/c of the broad media that distribute it.

The problem is that language is ever-evolving, but particular groups of people choose
not to participate in a vernacular change… I personally find modern colloquialisms to
be somewhat perplexing, since they’re typically sophomoric or lack a common etymology.

As an example, during a recent web search I found myself at a social networking site called Pinterest.
When discussing this site with my wife, she informed me that sites name is pronounced
“Pintest”, that it is conventionally accepted to ignore the middle syllable when pronouncing that word.

I guess there might come a day when it will be difficult for me to communicate with my
antiquated English dialect, but I will have the extraordinary ability to read and write in cursive.

se habla español