Changes

Linguistics, which means the study of language, is a fascinating aspect of World history. Language expresses and communicates ideas, and facilitates the trade that brings wealth to a civilization.  Observe for yourself how difficult it is, if not impossible, to think about and remember an idea without a term to express it.  What term can one use, for example, to describe someone who promotes a belief system that encourages harmful terrorism, yet does not personally engage in terrorism himself?  Or what word can we use to describe a person, like a drug dealer or lying politician, who profits from promoting things that are hurtful to others?  The lack of a good term makes it more difficult to criticize him.

Linguistics, which means the study of language, is a fascinating aspect of World history. Language expresses and communicates ideas, and facilitates the trade that brings wealth to a civilization.  Observe for yourself how difficult it is, if not impossible, to think about and remember an idea without a term to express it.  What term can one use, for example, to describe someone who promotes a belief system that encourages harmful terrorism, yet does not personally engage in terrorism himself?  Or what word can we use to describe a person, like a drug dealer or lying politician, who profits from promoting things that are hurtful to others?  The lack of a good term makes it more difficult to criticize him.

The English language is constantly adding helpful new words.  For example, the term "homeschooling" did not exist until about about 1980 (check your own dictionary and it should state when a word was first used). Once the term was created, the homeschooling movement was able to grow far faster than when the term did not exist.  Without the term, how could one tell others how good it is? 

The English language is constantly adding helpful new words.  For example, the term "homeschooling" did not exist until about about 1980 (check your own dictionary and it should state when a word was first used). If the term did not exist, we could:

 

* adopt it from another language - so when we needed a word for "pasta", we adopted the Italian

The term "politically correct" is another example of how language influences thinking.  Without the existence of the term, which did not arise until 1983, the undesired concept it represents was very hard to express and remember.  It was much more difficult to criticize "political correctness" when there was a lack of a good term to describe this concept.

* use a phrase rather than a word, like "politically correct"

* let an existing word change its meaning - so we happily use "key" in a computer context, for instance

* create a new word from Latin or Greek roots

All languages develop based on common and basic aspects of life, such as language needed to describe food, animals, daily activities and commerce or trade (like the word "coin").  But much more is needed in language in order to express the intangibles, such as religious concepts.  

All languages develop based on common and basic aspects of life, such as language needed to describe food, animals, daily activities and commerce or trade (like the word "coin").  But much more is needed in language in order to express the intangibles, such as religious concepts.