Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast.
Hey everybody, this is Connor and you're listening to episode 214 of the Listening Time Podcast.
I hope you're doing great and that you're excited to practice your English listening comprehension with me today, and I hope that today's episode will be interesting for you.
I know it will be interesting for me because in today's episode I'm gonna talk about whether or not languages deteriorate.
In other words, do languages change in a negative way over time?
Do they get worse?
Does the quality of the language go down or decline over the years.
This is a really interesting topic for me because I like languages and I like thinking about these things.
They're really fascinating topics for me.
And when it comes to this topic, there are people who believe that languages do not deteriorate.
There's no such thing as language deterioration.
People say that languages simply change, and some people like the changes and some people don't, but there's no such thing as deterioration.
And other people argue that languages do indeed deteriorate, that they are constantly degrading or getting worse over time, and so i want to talk about this today.
I'll give you some of my opinions regarding this.
These are just my opinions.
Obviously, there's no concrete answer, objective answer that I'm going to give you.
I'm just going to talk about my thoughts.
So I'm sure this will be an interesting episode for you.
And I want to remind you that you can get my training, my listening training at, and also my pronunciation training, in which I help you pronounce words, phrases and sentences more like a native speaker.
You can get those, and you can get my advanced episodes in which I speak fast, by signing up for my membership, by signing up for the corresponding level.
Some levels give you certain benefits.
Other levels give you other ones.
So check that out.
That link is down below.
And also check out my US Conversations podcast, in which I talk to different people from around the US.
We have conversations about different topics.
It's a lot of fun.
It's great practice for your listening, and I know you'll enjoy it.
So check that out.
That link is also down below.
And as always, please give this podcast a five-star rating and write a review if you can.
All right, let's get started.
Are your ears ready?
You know what time it is.
It's listening time.
Okay, let's talk about whether or not languages deteriorate over time.
So people argue about this and, like I already mentioned in the intro, some people say that languages do not deteriorate, that there's no such thing as that, and some Other people say that they are deteriorating.
They're in this process as we speak because as time goes on, languages get worse, so to say.
They probably wouldn't say it in those exact words, but that's kind of the idea.
So what are the arguments here?
Well, let's talk about the arguments that people might make to say that languages are deteriorating, and then we'll talk about what arguments there are for languages not deteriorating.
So let's start with the deterioration arguments.
So some people might say that languages are becoming less proper over time, less formal, and not just formal, like sounding um formal, like when you're talking to uh, really high-level, official or whatever, but also less formal in the sense that people aren't respecting the formal rules of the language.
So rules are being broken and, over time, more and more of these rules are broken, and This happens so much that eventually, the common person who speaks that language doesn't even know what the rules are.
They don't even know what is correct.
So I'm sure you might be able to think of examples of this.
Maybe in the past you've had instances where you're speaking your native language and then you realize at some point that what you're saying is actually grammatically incorrect and you never really realized that.
And then now you realize oh, that's not the correct sentence or the correct way to say that, or the correct verb tense, or whatever.
Maybe you've had that experience before.
In English, this happens even to me, an English teacher.
Sometimes I don't even know what the correct sentence or phrase is.
So that's something that people might call deterioration.
Like the speakers of the language aren't even speaking it correctly.
Another thing that they might say is that elements of the language are disappearing over time.
Certain words, structures, phrases, elements are no longer in use that used to be used.
And it's not just because those things are out of style.
It's not just a matter of choice, but that those things are actually important elements that are being lost, that are not being used anymore.
Another thing could be malapropisms, like when people say something, a phrase, that's actually a wrong phrase, that has kind of been corrupted over time, like they're putting words together that actually logically don't belong together.
But so many people say it like that nowadays that people just say it normally, right?
I'll give you an example of that later.
And so that's something.
And then maybe people might just not like how much slang is used in language.
And they might think that So much slang is a sign of deterioration.
So there are probably a lot more different things that people might be able to add to this list of arguments, but those are the things that I was able to think of.
And one other thing if we're talking about languages besides English so let's say Spanish or French or whatever people who speak those languages might say all the same things that I just said, and also add the fact that so many English words are now used in those languages.
Like those languages, have adopted all of these English words, even though there's a perfect word in Spanish or French that used to be used.
Now people use the English word even though they're speaking French, or they're speaking Spanish, or whatever.
I'm sure all of you know what I'm talking about.
There are certain English words that you might say or that other speakers of your language might say, even though these words are not words in your language.
Like people prefer to say the English word instead of the French word, or whatever.
So people might say that English is kind of polluting these other languages.
That might be another argument.
So those are different arguments for the idea that languages are deteriorating.
And I want to give you some examples of this in English because, regardless of what my personal opinion is, I think that objectively, there are some examples of of these types of things, the things that I already mentioned.
So let me give you some examples.
I've talked about this before in another episode how that in English, in the past, hundreds of years ago, we used to use the words thee thou thy thine, words that we don't use today, these th words, and we would also use the word ye as well as you, and you're probably thinking what?
What are these words?
So let me explain, in case some of you don't know or haven't listened to that other episode in which i talked about this.
So in the past, When people spoke English and they wanted to talk to one person, they were addressing one person.
They would use the words thee thou thy, depending on if the word is a subject, an object, a possessive word, etc.
And then if they were talking to more than one person let's say they were talking to three people instead of using those words, they would use ye and you and your right.
They would use the why words.
And that showed that you were talking to more than one person.
However, today, this is no longer the case in English.
Regardless of whether we're talking to one person or multiple people, we use some variation of you, or we might say you guys, for example.
We might have to add another word to that or some people might say y'all.
And I think, objectively speaking, this change did not make English better, in the sense that communication did not become better when people stopped using the words thee thou, etc.
Because nowadays we have to add words, the word guys, like you guys, or we have to somehow distinguish between using the word you to talk to one person and using it to talk to two people, whereas in the past you simply used the correct pronoun, the correct word, there was no question about how you address more than one person, Whereas today people will say you guys, and then some people will say well, why do you say guys if you're talking to two girls?
Why are you still saying you guys?
And then there are questions about this.
So this, in many people's eyes, is deterioration, right?
An example that's similar to this in Mexican Spanish is that the verb tense that most Mexicans use when they are talking about multiple people who they're addressing.
Like they're talking to two people and they're saying you guys do blah blah, blah or you guys make blah blah, blah.
The verb tense that they use there is the same verb tense that they would use when talking about other people who they're not talking to now.
Like they do blah blah blah.
They make blah blah blah.
The verb tense they use for do and make or whatever verb in both of those cases is the same.
And In Mexican Spanish, you don't need to use the subject pronoun like you, they, etc.
You just need to use the correct verb tense.
If you want to say a full sentence, you don't need to say they went.
You can just say went, but in the correct form, with the correct conjugation.
So if someone doesn't use the pronoun and they just use the verb with the correct verb tense, you don't know if they're saying you guys go or they go in some cases, because maybe the person is talking to two people but then they're also talking about other people and they might just use the verb in that verb tense and then you don't know if they're talking about the people that they're talking to or the people that they're talking about.
And i've had this miscommunication many times over the years.
And this is what many people would call deterioration, because in the past, or if you just look at Spanish from many years ago, you can see that the second person plural verb tense, when you're talking to two or more people, was a completely different tense in the past.
Whereas in Mexican Spanish nowadays it has become the same verb tense as the verb tense used for they.
So I hope you were able to follow me there.
But basically it makes it so that there might be some miscommunications if people aren't being really specific.
So, some people might say that that's an example of language deterioration.
And overall, there is probably less variety now in our languages.
People probably say fewer words overall, or they might know fewer words overall.
Very good illustration of this is with idioms, these phrases that don't make logical sense, but we say them because they kind of illustrate a point.
Many of these idioms that were used in the past are no longer used today.
And When I talk to my mother-in-law, who speaks Spanish, she uses so many idioms.
And my wife does not use nearly as many idioms.
So in one generation...
Many of these idioms have basically disappeared, not in the sense that people can't understand them, but people no longer use them.
And so there's less variety.
So I just thought of an example in English.
In the past, a lot of people would say the phrase salt of the earth when describing people who are just like good people honest, reasonable.
They don't think that they're special.
They're down to earth.
It kind of means all of these things put together.
It's kind of hard to describe.
The best way to describe it is with that idiom.
But people nowadays that are, let's say, younger than me rarely use that idiom.
I don't ever remember hearing a young person I mean like someone, let's say, under the age of 20 using that idiom.
It's just not something... that people say that much nowadays.
And for a lot of people that's a shame, because that is a very precise idiom that communicates a certain idea and now people don't use it.
So there's less variety.
And kind of related to that, there's less precision, meaning people are less precise and accurate about what they're saying maybe.
Like maybe in the past there were certain adjectives that were used that nowadays people don't use and they just use a more general adjective.
Like.
I have been reading a lot of Agatha Christie poems, mystery novels recently, and she loves to use the adjective crestfallen, which I'm sure none of you know unless you've read her books maybe, or other books that use that adjective, and this is not a word That native English speakers use nowadays, in the US at least.
But it's a very good adjective that communicates a certain feeling, like when someone is crestfallen.
It's kind of like they're sad and disappointed, but...
It sounds a little bit too general sometimes if we just say, oh, he was sad or he was disappointed.
Maybe crestfallen is the perfect adjective, the perfect description, but nowadays crestfallen We don't say that.
We just say, oh, he came back sad.
He came back disappointed.
And that's fine.
But some people might think that that is a little bit too general, like crestfallen would be a better, precise adjective.
But we don't use that word nowadays.
So there might be less precision now.
Or there might be malapropisms, like I mentioned, where people aren't saying the correct phrase, but so many people say it nowadays that it has become the common way to say it.
Like the phrase, I could care less.
The phrase is supposed to be, I couldn't care less.
But so many people nowadays use this phrase, I could care less.
Native speakers say this.
And it's kind of saying the opposite of what they're trying to communicate.
But so many people say it that it's just part of English now.
And a lot of people would say that that is deterioration, because they're not saying the correct phrase.
It actually means the opposite of what they're trying to say.
So a lot of people view that as deterioration.
And some people might say that languages have too much slang nowadays, that it makes communication harder.
People use different words and maybe can't understand other groups of people when they have certain slang.
So that's something that people might also say.
So I think that a lot of these things are valid.
I mean, I can think of examples of these things.
However, on the other side, I can also understand why people might say that there's no such thing as deterioration.
Yes, these are changes that have happened, but this is how languages adapt and evolve over time.
This is normal.
And I can think of a good example of this.
Are we going to say that the different romance languages like Spanish Portuguese Italian, French and the other ones are deteriorations of Latin, which is where they come from?
For me, the answer is obviously not.
These are not deteriorations of Latin.
They're just different outcomes, different products, different results of a language being used in different regions and changed and added to over many, many years.
And now they're all their own beautiful, rich, complex languages.
They're not deteriorations of Latin.
However, you can probably point to many things, like I just did, where it looks like there's less variety or less this, less that than in Latin, possibly.
And so that for me is kind of like a good example of why people would argue that languages don't deteriorate.
They just change.
They adapt.
And language isn't science.
We can't just change science because we want to or because of our style or something.
However, languages are adaptable.
In many ways, they're arbitrary.
They're kind of random, like there's no reason why things are the way they are.
It's just that people have accepted this rule over time or whatever.
So they're kind of arbitrary and they can be changed and changed.
And even though we have all this change and all of this slang that has been introduced, we still communicate pretty well.
It's not like we're going around misunderstanding everyone, because we're.
Everyone uses different words and slang than we do.
Obviously, that happens sometimes.
But by and large meaning in general.
For the most part we communicate well and we adapt to the different changes in our own native language.
And so it doesn't make communication just really hard or whatever.
And then a lot of these changes might just be changes that people don't like, just because they preferred the previous version.
Like dangling prepositions in English.
We say sentences like...
He's the person I talked to, instead of saying, he's the person to whom I talked.
In the past, you couldn't do this.
You couldn't have that to at the very end like that, like in my first example.
But nowadays, this is how everyone says it.
And some people will say this is deterioration.
But at the end of the day, did dangling prepositions ever hurt anyone?
Did they ever cause just real problems with communication or the language?
I would guess not.
I think it's just a stylistic preference if you like them or you don't.
So some people might think they sound ugly and we should respect the rule that people used to respect.
And some people, most people wouldn't care really.
And I think a lot of people have this idea that things were better in the past.
Not just talking about languages, but in a bunch of different areas of life.
They think that when they were younger, things were better.
When they were kids, things were better.
And maybe they were for that person.
But that is a common attitude that many of us can have.
Things were better before.
And that attitude might possibly affect our view of whether or not languages deteriorate.
It might just be our personal preference for the way things were before.
And so overall, if I were to give you my opinion about this, I fall somewhere in the middle.
I'm not really on one side or the other side of this debate, because I think that there are very clear examples of English or like that Spanish example.
I gave you clear examples of how communication has become slightly less efficient due to some changes, right?
But on the other hand, I think that languages are supposed to change.
That's kind of how languages are, like they change over time.
That's just normal.
So I'm kind of in the middle here.
I think that for me personally, I accept the changes.
I don't complain and think oh man, our languages are just completely deteriorating and they sound so much worse nowadays than they used to sound.
I don't do that.
I accept the changes.
I know that this is what happens with language, but I also think it's important to value and to understand what.
What is being changed?
What things we're losing?
I think that we should realize that we're losing all of these idioms that our parents used to say.
And I think that it's good to acknowledge that.
We don't necessarily need to keep all of those idioms alive, but I think it's good to know what you're losing, what is no longer here nowadays.
I think that that's important and I think it's good to pay attention to your own communication.
I don't think that you should always just use the malapropism just because everyone else uses it.
I don't want to say the phrase I could care less, even if everyone says it.
Like when I think of the meaning of what I want to say, I want to say the correct sentence.
Like I want to use the phrase that is actually correct.
So I'm not just going to use that phrase just because everyone else is using it.
So.
I want to be more intentional about my communication.
So overall, those are my opinions.
I know that this is not a very clear topic and there are a lot of opinions about this.
I think it's really interesting.
So I wanted to talk about it today.
Hopefully you liked it.
And remember to sign up for my membership so you can get my training, my listening training, my pronunciation training and check out my advanced podcast episodes by becoming a Listening Time family member.
You can check all of that out by clicking on the link down below.
And also check out my US Conversations podcast.
I'm sure this will be the next step for a lot of you listening to more than one person talking.
This is an essential skill you'll need to develop, so check that out.
That link is also down below.
And as always, please give this podcast a five-star rating and write a review if you can.
All right, thank you so much for listening to this episode and I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.
