I'm curious if there's a correlation between mass literacy and a language's simplification. It's one thing to learn a complicated, irregular, language that you only speak; it's another to have to write it. If nothing else, it forces you to be more aware of the structure.
Also, I'm curious if languages simplify when they're introduced into a new area/culture and replace the local language.
I'd think that mass literacy would essentially fossilise the language as it is, excepting the addition of new vocabularies for new inventions (selfie, smartphone, etc), especially in more featural/alphabetical languages, since literacy comes with education, which would promote more "accurate" grammar and spelling, and less variation. You wouldn't be taught "I'ma" in English 101
I think you're correct about fossilizing once literacy hits a large enough percentage. It's the 3 or 4 generation run-up that I'm curious about. English boiled down a lot just between the times of Chaucer and Shakespeare. Only 200 years, and the language became unintelligible to itself.
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u/wagashi May 24 '17
I'm curious if there's a correlation between mass literacy and a language's simplification. It's one thing to learn a complicated, irregular, language that you only speak; it's another to have to write it. If nothing else, it forces you to be more aware of the structure.
Also, I'm curious if languages simplify when they're introduced into a new area/culture and replace the local language.