By Jason Pickett
The Process of linguistic evolution continues to this day in English. Because of the outstanding imperialism and influence of the British Empire a multitude of regional dialects has flourished. These dialects form for a variety of different reasons they start to develop as people speaking the same language have less contact with one another. This happens for a variety of reasons: there may be a geographical barrier between the peoples like a mountain or a body of water, or the barrier can be based on race, class, religion or politics. As more time is spent apart the dialects grow farther apart too, until eventually two new languages result, and conversely when two different languages interact constantly the differences begin to fade.
Vernacular speech or slang in modern times is often created as a way of fitting in. Slang can show social ties and a sense of belonging to those who use it, and inversely slang can isolate strangers. For instance if one were to speak in a highly vernacular dialect somewhere, those who also spoke in the same dialect properly (in the same fashion as the first party) would be automatically considered acceptable to the first person. The second person already must have some familiarity with the same situations and language, as the first person, so must therefore be somewhat the same as the first person in some aspects of life. These two people could share common experiences in class, race, region, etc. This is not to say that these people will necessarily cooperate better simply on the basis of a common dialect, but it seems more likely.
Slang is not only a matter of using words not common to all speakers of a language, but it can also be a matter of pronunciation. Some examples of this would be pronouncing the word ‘the’ as ‘tha’. Another factor may be omission of letters from words, like the letter ‘g’ on words ending with the suffix ‘ing’. An example of this would be from the word ‘walking’ to the deviant of it ‘walkin’. A final factor with mispronunciation is when people change letters in a word to other letters which are not in that word. A sample of this can be demonstrated with the replacement of the letters ‘th’ to the letter ‘d’ in the word ‘the’ to ‘de’ as in “I am going to de bank”.
Some slang may not be culturally derived at all, but rather the “slang of trades”. This is to say that some unique forms of dialect may be the result of professions and their specific linguistic needs to that profession. What that means is that if this particular profession has an unusual (for people not associated with this profession) object or circumstance that it must deal with on a semi-regular basis, than they need specific words for these. This sort of slang is known as jargon, and in many professions it takes the form of acronyms: such as in computers with terms like ‘CPU’, ‘RAM’, ROM’, and so forth. Occasionally with the development of new technologies or discoveries of new things it becomes necessary to invent or borrow words. Often times these words are also made by fusing roots, suffixes, and prefixes (mostly of Latin and Greek) we already have together. For instance the word ‘automobile’ is derived from the Greek word ‘auto’ meaning ‘self’ and the Latin word ‘mobile’ meaning ‘to move’ thus we get a ‘self moving’ machine. Finally, occasionally we will take a word from another language and use it for a concept in which the other culture would hardly match their word with the English connotation: i.e. the word ‘matrix’ which means ‘Womb’ in Latin, but in English is more commonly associated with ‘a graph’.
Today this trait is quite common in the world, as so many new inventions are being made, and since this technology is normally being created in English speaking nations the terms are usually English. This is upsetting other nations such as France and Russia, as this influence is bringing a lot of foreign words into their culture. They are attempting to stagnate their language and keep it “pure”, this task is growing increasingly difficult, since mass media is becoming more predominate, and technology is expanding at an extraordinary rate. These nations are attempting to create their own words, which I predict will upset and isolate their respective nations further than they should be (for prosperity sake).
Slang is said by many modern linguists to be as acceptable as Proper English is. Their arguments are that language will always continue to evolve, therefore we must embrace it as it happens. Also they claim that one form of communication is as acceptable as the next so long as it is effective in delivering the message required of it fully and efficiently. Personally I have a very large problem with this acceptance of new vernacular language and discourage against its embrace. I suggest to those who read this to refrain from using vernacular in excess. The reason I say this is because if one looks at the Latin of two thousand years ago, it is completely legible and comprehensive (for those capable of reading Latin) today still, whereas English of less than one thousand years ago is illegible and incoherent to Modern English speakers. This means English as a language fluctuates so rapidly it barely keeps the same form through the centuries, and this can cause great confusion to those who attempt to read and comprehend the literature of the past. It isolates us to the contemporary and segregates us from our history, and if we continue to accept slang as we do proper English it will isolate us from our future.
I realized that it is necessary to adopt new words into the language as for reasons mentioned above, like new technologies and discoveries et cetera. On the other hand I believe it unnecessary to eliminate perfectly acceptable and efficient proper terms by using faddish terms and cliches in their stead. What this means is why rid the language of beautiful and ornate words, for new ones that are ugly, dull and monosyllabic? Furthermore vernacular speech is often created with vulgar and aggressive connotations, this should be discouraged against because it makes the people who use these terms seem more aggressive, rude and crass than those who do not. Why should we in the world separate ourselves more than we already are, through something like language? This is my own personal conviction with slang and the vernacular, but I feel that I hold some valid and worthwhile points.