I’ll add to the analogy and say that “downhill” is an apt word choice for where things will go if you let them. Nothing wrong with letting a river take it’s natural course but if we want it to work for us it has to be directed and controlled. We can have both aspects of language we just have to conscious of what we want and where it’s going.
Strong disagree. Languages are self-correcting. The trope of “The Martians have no word for war!” is bunk because they can simply borrow the term from another language.
For a real-world example, African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) is very much a Thing, and it is by no means a degenerate form of speech. If anything, it has a richer TAM system than English does.
I’ll add to the analogy and say that “downhill” is an apt word choice for where things will go if you let them. Nothing wrong with letting a river take it’s natural course but if we want it to work for us it has to be directed and controlled. We can have both aspects of language we just have to conscious of what we want and where it’s going.
Strong disagree. Languages are self-correcting. The trope of “The Martians have no word for war!” is bunk because they can simply borrow the term from another language.
For a real-world example, African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) is very much a Thing, and it is by no means a degenerate form of speech. If anything, it has a richer TAM system than English does.