It’s a simple fact that languages, given time, will evolve. If ever you have the chance, take a look at the Oxford English Dictionary, and track the evolution of any random word. Sometimes, the years required for a word to radically alter its meaning are few – take today’s contradictory-seeming definitions of the word “oversight,” for example. One definition means a moment of neglect in which crucial details are missed; the second refers to near-omniscient monitoring of an institution!
The thought of evolving languages always creeps into my mind when I think of Esperanto. I love the language, and want to see it succeed. Yet I cannot help but wonder whether, if it did become the global second language, how long it would last before it evolved differently in varying parts of the world. Perhaps it would take some time…Decades, centuries, eons, I don’t know. Eventually, though, Esperanto would evolve, and again we would have the same diversity of languages that once more begs for a middle ground among them.
Then again, since Esperanto is not intended to be everybody’s first language, there is always the possibility that it would evolve considerably slower that a widely-spoken first language, especially given the contexts in which Esperanto would be used. I imagine may of us have a vision of Esperanto being used in world governments, and as such, it would be a tool for conducting official business. Under those circumstances, perhaps Esperanto would be better off in a static state. Politicians would likely not opt to use words that have come into the regional parlance, but are utterly meaningless to someone from a different milieu.
What do you all think? Is the quest for a global language destined to revert back to the same place from whence it started? Or will it be more tenable once it is finally attained?
Comments:
Hoss:
There’s no question that Esperanto will continue to evolve and change, just as it has been changing for well over a century now.
The important question is whether those changes will lead to the rise of mutually incomprehensible (or at least significantly different) dialects. Unless we go back to the pre-industrial age, that possibility seems unlikely.
Dialects tend to arise, I think, when communities are geographically separated, in much the same way that new biological species evolve in isolation. When there is continual cross-fertilization, the disparate speakers of the language (the members of the gene pool, as it were) change together. It’s only when a group is prevented from sharing its changes that it speciates.
So as long as Esperanto is used as an interlanguage—and not simply the private language of a socially isolated group—it would seem that there’s little chance of it splitting into mutually incomprehensible dialects.
Michael:
I don’t think Esperanto will evolve the way other languages do. Other languages don’t have a worldwide set of fix rules requiring standards like Esperanto does.
I think Esperanto might evolve, but it would be a purposeful, thought out way — not random like native languages.
Michael
Gene Keyes:
Think metric system. That one has not devolved back to conflicting units of measurement. But it has been refined. The kilometer was originally 1/10,000th the distance from equator to pole. Now after several increasingly precise specifications, it is this (as quoted from BIPM):
http://www.bipm.org/en/si/si_brochure/chapter2/2-1/metre.html
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The 1889 definition of the metre, based on the international prototype of platinum-iridium, was replaced by the 11th CGPM (1960) using a definition based on the wavelength of krypton 86 radiation. This change was adopted in order to improve the accuracy with which the definition of the metre could be realized, the realization being achieved using an interferometer with a travelling microscope to measure the optical path difference as the fringes were counted. In turn, this was replaced in 1983 by the 17th CGPM (1983, Resolution 1) that specified the current definition, as follows:
The metre is the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299 792 458 of a second.
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So, to me, Esperanto is more comparable to the ‘fundamentals’ 😉 of the metric system, than the loosey-goosey inclusiveness of national languages.
–Gene Keyes
Steven Wayne Lytle:
If Esperanto became the world’s second language, it probably would splinter into different dialects, maybe even different languages. So what? If that happened, we would still know whether it’s a good thing to have a common world language, something which is taken on faith at the moment. If it is a good thing, then a new world language could be invented. If it isn’t, then there’s no problem. I suspect that in a few decades translation technology will obviate the need for a world language. Bioengineering may obviate the need for translation by allowing quick and easy language learning. I’m very hopeful. Indeed, mi estas esperantisto!