by Christine G.

Created on: March 15, 2009

A natural language has many characteristics of a living organism. It grows and changes daily, as the people who use it change. It has offspring which resemble each other in important ways, but are also distinctively different. It can even die if people stop using it. Classical Latin is considered "dead" because nobody is speaking it any more, but it lives on in Romance languages such as French and Italian, and has contributed to over half of the words in the English language.

Constructed languages such as computer processing language, Esperanto, or International Sign are governed by logical rules. Natural languages abound in exceptions. They present an interesting challenge for computers. Natural Language Processing (NLP) is the automatic analysis of human language by computer algorithms. That is like trying to analyze a running stream or a display of aurora borealis. As soon as you think you have it figured out, it changes.

My mother tongue is German. When I came to Canada, I paid close attention to the rules of English grammar, spelling, and phoenetics. I learned to say "Billy and I", even though the people around me regularly used "Me and Billy". As a result of all this drilling by determined teachers, many people of my generation shy away from "Billy and me", even when it is correct. When I hear, "She came with Billy and I," I flinch. However, if enough people persist in talking that way for a few more decades, a new grammar rule may develop to govern compound objects. Similarly, the verb "practise" may in time be replaced by the noun "practice". Most people are already writing "Let's practice our English" instead of "Let's practise." That's the nature of a living language. It is always in flux.

Word meanings frequently shift. The "peculiar people" of KJV Bible were unique, belonging to God. Today, the word peculiar has a much more derogatory meaning. When my son was born, my mother wrote a poem for him, wishing that he would be "happy and gay." When she first learned the word "gay", it had no relation to sexual orientation.

Sometimes the pronounciation changes and the spelling remains the same. The K at the beginning of words like "knife" and "knight" was not always silent. When you investigate the history of illogical spelling, you will generally discover that it was logical once upon a time. Natural language develops according to discernible rules studied by linguists, but there will always be exceptions and exceptions to the exceptions.

Natural language is the outward expression of human thought processes. Humans are not always consistent or logical. They simplify, standardize, break old rules, and invent new words to suit their experiences. People in the Southern U.S. may use the same words as people in Britain, but they don't sound the same. Television and radio exert a strong influence for standardization of language, but diversity continues to flourish.

We are all individuals, and we express ourselves as individuals. Natural language will always be a phenomenon of diversity. There are some things even supercomputers can't control. And that's a good thing.

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