Re: Language change among immortals
| From: | Dirk Elzinga <dirk.elzinga@...> |
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| Date: | Tuesday, November 22, 2005, 16:23 |
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On 11/21/05, Roger Mills <rfmilly@...> wrote:
> kutsuwamushi wrote:
>
> > Or would
> > language change continue at a similar pace, because people's language
> > evolves continually throughout their lives, not just primarily at one
> > stage of it?
>
> Personally I feel it takes quite a jolt for a person's language to change
> noticeable within their lifetime. (Excluding emigration to a foreign
> country, of course.) The principal factor would be exposure to a dialect
> that is perceived as more prestigious than one's own.
>
I was waiting for this to come up :-). There is a short article in the
journal Nature from 2000 which reports on the changing pronunciation
of Queen Elizabeth between the 1950s and 1980s. Basically, her vowels
are moving towards what the article calls "Standard Southern
British". The URL is
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v408/n6815/abs/408927a0.html .
(Hmmm. This may be subscription-only (I'm looking at if from work); if
it is, I have the PDF and would be happy to send it to interested
persons.)
Dirk
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