It wasn't so long ago that upper class English (French/Latin based) and lower class English (Anglo/Saxon based) were really two quite different languages, only in the last 400 years or so have they fused into one language. The spoken language changes faster than the written because it only passed on as a verbal tradition. I would think that is so in any language that is still used in spoken form (as opposed to dead languages that are primarily written languages). Having a literate population tends to slow the modification of verbal languages, while illiterate populations verbal lanuage changes at a much faster rate. That is why English has been much more stable in the past couple hundred years than it was previously.
Ciao, Graywolf http://pages.prodigy.net/graywolfphoto ----- Original Message ----- From: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, January 24, 2003 10:56 AM Subject: Re: OT: Obnoxious Sonofabitch Copyeditor > Graywolf, Keith, > > Note that in certain contexts, linguists and grammarians distinguish > between "standard written English" and spoken English almost as > though they are two different dialects. Does that happen in other > languages as well? > > -- Glenn >
