Alphabet to Email : How Written English Evolved and Where It's Heading Review

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Alphabet to Email : How Written English Evolved and Where It's Heading ReviewEvery communications technology has significantly affected the nature of human language. With the growing ubiquity of the Internet, this is an appropriate time to take a look at the effect of technological change on language and to see if historical patterns repeat themselves in the virtual world.
I am personally fascinated by languages. I'm amazed by the richness and variety of human communication, and by the constant change in vocabulary, grammar and style. In comparison to other languages, written English is pretty close to spoken English-even parts of this review uses language similar to what I might use in an intellectual conversation about a book on linguistics. Still, I thought that I'd give Baron a chance, and see what she had to say. I'm glad that I did.
This is not a book for academics. It is written for the educated and somewhat motivated layperson. With a glib style, and a keen awareness of the need to explain linguistic concepts to her readers, Baron's book is informative and enjoyable. According to the author, written English was once virtually identical to speech, serving as a record of spoken words. As needs changed, and technology permitted, language patterns in written English diverged significantly from spoken English. However, and perhaps motivated by the requirements and capabilities of new transportation and telecommunications technologies, written English has made a decisive retreat from the formal, and appears to be reconverging towards spoken language patterns.
She paints a dynamic picture of the historical ballet of written English. The give and take as the prescriptivists (think William Safire) and the descriptivists each have their day.Since the 1960s, American dictionaries have been largely descriptive, no longer trying to impose the ideals of their editors on the language, but instead trying to provide a written reference to actual usage (this is why contemporary dictionaries include profanities).
Not being a big fan of anything written before the late 19th century, I can easily accept that written language has become less formal. For me, Mark Twain was one of the earliest writers to use a style that doesn't feel horribly anachronistic. Interestingly enough, Twain was the first author to provide his publisher with a typewritten book manuscript. Baron makes a compelling case for the influence of technology, like the typewriter, on the English language. Again and again, the significance of new communications technologies is often completely misunderstood. Conservative social elements resist new technologies out of concern for their perceived negative effect on cultural values. Perhaps justifying this natural social backlash, once a communications technology becomes commonplace, it results in permanent changes on written and spoken language.
So what will be the effect of the Internet on our mother tongue? I wouldn't spoil a good story by leaking the ending, but I can tell you that her conclusions are well-reasoned and highly credible. If you are even mildly interested in language issues, communications, or the social effects of the Internet, then you will find this an enjoyable and informative text. If you are interested in further reading or research, you'll be pleased with the lengthy bibliography.Alphabet to Email : How Written English Evolved and Where It's Heading OverviewIn Alphabet to Email Naomi Baron takes us on a fascinating and often entertaining journey through the history of the English language, showing how technology - especially email - is gradually stripping language of its formality.Drawing together strands of thinking about writing, speech, pedagogy, technology, and globalization, Naomi Baron explores the ever-changing relationship between speech and writing and considers the implications of current language trends on the future of written English.Alphabet to Email will appeal to anyone who is curious about how the English language has changed over the centuries and where it might be going.

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The Language Revolution (Themes for the 21st Century) Review

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The Language Revolution (Themes for the 21st Century) ReviewDouglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series is often touted as a trilogy in five parts. Linguist David Crystal has also written a supernumerary trilogy. In the first book of the trilogy, "English as a Global Language" (1997), Crystal discusses the rise of English as a universal language and implications for the future. The second book, "Language Death" (2000), stands in antithesis to the first, and considers the implications involved when speech communities give up their heritage languages in preference for languages of wider venue. In the third book of the trilogy, "Language and the Internet" (2001), Crystal considers how computer-assisted communication (email, instant messaging, and so on) is changing the way language is used. Now Crystal has written a fourth book, which summarizes the themes of the first three books and ties them together.
English is rapidly becoming a world language. Approximately a quarter of the world's population can communicate in English, and among those only about a quarter are native speakers of the language. This means that English no longer "belongs" to the English speaking countries, but rather to the world at large. No doubt the language will be greatly influenced by the cultures of these new English speakers. However, as Crystal points out, English has always been a "vacuum cleaner of a language" (p. 27), absorbing new vocabulary and even syntax from the other languages it has come into contact with. Thus, while English will continue to expand in its role as the global language, it will also change drastically.
Crystal also considers the possibility that English will splinter into mutually unintelligible languages as Vulgar Latin split into the Romance languages a millennium and a half ago. In addition to the traditional division into British and American dialects of English, the last decades of the twentieth century has also seen the rise of non-native dialects of English, such as Singapore English, Japanese English, and so on. Crystal believes that dialects arise because speech communities use linguistic distinctiveness as badges of group identity. However, it is more likely that the direction of causality is in reverse; that is, dialects arise because of relative isolation, and these dialects become distinguishing features of the people who use them.
Languages, like species, arise, flourish, decay and become extinct, and this is a process that has been going on since the beginning. However, it is predicted that about half of the world's six thousand languages will become extinct during the twenty-first century, due mainly to the fact that the world is becoming more unified. To participate in the new global marketplace, people need to speak English, and they may see little benefit in passing their heritage language on to their children. Crystal views language death as on par with species extinction, describing the loss of linguistic diversity as "cataclysmic" (p. 47), "language extinction on a massive and unprecedented scale" (p. 50), and a "crisis in linguistic ecology" (p. 117).
However, Crystal's alarmist attitude is unwarranted. Neither genocide nor oppressive language policies is behind the current trend toward language extinction. Rather, it is a grass-roots movement toward global linguistic unification. Indeed, his call for active government in revitalizing endangered languages will likely be perceived by many as a coercive policy to exclude minorities from engagement in the larger society. Generally, languages do not die because their speakers die; rather, they die because their speakers no longer teach them to their children. Thus, attempts at endangered-language revitalization amount to nothing more than vain attempts to stem the inexorable forces of change.
Crystal moves on to discuss how computers have impacted language use. Computer-assisted communication has brought on the third revolution in the history of language. The first revolution was the invention of spoken language at least fifty thousand years ago; this new ability to communicate (even to think) led to an explosion of cultural and technological advances. The second revolution was the invention of writing about five thousand years ago. The ability to record language allowed humans to accumulate knowledge and transmit it across both space and time, and this has led to an even greater cultural and technological progress. The third revolution is computer-assisted communication, which is molding a new mode of language that is neither speech nor writing but rather something altogether new. The ability to access and transmit information immediately anywhere in the world is already having a significant impact on society.
These three topics are tied together with the observation that language change is inevitable. Although purists lament the deterioration of the language, Crystal notes than language change is always innovative and expansive, not deleterious. When languages borrow or invent new words, they do not replace the traditional lexicon. Rather, they find a place alongside the existing vocabulary, enabling speakers to express new meanings and nuances. Crystal is to be applauded for his progressive outlook toward language change. However, one wishes that he would understand language extinction as part of this same unavoidable process of language change.
Finally, Crystal's comments on bilingualism are enlightening. He points out that over half of the world's population is at least bilingual. Furthermore, he notes that there seems to be no limit to the number of languages that children can learn if they are exposed to them early enough. Indeed, Crystal sees a future where bilingualism is the norm; that is, people would speak their heritage language at home and locally, while communicating in some form of world English internationally.
Those who have already read the first three books in the trilogy will find nothing new in the fourth book. On the other hand, the "The Language Revolution" provides a nice summary of Crystal's major concern, namely the status of language in the twenty-first century. He neatly summarizes the issues concerning the rise of global English, the disappearance of indigenous languages and the effect of new technology on how language is used. This little book gives plenty to think about for anyone concerned with these issues.The Language Revolution (Themes for the 21st Century) OverviewWe are living through the consequences of a linguistic revolution. Dramatic linguistic change has left us at the beginning of a new era in the evolution of human language, with repercussions for many individual languages.In this book, David Crystal, one of the world's authorities on language, brings together for the first time the three major trends which he argues have fundamentally altered the world's linguistic ecology: first, the emergence of English as the world's first truly global language; second, the crisis facing huge numbers of languages which are currently endangered or dying; and, third, the radical effect on language of the arrival of Internet technology.Examining the interrelationships between these topics, Crystal encounters a vision of a linguistic future which is radically different from what has existed in the past, and which will make us revise many cherished concepts relating to the way we think about and work with languages. Everyone is affected by this linguistic revolution.The Language Revolution will be essential reading for anyone interested in language and communication in the twenty-first century.

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