Preventing language change

[mira]

My conpeople speak a conlang that is designed to be kept the same as to make historic documents more understandable and retain the desired features of the language. What things might a community do to try and prevent their language from changing at all? The obvious one is to just teach the same language in schools and keep the curriculum true to the actual language, but what other things are there?

This is set about 30-40 years in the future.

[k1234567890y]

they might try to make instructions, including pronunciations and grammatical books, for the language, at least the written language. But in colloquial speech, language change is inevitable, and I think it is probably not controllable(efforts trying to teach people how to speak properly will mostly create a distinction between formal and informal forms of a speech, I think). That "Sound change is unstoppable" is probably exceptionless among the principles of sound changes.

Eventually, there might be the distinction of the written language which preserves the features of the classical language, and the colloquial languages that were evolved from the classical language but with considerable differences, like the distinction between Latin and Romance languages, between Qur'an Arabic and spoken Arabic in nowadays, and between Sanskrit and most Indo-Aryan languages.

[Lao Kou]

My conpeople speak a conlang that is designed to be kept the same as to make historic documents more understandable and retain the desired features of the language. What things might a community do to try and prevent their language from changing at all? The obvious one is to just teach the same language in schools and keep the curriculum true to the actual language, but what other things are there?

Icelandic springs to mind.
Chinese is letting its guard down, but...

[Isfendil]

Yes honestly what will just happen is you will have a Classical Arabic/ Dialect relationship. Obviously everyone will be schooled in the common language, they will understand it and be taught in it, but at home and among the people their dialects will shift. Especially if they are spread out, the dialects will diverge as well- emphasis has to be on educating them thus because there is no way they will keep speaking it as is for such a long time unless they are isolated (Icelandic, for one, although that really hasn't been that long and changes still happened). However, formally educated Arabs (so the plurality of Arabs) use MSA (which is modernized Classical Arabic) when they can't understand each others' dialects, so there is that.

[Tanni]

My conpeople speak a conlang that is designed to be kept the same as to make historic documents more understandable and retain the desired features of the language. What things might a community do to try and prevent their language from changing at all? The obvious one is to just teach the same language in schools and keep the curriculum true to the actual language, but what other things are there?

This is set about 30-40 years in the future.

Most likely, it's not so much the community who wants the language to be preserved, but certain groups within that community, especially religious groups. (There might also be groups who try to change the language, as this way, the community is compartmentalized and wielding power becomes more easy. This can be achieved by orthographic reforms: Pupils and students will not like to read pre-reform books to not get familiar to supposedly wrong, i. e. pre-reform, writing. Consequence: They don't know about their past and therefore can be manipulated easily, too.)

You probably need a holy scripture like the Qur'an. Unfortunately, in Christianity, they constantly rewrite the Bible, e.g. to adopt it to the so-called political correctness. But especially in Judaism, holy scriptures need to be copied without changing the writing of the words. This holy scripture should teach the people not to change the orthography of the language, so that the original language always can be reconstructed by this holy scripture. To make sure that nothing is changed, this scripture might have some checksum of certain passages somewhere. So you need a fixed letter to figure encoding (letters may also have a numeral value), and the checksum should have some outstandig meaning or religious importance interpreted as a word. You could apply this several times to encode different religious tenants.

I'm not sure about this, but I once read that polysynthetic languages are very conservative. So, may I ask you which features the conlang of your conpeople has?

[mira]

My conpeople speak a conlang that is designed to be kept the same as to make historic documents more understandable and retain the desired features of the language. What things might a community do to try and prevent their language from changing at all? The obvious one is to just teach the same language in schools and keep the curriculum true to the actual language, but what other things are there?

This is set about 30-40 years in the future.

You probably need a holy scripture like the Qur'an. Especially in Judaism, holy scriptures need to be copied without changing the writing of the words. This holy scripture should teach the people not to change the orthography of the language, so that the original language always can be reconstructed by this holy scripture. To make sure that nothing is changed, this scripture might have some checksum of certain passages somewhere. So you need a fixed letter to figure encoding (letters may also have a numeral value), and the checksum should have some outstandig meaning or religious importance interpreted as a word. You could apply this several times to encode different religious tenants.

I'm not sure about this, but I once read that polysynthetic languages are very conservative. So, may I ask you which features the conlang of your conpeople have?

A holy scripture would have no place in my culture unfortunately, but the idea of a certain document that must be kept the same is good - maybe it could be a declaration of something.

My language isn't polysynthetic, but it is at the fusional end of agglutinative.

[Tanni]

A holy scripture would have no place in my culture unfortunately, but the idea of a certain document that must be kept the same is good - maybe it could be a declaration of something.

My language isn't polysynthetic, but it is at the fusional end of agglutinative.

As your conculture is set in the future, it's maybe the manual of the spacecraft or the computer system of that spacecraft which brought them to the planet they now live at. (There is an early Star trek episode with such a document.) This document may be considered important as your people might depend on the flawless work of that computer system or spacecraft.

Being on the fusional end of agglutinative might imply that the original language was agglutinative and is on its way to become fusional. So the task would be to preserve the original agglutinative character of the language.

[mira]

A holy scripture would have no place in my culture unfortunately, but the idea of a certain document that must be kept the same is good - maybe it could be a declaration of something.

My language isn't polysynthetic, but it is at the fusional end of agglutinative.

As your conculture is set in the future, it's maybe the manual of the spacecraft or the computer system of that spacecraft which brought them to the planet they now live at. (There is an early Star trek episode with such a document.) This document may be considered important as your people might depend on the flawless work of that computer system or spacecraft.

Being on the fusional end of agglutinative might imply that the original language was agglutinative and is on its way to become fusional. So the task would be to preserve the original agglutinative character of the language.

The conlang in the conculture is a conlang as in the conpeople made it as a conlang for the conpeople...

But the underlying goal of retaining the language is because the language was designed to be organised and neat, and the idea is that language change would introduce irregularities or vocabulary that doesn't fit with the rest - so it would have been at this point on the scale from the start.

[Tanni]

The conlang in the conculture is a conlang as in the conpeople made it as a conlang for the conpeople...

But the underlying goal of retaining the language is because the language was designed to be organised and neat, and the idea is that language change would introduce irregularities or vocabulary that doesn't fit with the rest - so it would have been at this point on the scale from the start.

So the creator was in love with his creation ... and never wanted to let it fly free. Reminds me on Volapük.

[mira]

The conlang in the conculture is a conlang as in the conpeople made it as a conlang for the conpeople...

But the underlying goal of retaining the language is because the language was designed to be organised and neat, and the idea is that language change would introduce irregularities or vocabulary that doesn't fit with the rest - so it would have been at this point on the scale from the start.

So the creator was in love with his creation ... and never wanted to let it fly free. Reminds me on Volapük.

Somewhat. It's more like the creators (and governing body of the country) saw it best for the community if their language is kept in this organised manner - less for the creators' sake, but more for the country's sake.

[esra]

What things might a community do to try and prevent their language from changing at all?

It needs some competent and respected authority/-ies what tries how nowadays spoken use could fit with historical documents. I.e. thats why for Esperanto conlang PMEG exists. PMEG is attempt to bring spoken language how it is used nowadays in accordance with Fundamento document.

The obvious one is to just teach the same language in schools and keep the curriculum true to the actual language, but what other things are there?

Ignoring not suppressing language changes at spoken use in the way some native speaker would speak with some non-native speaker. Speak to them but don't imitate their "dialect".

[clawgrip]

As your conculture is set in the future, it's maybe the manual of the spacecraft or the computer system of that spacecraft which brought them to the planet they now live at. (There is an early Star trek episode with such a document.)

Are you talking about the godawful episode "The Omega Glory"?

"Ee'dplebnista norkohn forkohn perfectunun."

[Nachtuil]

As others have stated, assuming the conworld people are human beings, it is essentially impossible to preserve a language over time that is actually being used and learned from generation to generation. Strict adherence to a standard form in media and education is a path frequently taken but it always fails over time. If the language is a formalised language used for a specific purpose it may fair better but still suffer from the normal processes generally. Like if it is a formal language of government or education it will last longer as what happened with Latin and classical Arabic though even they changed. Latin was the language of government, religion and diplomacy for centuries but classical Latin, medieval Latin, renaissance Latin and the Latin used now in the Catholic church all differ. I can't remember which one it is, but one of the major south east Asian language (I want to say Malaysian or Tagalog) has a standard form that is worlds away from what people actually use in day to day life. People will point to languages like Icelandic but even it has changed over hundreds of years, albeit more slowly. That said, it is probably worth your time to look at Icelandic linguistic purism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguisti ... _Icelandic Such movements would not exist if the language were static to begin with by the way.

Anyway, best strategies to minimise language change probably include a sense of identity with the language itself and strict adherence to traditional forms in education and media. A governmental body intent on preserving the language for the purposes of identity would also be helpful.

Basque is said to exist today only because the people who speak it see it as part of their identity, though that doesn't mean the language hasn't seen recent innovation. The province of Quebec has a lot of identity politics relating to their form of French and have a body that is essentially language police that harass and fine people not using French. It doesn't prevent language change either though.

[qwed117]

Is the language you were thinking of Tibetan?

[Tanni]

As your conculture is set in the future, it's maybe the manual of the spacecraft or the computer system of that spacecraft which brought them to the planet they now live at. (There is an early Star trek episode with such a document.)

Are you talking about the godawful episode "The Omega Glory"?

"Ee'dplebnista norkohn forkohn perfectunun."

I don't know. As I saw this episode in German, it most likely had another name. It was one of the episodes with captain Kirk. I remember there was some kind of stela, and Mr. Spock pressed three of his fingers on the three planets or moons depicted in a relief on that stela. After that, the upper part of the stela went off and a book showed up, which was the manual of a computer system controling the spacecraft or moon or planet or whatever. Mr. Spock knew the language it was written in and could fix the problem.

What does the cited text mean?

[Tanni]

What things might a community do to try and prevent their language from changing at all?

What do you mean by community? The government officials? The authorities? The school system. All the people?

If there is an official board, that could turn out like to set a fox to keep the geese. If somebody gets the power, he will misuse it more likely sooner than later.

Your premise that the language should stay ''organized'' seems to be very week. Even after language change, a language can still be or regain the state of being well organized.

What is necessary is to keep up the core of the language, in wirtten form. There should never be orthography reforms. These are the source of all evil. Even if language changes, the original form of orthography can still be used, see English orthography.

[mira]

Is the language you were thinking of Tibetan?

No. Priori. Nothing to do with any natlang.

What do you mean by community? The government officials? The authorities? The school system. All the people?

If there is an official board, that could turn out like to set a fox to keep the geese. If somebody gets the power, he will misuse it more likely sooner than later.

Your premise that the language should stay ''organized'' seems to be very week. Even after language change, a language can still be or regain the state of being well organized.

1: I'm still deciding that. It'll most likely be a government sector linked to the education sector, but the opinion that the language should be maintained will be one loosely shared among the entire population because the design of it means this opinion springs from simple logic.

2: Possibly, but in what way could it be misused? What would be done and what would be the consequences?

3: Philosophical language... It can't really regain the order it started with.

[Lambuzhao]

What things might a community do to try and prevent their language from changing at all?

Well, I don't believe this would be intentional on the part of the 'community', but, say a sleeper colonizing vessel of some hundreds of souls could certainly sow the seeds of language stasis. Depending on how long the voyage, they would be isolating themselves from potentially centuries (millennia?) of language change that the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of former neighbors, relatives and friends underwent. And, supposing that other colonies might have undergone various periods of isolation from Earth/Solar System, that could further erode any linkages towards mutual intelligibility between our colonists and the descendants of the ones they left behind, wherever they may be.

When our colonizing vessel's passengers awaken, they would be speaking the dialect they left with. Any changes that happened to that language while they slept would make the resulting descendant dialect(s) less and less mutually intelligible.

So, in a way, doing nothing and even 'sleeping on it' (for a few hundred years) may do a lot to prevent language change in a particular community of speakers, while it occurs in distant, related communities who remained wakeful.

[k1234567890y]

There's a story that a mantis was irritated by a wagon, so it raised its arms, trying to stop it, but as you can think, the mantis was eventually killed by the wagon.

Linguistic change, be it a phonological one, morphological one or others, is like the wagon, and anyone who wants to stop it or control it, is like the mantis, people would not be killed by linguistic changes, but they will doomed to fail in trying to preserve the old and "perfect" usage of the language in daily life.

[Tanni]

My conpeople speak a conlang ...

Is it supposed to be a conlang even in-world?

... that is designed to be kept the same as to make historic documents more understandable and retain the desired features of the language.

Again, this seems to me a very weak reason for the century or even millenia long effort of keeping a language the same.

What things might a community do to try and prevent their language from changing at all?

Yakut (Sakha) language has only a few dialects. The people using this language live scattered over a very wide area (roughly the size of western Europe). So, few people scattered over a vast territory may facilitate keeping a language the same.

What do you mean by community? The government officials? The authorities? The school system. All the people?

1: I'm still deciding that. It'll most likely be a government sector linked to the education sector, but the opinion that the language should be maintained will be one loosely shared among the entire population because the design of it means this opinion springs from simple logic.

I meant the language community, not the board which has to decide on language-related issues.

Consider the situation mentioned above: If a small group of people is scattered over a very huge territory, the small groups need to maintain the language to enable understanding when they meet. This would be a conscious decision for keeping the language unchanged. As the groups of people are considered to be very small, there is hardly a chance for e. g. the development of a youth culture with widely accepted language changes.

The obvious one is to just teach the same language in schools and keep the curriculum true to the actual language, but what other things are there?

If it is an in-world conlang for facilitated communication amongst certain groups of people with different mother-tongues used entirely for administration purposes, keeping it roughly the same should be relatively easy, as keeping it is in fact the task of the administration.

As I wrote above, one possibility would be the environmental factor of a huge territory inhabited by small groups of speakers. This also implies that there is no youth culture strong enough to develop an uniform youth language accepted in that entire age group. There shouldn't be major problems between the generations, so that youth doesn't need to set itself apart from their parents by using its own kind of speach.

There should never be any sort of orthography reform, so that the written language sets the language standards.

The electronical media, especially advertising and internet, might also cause accelerated language change.

If there is an official board, that could turn out like to set a fox to keep the geese. If somebody gets the power, he will misuse it more likely sooner than later.

2: Possibly, but in what way could it be misused? What would be done and what would be the consequences?

Ok, there is a board assigned with the task to keep the language (and its orthography) the same. They will fulfill this task for a certan period of time. But if some ''dark force'' shows up and tries to get into power over that people, it would use 1. changing the orthography and 2. as a result of a changed orthography changing the language to wield power. The result from 1. is a compartmentalized society: One group uses the original orthography while the younger ones using the distorted orthography. Both of them could claim that they are right because they learnt so in school. If there is a second reform, there are three compartments already. The ''dark force'' now can selectively manipulate certain age groups by issuing (miss-)information in the orthographies respectively. Another consequence is that parents cannot really help their children in orthography related problems, as they might not understand the rules of or have no experience or intuition in the new orthography. This way communication between children an parents is limited somewhat, as they cannot help their children with their homework, making it more difficult for parents to pass down information about orthography, language, way of life, traditions etc. to their children. We enter into an engineered, dictatorial society. (This process actually happens in real world.)

Changing orthography also involves changing way signs or street signs, as these changes can also involve city or street names or names of all kinds of locations. This costs a lot of money and can result in new names, so that old place names (and the associated stories) might vanish.

Changing orthography also leads to invalidate books and libraries, so books in old-style orthography need to be weeded out at least in the childrens section of libraries. As time goes by, this will affect every book in every library, so that this way, old knowledge (about historical events, traditions, language, etc.) can be weeded out.

Your premise that the language should stay ''organized'' seems to be very week. Even after language change, a language can still be or regain the state of being well organized.

3: Philosophical language... It can't really regain the order it started with.

A philosophical language is not very practical in every-day usage, normally.