Does a language change faster in a preliterate society, or a society where few people are literate

[raccoon]

(such as medieval Europe) than in a society where a majority of the population is literate?

[Odin2005]

1. Not really

In both situations the common language just becomes divorced from the written language. In the Arab world, for example, people are often "diglossic," they speak both Standard Arabic (which is also the written standard) and the local dialect. I suspect the same thing will happen with English, people will become diglossic between General American or Received Pronunciation on one hand and the local English dialect on the other. Even now I find my self switching back and forth between the Minnesotan form of the Inland North dialect (I pronounce "bat" as "bay-uht "block" as "black," "bought" as "bot," "bus" as "boss" and "seven" as "suhven.") and General American depending on the formality of the situation.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. Hmm, that's not my idea of Minnesotan

I think of typical Minnesotan pronunciations as being "ayg" for "egg," "onhappy" for "unhappy," "prolly" for "probably," "oh" with lips tightly pursed, and over-emphasized "r" and "l." The pronunciations you mention sound more like upstate New York.

[Odin2005]

4. That's because the sound shift started around Buffalo and Detroit and spread westward

I have the stereotypical Upper-Midwestern things, they are just have the sound shift layered on top of them. I have the Flag-Plague merger (egg = "ayg"), monophthongized Long A and Long O ("Minnesohhhta"), and "TH" often is a toothy T or D in fast speech instead of a fricative.

[raccoon]

5. Is that where that abomination came from? "prolly" for "probably,"

I thought better of Minnesotans!

[Odin2005]

6. Thank Dog I don't use it! I do say "probly," thought...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplology

[raccoon]

7. "Probly" is acceptable usage. I even say it myself sometimes. nt

[SheilaT]

2. Actually, I've read in one or more

books on language/linguistics that language does change faster in a preliterate or low literacy society. Alphabetic writing systems which are essentially phonetic really do tend to slow down pronunciation changes. And the written form also tends to enshrine the grammar and usage.

But nonetheless, language still changes. It's why I get into arguments with English teachers who don't think Shakespeare needs to be put into modern English. Notice how a new translation of the Iliad and the Odyssey get published every decade or less. Some day go off and pick up one from even fifty years ago, and you'll start to get an idea of why literature from other languages gets retranslated frequently. English has changed so very much from Shakespeare's time that only an Elizabethan English expert (or talented amateur) can really get it. All the rest of us need a LOT of footnotes.

Climbs back down off soap box.

[Lionel Mandrake]

8. You want to translate Shakespeare into (more) modern English?

Shakespeare's language is Early Modern English - which is not very different from the English of the 21st century. The footnotes are all you need to understand the relatively few unfamiliar words and words whose meanings have changed drastically over the last 400 years.

IMHO you would lose more than you gained by translating Shakespeare into 21st c. English.

Even with Chaucer, it is debatable whether you need a translation, although most teachers would say you do. The language changed more from Chaucer to Shakespeare than it has since.

[SheilaT]

10. If Shakespeare is so close to 21st Century English,

then why do our current printings of his plays have extensive glossaries, notes, and explanations, many of which carefully explain words which have changed meaning to something completely different in all these years? It's not just a few words. It's lots and lots and lots.

Let me put it this way: why don't we use a 16th century translation of Homer instead of a newer one when we want to read The Iliad or the Odyssey? Even ones done back in the 1930's are a bit tricky to understand a mere seventy years later. In a similar way, Shakespeare is constantly re-translated into German or French, keeping him fresh and readable to those people. The problem is that the only ones who actually read Shakespeare for pleasure tend to go on to become English teachers and honestly don't get it that he's really difficult and needs to be translated into modern English.

Chaucer is pretty close to completely unreadable to a modern speaker of English.

[raccoon]

9. Check out the “Simply Shakespeare” series.

Shakespeare’s words are printed side by side with a modern “translation.”

http://www.amazon.com/gp/series/92237?ie=UTF8&edition=paperback

[Jim__]

11. I looked at Romeo and Juliet, the little bit you can see in the search function.

A line from Shakespeare:

To move is to stir, and to be valiant is to stand: therefore if thou art moved, thou runnst away

I think it loses something in the translation:

To get angry means you get moving. To be courageous means you hold your ground. So, if you get moving, you're running away.

The meter definitely changes, and it also loses that repeating "to" which seems to give the sentence energy.

Have you read these translations? If so, what do you think of them?

[Odin2005]

12. I would translate that as...

"To move is to get going, and to be brave is to hold your ground, so if you are moving you are running away"

Keeps the forceful infinitives.

[raccoon]

13. I like the series. It does, of course, lose something in the translation, but it makes the meaning

clearer. Then you can go back and read the original, and say, "Oh, that's what he meant."

(Speaking as I've read many of his plays with glossary but no "translation.")