Since this is a literature board I assume linguistics is fair game...

Since this is a literature board I assume linguistics is fair game? But are discussions of linguistics in terms of the evolution of a language acceptable or is it relegated to Veeky Forums?

I wanted to talk about the development of English and it's transition from old to modern.
In the transition, it created a lot of new pronunciations and varieties of words.
Knight for example used to be pronounced. Were other silent letters and strange pronunciations were also a by product. It would have made more sense for English to just stick to the word cavelier (similar to French Chevalier) a meaning for mounted warrrior no? Then it would be more similar to other Romance languages. Why the shift in pronunciation? English sometimes seems to me that is was haphazardly composed and people let everything just catch on. Anyone else agree.

Other urls found in this thread:

merriam-webster.com/dictionary/knight
aeon.co/essays/why-is-english-so-weirdly-different-from-other-languages
twitter.com/NSFWRedditImage

You'll probably get more actual discussion and insight from Veeky Forums, there's precious little of that here.

You've obviously never been to Veeky Forums
That kind of ignorance is kind of annoying Veeky Forums took the fall for this board more or less

There's nothing like the French Academy that concerns itself with what may or may not enter the 'official' English language in either England or the United States. Lexicographers enter new words based solely on use, and include an obs. (obsolete) next to words rarely if ever used.

>It would have made more sense for English to just stick to the word cavelier (similar to French Chevalier) a meaning for mounted warrrior no? Then it would be more similar to other Romance languages. Why the shift in pronunciation?
what in the world are you saying

>Why the shift in pronunciation
because in the past before mass transit there was less connection between groups of people and hence they started to develop their own dialects and so on
look up "great vowel shift" for example

>The English language was created by poets, a five-hundred year enterprise of emotion and metaphor, the richest dialogue in world literature. French rhetorical models are too narrow for the English tradition.The Parisian is a provincial when he pretends to speak for the universe.

>The sixteenth century transformed Middle English into modern English. Grammar was up for grabs. People made up vocabulary and syntax as they went along. Not until the eighteenth century would rules of English usage appear. Shakespearean language is a bizarre super-tongue, alien and plastic, twisting, turning, and forever escaping. It is untranslatable, since it knocks Anglo-Saxon root words against Norman and Greco-Roman importations sweetly or harshly, kicking us up and down rhetorical levels with witty abruptness. No one in real life ever spoke like Shakespeare’s characters. His language does not “make sense,” especially in the greatest plays. Anywhere from a third to a half of every Shakespearean play, I conservatively estimate, will always remain under an interpretive cloud. Unfortunately, this fact is obscured by the encrustations of footnotes in modern texts, which imply to the poor cowed student that if only he knew what the savants do, all would be as clear as day. Every time I open Hamlet, I am stunned by its hostile virtuosity, its elusiveness and impenetrability. Shakespeare uses language to darken. He suspends the traditional compass points of rhetoric, still quite firm in Marlowe, normally regarded as Shakespeare’s main influence. Shakespeare’s words have “aura.” This he got from Spenser, not Marlowe.

igotufam
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UqzBA1LNbE
that's the first episode, the second episode deals with a lot of the shift you're talking about, but the first episode has old english and seamus heaney.

anglos are embarrassingly self-congratulatory over their nothingburger mixed language

that and the whole "world dominion" and "being the lingua franca of the entire human race" thing lmao

enjoy being an economic province of germany

>pissed off dumb ESL assumes smart ESL doesn't real
shamed of ufam

please understand that "english is such an amazing language omg I love myself" (what I responded to) is different from "a lot of people speak english" (what you said)

both are true, i was just adding some icing to the magnificent cake that is your language's provincial isolation

both are also related, remember: you're writing to me right now in english but i will never, ever have to learn your language unless i choose to for fun. what do you think that does to your native literature? when every one of your authors cares more about english-speaking recognition than your own language?

genius is rare these days, and every genius is forced to target an english-speaking audience if they want any recognition at all, which continues to develop and nuance the english language. all the scandinavian languages are now blending into one backward dialect of swamp german. dutch is declining. french has been coasting on prestige and producing maybe one or two interesting authors in the last three or four decades.

you are the imperial spain of the 21st century. your glory has faded and you will forever be a backward province.

>when every one of your authors cares more about english-speaking recognition than your own language?
I mean, they don't

the rest of what you said makes even less sense, maybe it's because you don't know what you're talking about

>you are the imperial spain of the 21st century. your glory has faded and you will forever be a backward province.
ironically this is anglos and why they feel the need to praise their disgusting mutant language, gotta praise yourself over something when what you used to love yourself for is turning into a big turd

still you are not talking about what I originally responded to, but completely different things, I don't know how interested I am in talking about the decline of anglos, really it's not that interesting

as a meaning*
sorry it was late
I mean we have the word knight with it's shift in pronunciation no less, to mean mounted warrior. Why did that become popular usage? Knight didn't necessarily refer to mounted warrior in old gernman(knecht) or old english(cnicht). It mean man at arms or servant.
merriam-webster.com/dictionary/knight
the word cavalier would make more sense as it did come from the word "chevalier" known to mean "mounted warrior." Not to mention it's pronunciation is free of retarded silent letters/doesn't create a new rule and it follows the of established rule of hard "c" with no "h" soft "c" with "h." But now, it means something different in everyday use. Like "uncaring" or a breed of dog. Like wtf?
Did the people compiling the language literally not give shit what words and pronunciations they were adding to it with dictionaries everyday? "Lol let's just create more rules for no reason so we can have more vocab words it doesn't matter if the rules are completely intuitive." fuck the reader and I right?

I have been learning this language my whole life but I still can't get over how unnecessarily overbearing and inconsistent it is with rules and exceptions.

>The English language was created by poets
>Not imperialism

funny

OP here. Thanks, user.

what you say about rules you should never think about again because it's meaningless crap beyond remembering how to spell words

>unnecessarily overbearing and inconsistent it is with rules and exceptions
it's because they mixed different ways of spelling, native spelling, latin spelling, greek spelling, french spelling, and some words got really fucked up in the process, and consistency was lost, so it looks like a bunch of bullshit now, and they are too stupid to deal with it, there's NO thought put into it, they are just too fucking dumb to realise that maybe 'stone' should be spelt 'stoan' just like 'boat' is, etc.

Why is the truth funny to you brainlet?

It's not the truth. English is a creole created by imperialism. Not poets. Believing that it was created by poets is some seriously delusional level of romanticism.

>Then it would be more similar to other Romance languages.
>other
English is not and never was a romance language.

This link will answer some of OP and also many unasked questions
aeon.co/essays/why-is-english-so-weirdly-different-from-other-languages