Combining linguistics, archaeology and ancient genetics to understand deep human history

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. Some years back I listened to a story on NPR

that was looking at the change in language on a real-time basis. There was a project that involved recording people's spoken language, and then going back periodically, recording them again, and noting changes, especially in pronunciation.

This can be observed by watching old movies or TV shows. Earlier this evening I was watching some "What's My Line" shows from the 1950s and 60s, and some fifty or sixty years later, it's clear the accent has changed a bit.

Grammar and usage changes, and often it's all I can do not to correct people for what I consider errors of usage or grammar. The specifics aren't that important, as I recall English teachers trying to inculcate grammar and usage from their youth that had changed already.

Language changes. The grammar and usage nazis (like me) are often crazed by those changes.

One thing I've been thinking about for several decades is to what extent modern recording technology will slow those changes. There was a time when I thought it would, and I thought that the mingling of accents would level English. I no longer think so. While some extreme accents have been tamped down, it seems as if the spoken version of our language continues to diverge in different locales. I watch a fair amount of TV shows made in Great Britain, and I'm a bit astonished at vocabulary that is new to me, and although I can figure out the meaning from context, I'll be hearing words I never hear normally. Can't offhand think of any examples, sorry.