Causes of language change

There is no more reason for language to change than for jackets to

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have three buttons one year and two the next', asserted one well-known linguist, arguing that all change is due to accidental, social fac­tors. This viewpoint cannot be correct, for two reasons. First, similar changes recur the world over. There are certain tendencies inherent in language, which possibly get triggered by social factors, but which are there waiting in the wings as it were, for something to set them off, as with an avalanche: a lone skier who disturbed the snow was per­haps the immediate trigger, but there were deeper underlying causes which already existed, before that skier arrived.

Furthermore, language patterning never breaks down. This is the second reason why changes cannot be simply accidental. The patterns within language enable the mind to handle large amounts of linguistic information without strain. If change was random, the organization would collapse. The mind would be overloaded with a junk-heap of dis­organized information, and communication would be impossible.

These factors provide two major causes of change: on the one hand, there are underlying tendencies in language, tendencies which can get triggered by social factors. On the other hand, there is a therapeu­tic.tendency, a tendency to make readjustments in order to restore broken patterns. Let us briefly consider these.

Natural tendencies

There are numerous natural tendencies, and some of them are stronger than others. They can be triggered by social factors, or may be held at bay for centuries, perhaps held in check by other opposing tendencies.

A widespread tendency is for the ends of words to disappear. In cases where this has largely occurred already, as in the Polynesian languages, Italian, and French, many English speakers claim the lan­guage 'sounds beautiful', 'has Mowing sounds'. Hut when it begins to happen to our own language, and people leave 111 oil the end of words such as hot, what, and replace it with л 'gloltal stop' - a closure at the back of the vocal tract with no actual sound emitted - then many peo­ple get upset, and talk about 'sloppiness', and 'disgraceful swallowing of sounds'. However, such an incident is certainly not 'sloppiness', since producing a glottal stop requires as much muscular tension as the sound it replaces. Furthermore, the change is creeping in inex­orably: even those who criticize it usually fail to notice that they them­selves are likely to replace (t] with a glottal stop in football, hot milk, a

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bit more. In some areas, the change has affected [k] as well, and also, to a lesser extent, [p]. At the rate at which it seems to be spreading, [p], [t] and [k] may have disappeared from the end of British English words by the middle of the next century.

Not all tendencies are major, noticeable ones. Others can be minor, affecting only one sound in a particular position: the sound [el tends to become [il before [n], so England is now pronounced as if it were spelled 'Ingland'. A [b] tends to be inserted between [ml and [1], so the word bramble is from an earlier bremel. And so on.

Some tendencies can have repercussions throughout the language, as with the loss of the ends of words, which means that in French, for example, an alternative means of expressing 'plural' has had to be developed: it is essential to put les [le) at the beginning of plural words, as in les chats [le /a] 'the cats', since by itself the word for 'cat' [/a] is pronounced the same in both the singular and plural: this dis­tinction is now marked by the determiner placed in front of words.