The reading from the New York Times discussed evidence that points to how many unforeseen regions of the world had languages that derive from Indo-Europeon languages. Knowing how a language has evolved and the history around it, allows a person to understand how the language diffused, its prominence around certain regions, and why it changed. The thing that I believe may be most important is the way and reason why the language changed. From our class discussion, we learned that language changes because of several reasons including the reduction of word forms and the cultural environment in which it is being used or diffusing.
The reduction of word forms is in relation to making language more "efficient". There are many ways to say the same thing; however, in various poly-chronic cultures, speakers wish to make better use of their time by communicating with fewer words. I can definitely attest to this. I see this shift in efficiency happening especially through social media in mediums such as Twitter, IM, and texting. The cultural environment is also very important because there is no universal language. A native speaker of a language who talks to a non-native speaker will have a totally different experience in terms of comprehension and speaking due to the way the language was taught to them. Because of this, there of these reasons, there will always be evolution in language.
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