Partha Niyogi, author of the book The Computational Nature of Language Learning and Evolution and a professor of computer science and statistics at the University of Chicago, says these empirical findings are consistent with theoretical models on the lexical evolution. "Languages are constantly changing," he notes. "In biological evolution that fact has been given a lot of attention, but the fact is that in languages this is happening all the time, [as well]. Darwin in [The Descent of Man] commented that languages were evolving over time, and it was just like speciation."
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Add CommentInteresting article, but bad choice of words to illustrate the regularization of formerly irregular words. When I saw the News Scan in Scientific American, I was surprised by the past tense of slink as slinked. Several dictionaries later, including web-based ones, gave slunk as the correct/normal conjugation, even though slinked was mentioned as an alternative in the most recent. In the web-article here, smited is mentioned instead of smote as past tense os smite, which I can't find as the normal word either. I get 3 times more hits on Google with slunk than with slinked, and 9 times more with smote than smited.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever, I do recognize the concept of irregular verbs going regular, especially in rarely used words, also in my mother tongue, Danish.
why is what i am typing called modern english?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis result is very interesting. That is similar with the result of the mutation of genetic codes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe rate of important genes to mutate is much longer than the less used genes or none coding region of the genome.
Both indicate the pattern of the natural principle.
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Edited by Jerome Huang at 12/07/2007 5:51 PM
I was amazed to hear that "1200 years ago" the past tense of "slink" was "slunk." I just asked my fourteen-year-old what the past tense was and the kid (correctly) said, "Slunk."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Slinked" sounds illiterate to me.
I know that languages are constantly changing, but I hate to see irregular verbs disappear (and I still say "throve," "shrank," "sank," "shone," and "lit").
My theory is that irregular verbs have a far harder time in the U.S., where large numbers of inhabitants are descended from recent, non-English-speaking immigrants, and where only a small percentage of the population reads books (where I learned my irregular verbs). In the U.K. the percentage of book-readers may be low too, but most people are descended from ancestors who were native English speakers and presumably once used the old irregular forms themselves.
Likewise, in the Roman empire, I believe the Latin language changed/regularized fastest in areas where large numbers of "barbarians" had to learn Latin quickly.
Somebody is pulling your leg. If you use the words slinked or smited everybody will think you are the village idiot.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUse it, or it will disappear!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt means that the native languages used by the minority nations will be slaughtered by English or Chinese, that is a great loss of culture. What a pity!
Umm... slunk is still the past tense of slink and smote is still the past tense of smite...! It seems that some others agree with me!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSlinked??? I've never heard it used. Even in paperback mysteries and graphic novels, authors still use "slunk". And because of the wonderful poetry of the Protestant KJV Bible, "smote" is very much with us.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI do not agree with "Bracer" when he or she suggests that Americans are more likely than British people to regularize English irregular verbs. Most British people, I would guess, are completely nonplussed by past tense forms such as "pled" and "dove". However, I have just discussed this point with an Englishwoman who is a scuba-diver. She says that ten years ago "dove" was unknown in the scuba-diving community but has since become quite common. And how about the verb "fit"? I understand that you Americans generally group it with verbs such as "put" and "hit", which do not change in the past tense. We Britons, however, have moved on: we normally say "fitted".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnthony Buckley
There's a major difference between speciation in biology and simplification in linguistics! Speciation is the constant branching and evolving new forms, not constantly pruning back to the simplest roots. Having read Orwell's 1984, I often find myself cringing. It feels as if there is a conspiracy in the main-stream media to force-simplify the English language. Though they focus most on simplifying irregular verbs now, how long might it take before we are left with only good and double plus ungood as our choices for adjectives? I constantly change back their simplifications as I read. Irregular verbs are the heart of all languages and should not be banished for the sake of simplicity and easy learning from other languages.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHmmm... Did Harvard only survey American 17-year olds? I've never heard the "since-regularized" forms they cite of "smited" and "slinked." I did however hear a news anchor in Norfolk, Virginia report that a boat "sunk," (I think she meant it sank).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHi, interesting article.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI found it because I'm trying to find articles talking about the change in meaning of words. I am currently being sued for calling someone a sod...their case being that sod means "gay" and now they're sueing me for defamation!!! Now, I am British, and to me, "sod" means an obnoxious, lothesome person, or an idiot...some dictionaries state something similar as a meaning and some don't. Can anyone help me find some info to help get me out of trouble?!
Thanks :)