Death of a Language
I’m witnessing, have been for some time now, the death of a language, my first language, English. It’s been happening in America for as long as I can recall. Why in the US we, long ago, did away with English, subbing (was substituting) it with American.
American itself has spread, yet continues to evolve with the introduction of the many varied groups putting their own spin on it. In states like California, there has been a heavy Mexican Spanish influence aptly dubbed Spanglish.
I noticed it here in South Africa as well. While there are 11 official languages, the places I’ve been exposed to have a heavy English and Afrikaans bent. It seems the languages are somewhat interchangeable.
It also appears people don’t even realize which language they are speaking, allowing all sorts of stuff to happen. I’d like to be more clinical like saying the verbs get misplaced etc. but I’m not well versed in that aspect of the language, something I’m not overly proud of.
Back in 1887 Esperanto was invented as a means to allow all to communicate. It comprises many languages. Maybe that’s where we are heading with this one. Wouldn’t be a bad thing now, would it?
