Effects of Language Change

Language is continually changing to reflect our changing lives and cultures.   It's not
simply the words themselves that change, it's also how we use them. Throughout the last decade,
the English language has evolved a lot. 
Language is extremely important to everyone since it contributes to the formation of
one's culture. It also acts as a symbol for people of various races to identify which group they
belong to. This type of change can influence any aspect of language. Whether quicker or slower,
the changes increase which makes our mother language become distant and unfamiliar to new
generations. After a thousand years, the old and new languages will be incomprehensible to each
other. Over many generations, major changes in vocabulary and grammar have affected English
to the point where modern speakers cannot understand old language without proper education.
Language shift causes endangerment or absence of the old language.
This isn't necessarily a negative thing in my opinion. If language hadn't evolved, we
wouldn't have words for the technologies we used today. The language will continue to change
as long as the demands of language users improve. The shift is so gradual that we scarcely notice
it from year to year. New technology and new experiences require the use of new terms to refer
to them in a clear and effective manner. In order to impress culturally and prevent language
dying, we must determine and create technology or have language generation rely on that
technology.
People mistakenly believe that ancient versions of languages are more beautiful, logical,
or right than what we use today, but this is simply not the case. The fact that language is always
evolving does not imply that it is growing worse; rather, it is becoming different. If you’ll hear a
new term that grates on your ears, remember that the English language is a work in progress. If
we accept that change, we can conclude that, just as people who live in the past who continually
learn about the world, we must likewise constantly upgrade our knowledge of language today.

How Language Shifts in New Normal

Language evolves depending on location, social status, and time. And, while we continue
to adjust to this "new normal," it comes at a highly emotional period for having loss of in-person
connection that we are accustomed to. Our communication methods shifted rapidly. Many of us
have changed the way of our interactions with other people in order to assist limit the spread.
This involves changing from in-person conversation to online means of communication.
Virtual communication remove important features of nonverbal expression, and masks
hinder us from trying to pick up on vital facial expressions in person. We lose the ability to
observe certain components of body language while communicating via online. We lose the
capacity to read crucial facial emotions when we wear masks, and our own ability to transmit
emotion through facial expression is hampered. Facial cues and expressions play an important
role in determining the meaning of a sign and also signal grammatical elements.
 Language shift is frequently socially difficult in the world today. It begin to exhibit
communication problems and inefficiencies, particularly in loud or stressful environments. Some
words' meanings have changed. Example is the word "sheltering in place" which means seeking
safety during a specific incident, then it is now used to describe a period of prolonged social
isolation. One impact of the pandemic has been to bring previously unknown medical words to
the forefront of ordinary conversation. Despite the numerous changes, we must be willing to
adjust to this new normal, which includes being more deliberate with our tone and language
choices in order to maintain great communication with one another.

The Factors Why Language Changes

What are the factors contributing to language shift?
 The Economic Factor: Language shift often reflects the influence of economic factors,
such as the need for work. People may shift both location and language for this reason.
Obtaining work is the most obvious economic reason for learning another language. In
English-dominated countries, for instance, people learn English in order to get good jobs.
This results in bilingualism.
 Social factor: There is pressure from the wider society. Immigrants who look and sound
‘different’ are often regarded as threatening by majority group members. There is
pressure to conform in all kind of ways. For instance, in a small language community
language shift occurs when the community sees no reason to take active steps to maintain
their ethnic language. When a community of speakers moving to a region whose
language is different, there is a tendency to shift to the new language.
 Political factor: A rapid shift occurs when people are anxious to ‘get on’ in a society
where knowledge of the second language is a prerequisite for success. Political factor
imposes on language shift. In a multilingual country, the authority usually chooses one
language as the lingua franca to unify various kinds of ethnic groups. Consequently, the
number of ethnic language speakers decreases.
 Demographic factor: Firstly, demographic factor plays the role in the process of
language shift. When there is a community of speakers moving to a region or a country
whose language is different from theirs, there is a tendency to shift to the new language.
Resistance to language shift tends to last longer in rural than in urban areas because rural
groups tend to be isolated from the centers of political power. The rural people can meet
most of their social needs in the ethnic or minority language.
 Attitudes and Values: Language shift tends to be slower among communities where the
minority language is highly valued. When the minority group support the use of the
minority language, it helps them to resist the pressure from the majority group to switch
language. Negative attitudes towards the language can also accelerate language shift. It
occurs where the ethnic language is not highly valued and is not seen as a symbol of
identity.
 The Reasons How Languages Shifts
Why does language change over time?
There are many different ways that this evolution happens. Here are some of the primary ways:

1. Trade and migration

• As cultures interact, mix and trade, language shifts to accommodate these changes.
• English, for example, often borrows from other languages. These are called loanwords.
• Avatar, tsunami and sudoku are good examples of more recent loanwords.
• Can you guess which languages we have ‘borrowed’ these words from?
• We frequently adopt new words from different languages and cultures.

2. Technology and new inventions

• New words and phrases are also invented to describe things that didn’t exist before.
• A few years ago we weren’t lured by clickbait and didn’t worry about our carbon
footprint. It is only recently that we have taken selfies or listened to podcasts.
• Sometimes these invented words are the fusion of two words that existed before.
• These are known as portmanteau words. For example, blog comes from the combination
of web and log.
• 'Email' is a portmanteau of 'electronic' and 'mail.' Portmanteaus are frequently used as
words for new technologies and inventions.

3. Old words acquiring new meanings

• Nice is often given as an example of a word shift.
• Over seven hundred years it has changed its meaning from 'foolish' to 'shy', then to
'dainty', from there to 'delightful' and to our modern meaning of 'giving pleasure or satisfaction'.
Some shift!
• The internet has been responsible for a number of more recent word shifts: mouse, surf
and web are obvious examples.
Concrete Examples of Language Change

 For example, the form of the definite article the, now invariant, once varied according to
case, number, and gender, as in se mona (the moon: masculine, nominative, singular), seo
sunne (the sun: feminine, nominative, singular), and þæt tungol (the star: neuter,
nominative, singular).
 Word order in Old English was more flexible because grammatical relations were made
clear by the endings: Se hund seah þone wifmann (The dog saw the woman) could also
be expressed as þone wifmann seah se hund, because the inflected forms of the definite
article make it clear that ‘woman’ is the direct object in both cases. In Modern English,
however, grammatical relations are indicated largely by word order, so that The dog saw
the woman and The woman saw the dog (compare Old English Se wifmann seah þone
hund) mean two different things.
 As an example, when "villain" entered English it meant 'peasant' or 'farmhand', but
acquired the connotation 'low-born' or 'scoundrel', and today only the negative use
survives. Thus 'villain' has undergone pejoration.
 For example, "hound" (Old English hund) once referred to any dog, whereas in modern
English it denotes only a particular type of dog. On the other hand, the word "dog" itself
has been broadened from its Old English root 'dogge', the name of a particular breed, to
become the general term for all domestic canines.
 For example, anymore is a word that used to only occur in negative sentences, such as I
don't eat pizza anymore. Now, in many areas of the country, it's being used in positive
sentences, like I've been eating a lot of pizza anymore.

Concrete Examples of Language Shift

 In the Philippines, Spanish-speaking families have gradually switched over to English

since the end of World War II until Spanish ceased to be a practical everyday language in
the country.
 Another example would be the gradual death of the Kinaray-a language of Panay as many
native speakers especially in the province of Iloilo are switching to Hiligaynon or mixing
the two languages together. Kinaray-a was once spoken in the towns outside the vicinity
of Iloílo City, while Hiligaynon was limited to only the eastern coasts and the city proper.
However, due to media and other factors such as urbanization, many younger speakers
have switched from Kinaray-a to Hiligaynon, especially in the towns of Cabatuan, Santa
Barbara, Calinog, Miagao, Passi City, Guimbal, Tigbauan, Tubungan, etc.
 Palawan has 52 local languages and dialects. Due to this diversity, internal migration and
mass media, Tagalog has effectively taken over as the lingua franca on the island.
 In Luzon, the regions of Camarines Norte and Pampanga have seen a shift to Tagalog.