When we retrieve about how the humanity will change in the coming century , we ’ve come to look flying elevator car and other technological overture . One thing we rarely think about is how language will change . But if you travel 500 years into the future , you might not realize your own native tongue . As National Geographic ’s newfangled seriesOrigins(Mondays at 9/8 CST ) excuse , human communication is always develop , even if the shifts happen too slowly for us to recognize .
Here are seven star sign that lyric has shift over time — and that it ’ll go on to morph .
1. SHAKESPEARE IS HARD FOR MODERN ENGLISH SPEAKERS TO DECODE.
William Shakespeare did n’t live all that long ago , as far as the comparative scope of history goes . But his sixteenth and seventeenth 100 plays now come with enough vocabulary - related footnote to fill an entire separate ledger . It ’s more than just the addition of archaic pronoun like “ thee ” and “ thou . ” The Son “ boot , ” for instance , is more than just a footwear reference in Shakespeare ’s writings — it might mean an reward or an extra element , too . He also invented word we still practice today . We have him to thank for everyday give-and-take like “ arch - villain , ” “ bedazzle , ” and “ freshly - fangled . ” Flipping through Shakespeare ’s poesy is a master course in how rapidly a language can acquire into a whole different wildcat . Just endeavor to imagine ol’ Billy Shakespeare read the transcript of an AIM Old World chat .
2. PRONUNCIATION IS STILL CHANGING.
Between the twelfth and 18th centuries , the English spoken communication experienced something call the Great Vowel Shift , convert the pronunciation of all the long vowel . In Middle English , the word “ sight ” would vocalize like “ seet , ” while the news “ boot ” would sound like “ sauceboat . ” However , orthoepy changes are n’t limited to centuries ago . In modern American English , the sounds “ group O ” and “ au ” are merging , so that words like “ blood ” and “ stalking ” now voice like homophone in many regions of the U.S. While this sound unification has existed for generation in New England , other neighborhood used to exert a deviation in orthoepy between the two vowel phone . Now , the transonic merger is spreading , and nearly everyone in the westerly United States rime “ bunch ” and “ bought . ”
3. DICTIONARIES ADD NEW WORDS ALL THE TIME.
4. BLENDED WORDS STICK.
As the world change , people combine quarrel to create terms for things that may not have be before . The give-and-take “ motel , ” coined in the 1920s , is technically a mixture of “ motor ” and “ hotel , ” though we no longer think of drivers as “ motorist . ” The word “ smog , ” a mixing of smoke and fog , did n’t come around until the early 1900s , serving as a reply to the unprecedented air befoulment the industrial rotation brought to London . Not all parole blends depict completely new ideas , though . The Good Book “ humongous ” first came into the populace around 1967 , and is credibly a combining of “ huge , ” and “ monstrous , ” fit in to one dictionary .
5. VERBS HAVE BECOME NOUNS, AND NOUNS HAVE BECOME VERBS.
Some common verbs were n’t so coarse until fairly recently . Being a parent is now a verb : parenting . We do n’t just study a text , we text each other . The first bed usance of “ to escalate ” did n’t come about until 1922 : it was created through what ’s called a back - formation from the word “ escalator . ” The word “ destruct ” come into English in the fifties in the same manner , as a back - formation from “ devastation . ”
6. DEFINITIONS CHANGE.
recollect of the Scripture “ millennial . ” Just a few decades ago , it simply bear on to a catamenia of a thousand years , or a millenary . Now , it ’s a ubiquitous terminus for the generation of people born in the eighties and 1990s . In Chaucer ’s clip , “ girl ” could denote to a child of either sex , while even through the 1700s , “ meat ” could think of any kind of solid food for thought . In the 1600s , the news “ cheater ” have-to doe with to an functionary who looked after the king ’s lands . Thanks to the dishonorable tendency of those officers , the word now refers to a swindler .
7. OLDER GENERATIONS HAVE ALWAYS COMPLAINED ABOUT NEW-FANGLED WAYS OF SPEAKING.
Lamenting the loss of “ right ” words is n’t restrict to modern adults who think “ LOL ” and “ ROFL ” are ruin the English language . In 1712 , Jonathan Swift complained that poets abbreviating Scripture to fit in verse was a “ barbarous customs duty . ” immature man , he write , are too impressed with their own slang . He complain that they “ borrow the New Sett of Phrases , and if they take a Pen into their Hands , all the odd Words they have pick up in a Coffee - House , or a Gaming Ordinary , are produced as Flowers of Style . ” researcher are still indicate about whether that particular essay was satirical or a true lamentation on the declining standard of the English language , but either direction , Swift ’s complaints do n’t vocalize that dissimilar from those who now complain about the Internet - y terms of the twenty-first century .
