Factors Affecting Language Change language.
It also is a significant topic for linguists,
Introduction
All languages change over time and change is
inevitable for any living language. History records
that languages change over time at every level of
structure which includes vocabulary, phonology,
morphology and syntax ( PBS, 2005 ). For many
people, it may not be easily apparent or obvious in a
day-to-day communication on a personal level
because many individuals are so intimately
connected to their language that they may fail to see
its changes. However, languages do indeed change
and some languages flourish, some expand and some
languages even die.
Generation by generation, pronunciations
evolve, new words are borrowed or invented, the
meaning of old words drifts, and morphology
develops or decays. The rate of change may vary
from one place to another but whether the changes
are faster or slower, they do happen and they
happen for a good cause (Jones & Singh, 2005).
Having a knowledge of language change and
causes of change are essential for students of
who take a descriptive attitude and accept that
change is inevitable and it does happen for a better
reason for all human kinds.
Linguists have traditionally studied variations in a
language occurring at the same and how language
develops over time as both can be useful aids to
understanding.
This easy will discuss about causes the lead to
changes of the English language and types of change.
There are many factors that play roles in changing
languages and they include politics, social, culture
technology, environment and moral. Such factors can
be extremely broad and complex in nature;
therefore, this essay will only discuss about political,
social and technological in a general term.
There are types of English language change
which include lexis (word), semantics (meaning of
word), phonology (sound), and syntax (grammar) and
the study of these different types can be extremely
complex. Therefore, there only a general and a few
examples about the different types of change will be
discussed. After that, there will be a brief discussion
on whether these changes take place for the right or
wrong reason. The conclusion will then be drawn to
support the thesis statement.
Causes of language change
Languages change for a variety of reasons such as
political pressures, technological development as well
as social, culture and moral factors. Below are
examples of causes that lead to change in the English
language.
 Political factor- which is caused by foreign invasion,
migration and colonization.
 Social factor- which means foreign influences from
Latin, French, American, Australian, Indian and
others. The unique way that individuals speak also
fuels language change. Vocabulary and phrases
people use depend upon the place, age, gender,
education level, social status.
 Cultural factor- This means the exposure of one
language group to another via television, radio, films,
music, magazines and fashion.
 Technological factor- which means rapid advances
in information technology, industries, products and
economy simply require new words that drive
language change.
 Moral factor- which is about recent developments
in anti-racism and environmentalism (Beard, 2004).
1. Political Factor
Many times, language change has some kind of
political roots such as human migration and invasion.
When people move to a country and learn a new
language, they learn their adopted language
imperfectly. They then pass on these slight
imperfections to their children and to the people in
their social circle, and eventually alter the language
(Aitchison, 1991, p.109).
Besides the language changes brought about by
migration, politics play some roles in language change
in more immediate ways by the public debates. For
instance, increasing environmental awareness and
environmental policies in recent decades has led to a
number of new words and phrases such as “tree-
hugger”, “eco-friendly”, “carbon footprint”,
“greenwashing”, “locavore”, “eco-terrorism” and
“green collar jobs.” In political debates, just four years
ago in the U.S. presidential election, “the common
citizen” or “average Joe” suddenly replaced by “Joe the
plumber” due to one of thousands of candidate-voter
conversations (Powell & Cooper, 2008). New political
words such as “9/11” (2001), “weapons of mass
 destruction” (2002), “red state/blue state/purple
state” (2004), “subprime” (2007) can now be seen in
newly edited dictionaries.
The liberation of women and the struggle for
gender equality has also brought about some
important changes in language. For example, student
writers today are encouraged to use gender-neutral
and gender-inclusive nouns and pronouns and to treat
women and men in a parallel fashion. For example,
police officer for policeman, firefighter for fireman and
humankind for mankind ( p. 411).
2. Technology Factor
The ever-changing technology is creating
difficulty for the English language users to keep track
on new vocabulary and expressions. In fact, language
itself changes slowly but the internet has speeded up
the process of those changes even more quickly. For
example, some entirely new words like the verb “to
google' , “facebooking”, and many other words that
are not yet in the Oxford English Dictionary, have come
into popular use (Duffy, 2003). However, not all these
new words and slangs being used right now will survive
forever. Over a decade ago, the term 'floppy disk' was
considered a brand new lexical development, but now
it is rarely used or featured in today's conversations as
it has been replaced with 'memory stick'(Wu & Ben-
Canaan, 2006).
Often times, people online show how brilliant they
are by manipulating the language of the internet which
causes computer slangs to develop even faster than
one can ever imagine (Kleinman, 2010). The text
messaging language is something new the abbreviation
such as LOL, BFF, IMHO, and OMG (that's laugh out
loud, best friends forever, in my humble opinion and
oh my God) have recently added in the Oxford
Dictionary, legitimizing the terms used by millions in
texts, emails and instant messages (Yoskowitz, 2011).
3. Social Factor
Changes in politics, economics and technology usually
lead to social changes. Social changes produce changes
in language. In other words, once society starts
changing, then language change produces special
effects. In almost every society, some people have
social prestige, power, and money, while others have
little of these commodities. Typical variables include P
a g e | 4 occupation, level of education, income, and
type of residential dwelling, with ranked levels within
each variable. People with different level of social
status response and perceive things differently and
vocabulary and phrases differently. (Finegan &
Rickford, 2004, p.62 ). For example, individuals who are
poor and who cannot afford an education or who grew
up in a rural area where proper grammar wasn't
encouraged, their ways of speaking will not be as
eloquent as someone of higher standing.
 Even within the same small community there are
variations according to a speaker’s age, gender and
ethnicity simply because no two individuals speak
identically. Through interactions, people pick up new
words and integrate them into a new way of speech.
Some of them spread through the population and
slowly change the language (Anonymous, 2011). The
words and phrases used by our parents or
grandparents may ever be the same as the words and
phrases we are using right now.
4. Foreign Influence Factor
One of the most common reasons for one
language to borrow from another is when it needs to
refer to notions and things that have been newly
introduced to its speakers. For example, the Italian
word pizza only entered English when the food to
which it refers was adopted by English speech
communities. Similarly, glasnost was borrowed from
Russian to express a policy of openness and frankness
in Soviet political life that came in the wake of
Gorbachev era and represented a concept that had
hitherto been unfamiliar to the English speech
community ( Aitchison, 2001, p.31)
Although borrowing is extremely widespread, not
all loanwords are destined to be incorporated into the
borrower language. Many are only transitory and
disappear in the space of a relatively short time. The
borrowing is likely to be retained if it denotes an object
for which no other word exists in the borrower
language as in the word pizza, mentioned above ( p.
32).
McMahon (1994) has given a few examples of
common words borrowed from other languages.
 hammock, hurricane, maize, tobacco (Caribbean)
 gull (Cornish)
 howitzer, robot (Czech)
 brogue, blarney, clan, plaid, shamrock (Gaelic and
Irish)
 ukulele (Hawaiian)
 bungalow, dungarees, jodhpurs, jungle, loot, polo,
pajamas, shampoo, thug (Hindi)
 paprika (Hungarian)
 bonsai, sumo, origami (Japanese)
 bamboo, ketchup, orang-utan (Malay)
 paradise, lilac, bazaar, caravan, chess, shawl, khaki
(Persian)
 taboo, tattoo (Polynesian)
 flamingo, marmalade, veranda (Portuguese)
 mammoth, soviet, vodka (Russian)
 coffee (Turkish)
 flannel (Welsh)
Types of language change
There are types of language change.
They include Lexical, semantic, phonology and
syntax. General ideas about these changes are
explained below with few examples. Lexical and
semantic change will be explained in one category as,
in general, they are closely linked to one another.
1. Lexical and Semantic Change
Lexical change refers to people using different
words today than people from the past. A
semantic change is very closely linked to lexical
change but semantic change has something to do
with changes in meaning behind the words. It is
probably the most frequent type of language
change and certainly the easiest to observe. For
instance, one can make confident assertions about
the age of a speaker who uses the word courting
to mean “going out with”, or one who uses the
adjective fit to describe someone they find
attractive. In another example, an older person
would use the word “wireless” to mean “radio”
whereas the word wireless would certainly mean
wireless technology such as phones and laptops
for a younger person ( McMahon,1994, p.90).
Semantic change which is also known as
semantic shift describes the evolution of word
usage. In semantic change, the modern meaning of
the word is different from the original usage.
Below are a few examples of semantic change;
 The word “awful” originally meant "inspiring
wonder or fear". It is a portmanteau of the words
"awe" and "full", used originally as a shortening for
"full of awe". In contemporary usage the word
usually has negative meaning.
 The word “demagogue” originally meant "a
popular leader". Now the word has strong
connotations of a politician who panders to
emotions and prejudice.
 The word “egregious” originally meant
something that was remarkably good. Now it
means something that is remarkably bad or
flagrant.
 The word "guy" was used as a term for any
"person of grotesque appearance" and then to a
general reference for a male person. However, in
the 20th century under the influence of American
popular culture, the word "guy" has been gradually
replacing "fellow," "bloke," "chap" and now in
plural , it refers to a mixture of genders (e.g.,
"Come on, you guys!" could be directed to a group
of men and women).
 The word “gay” used to mean “bright, cheerful”
before the 1960s but now it generally means
“homosexual’( McMahon, 1994, p. 175)
2. Syntax Change ( Grammar )
History records change in grammatical
constructions. English syntax is very slow to
 change compared with vocabulary change which
can be seen as fairly superficial and ephemeral.
Modern English grammar is different from old
English in many aspects. One example would be,
old English distinguished gender - the third person
singular demonstrative nominative pronoun had
three froms: /se/ was the masculine form,/ paet/
was neuter form, and / seo/ was the feminine
form. However, in modern English, there is only
one form of the third person singular
demonstrative pronoun, that, regardless of case of
gender( Rowe & Levine, 2009, p.359).
In another example, in modern English, the
word “you” is used for both the singular and the
plural form. In old English, the word “thou” was
used for addressing one person; ye for more than
one. However, the word “You” was around then,
and while thou and ye were used as a subject of a
clause, “you” was used as the object. In Early
Modern English, the distinction P a g e | 7 between
subject and object uses of ye and you had virtually
disappeared, and you became the norm in all
grammatical functions and social situations. The
use of “Ye” had eventually become old-fashioned
(Thomasom, n.d).
3. Phonological Change ( SOUND )
Sound change consists of the practice of language
change which causes the phonetic change or
phonological change. It also includes the
substitution of phonetic feature which lead to the
total loss of the original sound and a new one is
introduced (Wikipedia, 2012).
English pronunciation is gradually changing,
although it continues to reflect both geographical
and social differences among speakers. No longer
is it true, if it ever was, that all educated people
speak with Received Pronunciation (RP). A
person’s speech can gradually alter over the years
in the direction of those around, as is shown by
British people who pick up an American accent in a
very short time (Aitchison, 1991, p. 108).
A few examples of sound changes based on
different periods are mentioned below. In the
early twentieth century,
 the vowel in words such as cloth and cross
switched from being that of thought to that of lot;
 people stopped making a distinction in pairs
such as flaw and floor;
 the quality of the "long O" vowel changed (goat,
home, know);
 the quality of the "short A" vowel changed (back,
man);
 people stopped using a "tapped" r-sound
between vowels (very sorry).
In the mid twentieth century,
  words like sure, poor, tour started to sound the publication of new dictionaries, or the way
identical to shore, pour, tore; media uses language, or with the creation of
 the weak vowels in words such as visibility, colloquial terms. Below are a few examples of
carelessness drifted away from the sound of kit; spelling changes that took place in the history of
 people started to insert a t-sound in words such the English language.
as prince, making it sound like prints;
 a ch-sound became respectable in words such as
perpetual, and a j-sound in graduate;
 the glottal stop started to replace the traditional
t-sound in phrases such as quite nice, it seems

In the late twentieth century,

 the vowel sound at the end of words such as
happy, coffee, valley is growing tenser;
 the OO-sounds of goose and foot are losing their
lip-rounding and backness;
 the glottal stop extends into ever more phonetic
environments (not only, but also);
When talking about change in English spelling, it is
 in certain positions, the l-sound is changing into a
also essential to discuss about the difference
kind of w-sound (milk, myself, middle)
between British and American English spellings.
 ch- and j-sounds are spreading to words such as
The French influence on English has caused many
Tuesday, reduce (like chooseday, rejuice) (Wells,
of these spelling differences between British and
1999).
English. British English has a tendency to keep the
4. Spelling Change spelling of many words of French origin whereas
There are regulatory organizations to preserve Americans try to spell words more closely to the
national languages in many countries but neither way they sound phonetically. Below are a few
the US nor Great Britain have such regulatory examples of them.
bodies in place. The English language changes with
 English today is one of the fastest changing languages
LANGUAGE CHANGE: Progress or Decay? in the world because both old and new users of the
language are actively shaping it as English has become a
language of education and in an increasing number of
Language, without a doubt, is an important
countries. Today, English belongs to any country which
marker of ethnic identity which means attachment to
uses it and the more people use English, the greater it
language is as strong as people’s regard of themselves
would have impact on the language change. Change
as a social group. A negative ethnic identity contributes
can be a very good thing because it helps people in
to the low prestige of the ethnic group’s language
business to trade goods and services, travel and
which, in turn, makes it more susceptible to shifting to
communicate with other nations more effectively. If the
a high prestige language, such as English.
language we speak did not change, there would be an
In the modern world, language change is often
even greater language barer than there already is.
socially problematic. Language change is always
Another reason why languages need to change is for
perceived as a negative thing especially by the older
people to communicate with others who have a
folks feeling that the language has gone “down the
different culture, understanding and pronunciation of
hill”. Many other influential figures, in the eighteen
our language. If there were no change, humans would
century, felt that the English language was in a state of
be so lost in this world of different languages and
serious decline and that a national institution should be
different beliefs.
created to establish rules to prevent further decay.

Each language is inextricably tied up with a unique

view of the world, belief system, and literature,
regardless of whether the literature is written or not. A
language is the culmination of thousands of years of a
people’s experience and wisdom. People are language
users and which language they choose to use and how
they use it- is the choices they make on an individual
and daily basis. This ultimately determines whether
their languages die or thrive (Kulick, 1994, p. 7)
Conclusion