What are the dividing lines between "versions" of English through history?

Factual Questions
21

But in terms of convergence - Wimpy was offering to repay Tuesday for the price of a hamburger today, back in the 1930’s. So “hamburger sandwich” may simply be a disappearing local colloquialism. Similarly, how often is “truck” used for “lorry” in the UK? Certainly “lorry” is barely understood in North America. I assume usage like this is picked up from global media.

(I should add that a lot of the content of Hollywood is explicitly chosen to be understood by the braodest audience. So for example, a truck will never be referred to as a “lorry” unless there’s a reason to make the speaker want to be speaking UK-ish. And they’ll put the body in the trunk, not the boot. And then these references over time become the standard wherever these shows are seen)

IMHO simplified English is a stepping stone to full English. It may take several generations, but comprehending the vocabulary is the first step to grasping the full language and grammar. Just as southern Americans try often to shed their accent that makes them sound like Dukes of Hazzard or Mayberry extras, others too will strive to sound like they “fit in”. As I understand it, 1800’s chinese pigdin is by now a distant memory and the locals speak the good engrish.

What I see as an interesting shift in English, though, is the emergence of TLA’s. (Three-Letter Acronyms). As might be expected from a country called the USA, where IBM was a big company along with RCA, GM and Esso (Exxon), we have simplified words like TV and lately, IED. Not to mention terms like 3G, ISS, NDA, POTUS, SCOTUS, etc. Not just that these are written shortcuts, but the spoken shortcut is entering the language.

you also have to distinguish between words that are current slang - shred, pwned, cast shade - versus words that are new concepts and likely to remain part of the language like cellphone, bluetooth, wifi, web page, synthesizer. The slang is likely to fade with time when it’s no longer groovy, daddy-oh…

22

Acronyms are so last century. Not that they’ve gone away, but they’re just not that remarkable anymore. The cool words these days are portmanteaus:

https://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/away_with_words/2020/03/words-of-the-week-coronacoinages.html
https://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/away_with_words/2020/04/words-of-the-week-more-coronacoinages.html
https://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/away_with_words/2020/07/coronacoinages-iii.html
https://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/away_with_words/2020/08/coronacoinages-iv.html

23

I think it’s the shift away from using ‘thou’ and 2nd person singular indicators on verbs.

thou goest → you go

Also hath → has, unto → to and similar.

That shift had mostly taken place by the mid-17th century.

The Diary of Samuel Pepys is pretty readable today and more on the modern side of a dividing line between Elizabethan English and our own.

Pepys’ memorable description of the Great Fire of London

24

Jazz is always groovy, Jack.

25

IANALinguist, but I recall someone’s assertion that the complexity of a word indicates its youthfulness and commonality. We say “half” or “mom” or “TV” because it’s simpler and faster than the more complex versions. “Half” has been a useful part of the language for so long it doesn’t have an obvious predecessor, whereas “sixth” or “quadruple” are tongue-twisters less common in everyday speech so have not been simplified. “Mother” sounds more formal than “mom” or for the early speakers, “ma”. It’s a lot faster and simpler to say “TV” than “television” and we have similar shortcuts like USA, cell for cellphone (or “mobile” for “mobile phone”).

But again, these are just new words for new things or concepts; while the base language and it’s pronunciation, thanks to sound recording, will continue to have a reference point to avoid excessive shift, and the vast archive of written word and the attention of Grammar Nazis will ensure we won’t stray from the Oxford English written norm.

Will the world’s version of standard English someday sound more like Australian, or Cockney, or an Indian accent? (Have you heard outport Newfoundlander?) Hard to tell, but I’m betting as long as the money machine is in Hollywood, targeting to their core audience of standard North American Edjumukated, and the rest of the world aspires to be like them - no major change.

26

Africa has a thriving local media industry (several regional ones, actually). It’s in no danger of being ousted by the Anglo-American stuff.

In fact, I’d argue the tide is in the other direction - the BBC, for instance, seems to have a lot more regional dialects represented in broadcasting now than in the past. It wouldn’t surprise me if the same happens in America too.

27

Most scholars point to the rise of “do support,” as one of the main changes.

The King James Bible was intentionally conservative in its use of language, so many of its features were already on the way out. Certainly second person singular faded during this time, though it was already in flux during the period. The 3rd person singular -eth endings were already disappearing.

28

And I suspect those kinds of grammatical changes will continue even with recordings slowing down the rate of change. Use of “got” in place of “was” seems to be increasing (check out in Google Ngrams “I was fired,” “He was caught,” or “He was arrested” versus, “I got caught,” etc.

29

Back when I was young and in church (Southern Baptist) everybody thought that they had to pray in King James English, and when God “talked to them”, he did, too. That’s probably still pretty common.

30

Ehhhh… frequency of use may have something to do with it, not just complexity. But more to the point, what’s the complex alternative to “half”? And how confident are you that “half” doesn’t predate that alternative given how fractions and numeral systems have developed?

Consider that, conceptually, the idea of 0.5 or one over two (or whatever) might be a borderline modern invention, at least among common folk (and even among mathematically savvy types if you got back far enough).

31

I think some concepts are so old they have simple words. Half is one. (The explanation of a British shilling or a dozen of something in the market as a common number was that it could be divided into 2’s, 3’s, and 4’s -and 6’s - so was easy to divvy up to assorted sizes for the less educated.)

My point was that yes, there may be regional markets in Africa or India that produce English media products - but more and more, as international communication or distribution become more common, the accents will converge - because to expand outside your market you have to hit the lowest common denominator. The Africans may understand African, but to go big they need to tone down the accent to appeal to a wider audience. The Indian market will understand mid-Atlantic and local dialects, but much les so the African variant. And so on…

It’s the same effect that squeezes out minority languages to begin with, will squeeze out extreme variants of the main language.

32

I just want to be clear the point I’m making. Which does border on pedantry, but I make it only because I have a genuine fascination with… math history for lack of a better term.

What I’m saying is that, conceptually, throughout much of human history, many or all humans would have struggled to comprehend the idea of a “half” as anything but… a half. They would not necessarily have conceptualized it as “one second” or “one divided by two” or “fifty percent” or any number of equivalent statements. They really, truly, could only have conceived of it as a “half” or whatever the equivalent term was in their language at the time. Because “fractions” and “percentages” and “decimals” have not always be concepts that humans have grasped to the extent we do now.

So people got concepts like “half,” “third,” and even “sixth” before they could grasp those as fractions or decimals in the sense we would.

Again, this is just me nerding out on math history. Not seeking to undermine the main thrust of your point about how words may be simplified given complexity and frequency of use.

33

But India has more people than the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, and NZ together. So far only a fraction of Indians speak English - and already they have more English speakers than any nation but America. If even a third of Indians spoke English, they would have more English speakers than America does - and mid-Atlantic English would not be the lowest common denominator any more.

34

Maybe American also qualifies as an “extreme variety” and not the “lowest common denominator”: one (Indian) friend said she could hardly understand a single word anyone said during a visit to the Southern U.S. Then again, I have heard similar claims about New Zealand.

Then there is the joke I cannot recall about how many more people speak English as a second language compared to how many speak it natively.

35

Sometime in the last 20 years, I was struck by the fact that McDonald’s referred to the product they sold in their “restaurants” as a “sandwich”. I was never an employee, so that was something I saw in some public statement.

36

My wife managed a McD’s many years ago. They use sandwich to avoid confusion, as a Fishburger, McChicken, etc. aren’t really described as hamburgers.

37

Not intended to be a political comment, but I think part of the reason that people choosing a language opt for a particular accent are because it has some relative status. A friend teaching English in Japan some years ago said that American teachers were more favoured than Australians because it was seen as being strongly preferred for business. With China’s economic rise, and America’s moral ascendancy severely damaged [presidential, covid, continued severe racial inequality, failures to participate in global institutions], the gloss may have begun to wear off the American or mid-Atlantic twang as something to aspire to.

38

Nitpick: your wife would tell you it’s the Filet-O-Fish, of course. :wink:

Your point stands, though.

39

https://historyofenglishpodcast.com/

This podcast explains it all quite clearly, in 143 fascinating episodes (so far). The scholar creating and narrating this (Kevin Stroud) just finished explaining the Great Vowel Shift and its implications. The age of modern english awaits!

40

Thanks for that! I listen to Lexicon Valley which is very entertaining but this sounds like it goes into an insane amount of depth.