The English language has changed over hundreds of years. The language continues to grow with the development of new words and context but is this really aiding our communication skills?

This internet has been perhaps the greatest technological set back to human communication skills. For centuries we had progressed; our languages and means for communicating evolved with our culture and population. Nations developed their own languages and children were raised with an understanding of some form of written communication.

Today, the world's literacy seems to be taking reverse leaps. Where children were once trained to appreciate language and the diversity of syntax, grammar, consistency and clarity today's youth see the push toward speed and stylized text. Guppy languages have become an increasing norm.

These days it has become common to find abbreviated texts. Cell phones and internet messaging protocols have encouraged people to truncate language into an almost illiterate jumble of consonants and numbers. Sentences and paragraphs have disappeared into fragments and contractions. Emotions are communicated with dots and dashes rather than expressive language.

Schools no longer put dramatic emphasis on handwriting and the grammatical structure of the English language. We are no longer taught the purposes of a comma and many children never learn about the semi-colon. Questions are no longer ended with question marks in the majority of communication. Our keyboards are riddled with grammatical constructs that serve no purpose other than decorative features or an alternative to explicit language. Where has punctuation disappeared to?

Perhaps this is just another sign of the rise and fall of human condition. Our expansive and recessive tendencies cumulate in interesting histories wrought with horrendous acts and states of existence. For the moment, those of us with a passion for the true beauty of a well written text struggle to understand the generations that follow. Are we growing older, like our parents who cringed at our choices of music and never understood our dress sense? Are we outdated? Is the decline of our language a sign of a new universal language being created?

I expect it is a sign of the universal laziness of humankind. With fast food, online shopping, the television, and test tube babies we'll swiftly erode the human condition. Language is obviously one of the first cultures to suffer, art and music are following in kind, and eventually we'll return to stick figure cave paintings left for the generations to uncover and scratch their heads over, attempting to discern what happened to the renaissance and the so-called intelligent lives we once lead.

Learn more about this author, Rebecca Laffar-Smith.
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