How language changes.

Today I realised I am old. Well older than I felt yesterday at least! 

I was having a conversation with a work colleague the same age as me, Dave and one some years younger, Alice. In the course of this chat I used the word 'yonks' as in 'I haven't seen her for yonks'. While Dave nodded, it wasn't the same reaction I got from Alice. She looked totally puzzled, and it hit me square in the face that she had never heard of the word 'yonks'! Dave and I had to explain that it was an old fashioned word meaning 'a very long time' and is in the dictionary. I actually checked the dictionary when I got home to make sure!! Then I texted our sons and asked them whether they knew what it meant too. Our eldest son said yes, but the youngest had to look it up and then told me humorously that I was now officially old. 

It's brought it home to me how our English language is changing quite rapidly. There's always been generation differences and I am quite sure the internet and technology have helped to change how we speak and write. A hundred years ago it was the pronunciation that changed as people moved around more than they had done previously. New words were borrowed and changed and even invented. As young people grow, and make their own social groups, they make a language of their own too. Technology develops and new words are created to describe what things are, or mean. The Oxford English dictionary presents new words every year that have appeared in the English language. Last year, in December 2018, we had words such as 'hashtag', 'download', 'sat nav', 'downing' and 'bendy'. Notice that some are defiantly to do with our modern way of life. 

It was a hard lesson for me, as I'd always thought I was quite up and running where language is concerned. To find I am considered old fashioned was difficult to take, to be honest. I've always tried to keep up with what's going on around me, and have a wide social circle of mixed ages. I use the internet regularly, and use recent technology at work, so to realise I was 'out of it' was quite galling.

So why does language change? It's because the needs of it's speakers change. As young people interact with others their own age, their language grows to make it different from those of the older generation. All languages change. My mother is German and sometimes finds it difficult to understand younger German people. She says there are a lot of English words in the German language now, and it has changed quite dramatically since she was young. It's obviously to do with the fact that people travel far more widely and often now than they did 100 years ago, or even 50 years ago for that matter. Maybe this is why the older generation don't always understand the younger? Maybe that's why the younger don't always understand the older too? Words are important as is language as it's how we communicate. If there are changes and you don't keep up you could become isolated. That's a dramatic statement but in time it could happen.

Communication, words, are important because it's the difference between being understood and misunderstood. At least Alice knows what 'yonks' means now!!

https://sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dialects/BBC-Voices