Finally, it is important to keep in mind that what we know about the
history of English is subject to ideological retellings. It has been widely
observed that when histories are written, they focus on the dominant
class.^8 In the context of this study, that idea can be extended to language:
the history of a language is written as the history of its language ideology.
You may have heard this idea phrased differently, for example: histories
are written by the winners, or even more concisely: consider the source.
Generally studies of the development of the language over time are very
narrowly focused on the smallest portion of speakers: those with power
and resources to control the distribution of information. Crystal’s The
Stories of English avoids this pitfall by looking at language in all its
variation and stratification (Crystal 2005). So every living language
changes, and every variety of every living language changes. It is
important to keep this in mind when considering arguments put forward by
prescriptivists based on a faulty and partial knowledge of the history of
English.
All spoken languages are equal in linguistic terms
All spoken languages are equally capable of conveying a full range of
ideas and experiences, and of developing to meet new needs as they arise.
This claim by linguists is usually countered by non-linguists with
examples of languages which have been deemed less sophisticated.
I was writing the other day about a dull evening at the theater, but
“dull” wasn’t the word I wanted. Rodale’s Synonym Finder gave me,
among many others, vacuous, dense, obtuse, thick, slow, indifferent,
sluggish, lethargic, torpid, lifeless, listless, apathetic, drowsy, tedious,
tiresome, boring, wearisome, uninteresting, bland, insipid, jejune,
vapid, prosaic, lackluster, anodyne, innocuous, soporific, oscitant and
blah. Does anyone want to try that in Choctaw? Or in Spanish,
Swahili or Norse?
(Kilpatrick 1999)Not so very long ago, in the larger scheme of things, English speakers
did not have the vocabulary to talk about chemical weapons, aeronautical