Blog - Paper 3 Question 1

 The English language has existed for about 2500 years.  In that time, it  has undergone some minuscule and gargantuan alterations. These revisions can be seen in as small of time frames as from the 1800s to present day (which isn’t a very long time in the grand scheme of things). Through analyzing n-grams and collocates, and comparing writings from the 1800s to present day, one can see how time and history forge the language we speak and write today. 

Author Edward Berens wrote a text called Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford: In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to his Nephew wherein he wrote ten letters each giving advice about how to behave, what to do, and essentially how to be an “Oxford Man” to his nephew who presumably was going to study at Oxford College. Berens was a Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford and therefore came from a platform of experience from which his nephew could appreciate. He published the letters in 1832 and have since then been renowned as life lessons for young men.

More importantly in regards to this prompt is the minute linguistic deviance from present-day texts and speech present in Berens’s letters. Firstly, the lexicon has some slight differentiations with words such as “coxcomb” are not used in modern-day English. There are some phrases such as “take it in good part” which don’t make as much sense in modern English. Overall, these lexical choices are barely different from today’s English. Unlike some older Englishes, this is in close enough relationship to modern English that it is still comprehensible by the modern reader.

N-grams are a much more logically advanced way of breaking down and analyzing the language transformation of English over semi-extended periods of time. An n-gram was provided for this assignment showing the shift in usage of three different terms which are all synonyms of each other. These phrases are (in order of most used to least used as of 2008): “Tend to be,” “are likely to be,” and finally “are apt to be.” The graph’s origin begins in the year 1800. They all seem to be equally used until around 1925-1930. During this time in history, many societal and economic changes occurred such as the beginning  of the American Great Depression of the 1930s. These changes are branded in history through language. At an exponential rate, the use of “tend to be” increases at the detriment of the use of “apt to be.”

Interestingly, in Berens’s letters, the least common phrase of the ones mentioned (as of 2008) was present. The elegant use of “apt to be” is demonstrated in the first sentence in the form of a call to action to read carefully and pay close attention since the author is about to give some valuable advice. Odds are that you won’t find the common use of “apt to be” in modern texts.

Another way one can see how time and history forge the language we speak and write  today is through analyzing collocates. Collocates are interesting ‘footprints’, if you will, fossilized in the English language. Common words such as good, bad, first, final, and professional seem to never change meanings, spellings, and usages as time reshaped the English language around them. By studying the etymology and utilization of these words gives one a more sophisticated understanding of the elegance of the English language.

In more recent history, the English language has become less formal but generally been stagnant. More slang terms have been added to the language as ease of communication increases, creating a linguistic melting pot of sorts, and cultures trade linguistic anomalies. 

English will continue to evolve as history forges the ever-changing steel of the language. And through analyzation and bit of thinking, we can read it's story inscribed in the pages of time.