Oh god people, please always remember:

[conuly]

Writing is not language.

Writing is writing. Language is language. Writing is used to record speech, but it's not language itself. You can be fluent in a language but not literate in that language.

In conclusion, writing isn't language, and if you're still confused, just meditate on this image a while.

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Comments

[bitterlawngnome]

I think it's a mix. Particularly in the formation of new words & grammar, acronyms being an example - written before they are spoken, generally. And languages like Latin and Sanskrit and classical Chinese and for a long time Hebrew, that continued to evolve in grammar and vocabulary despite no longer being spoken. And what about sign languages, neither spoken nor written?

[conuly]

First of all, you're making an arbitrary distinction between speaking and signing that doesn't exist, and secondly, you *can* write sign languages. There are multiple different writing systems for sign languages. Not that it matters, because that just proves my point - there are many languages that are not written down, because language and writing are not the same. Speech is something we learn to do naturally, we have to be *taught* to read and write. This is because writing is merely a *representation* of language. Writing is not, however, language.

And languages like Latin and Sanskrit and classical Chinese and for a long time Hebrew, that continued to evolve in grammar and vocabulary despite no longer being spoken.

Latin is still spoken today. I can go online and pull up the day's news in Latin any day I please. Hebrew, too, never actually stopped being a spoken language, which is why there's a difference between the pronunciations of different communities. Neither Latin nor Biblical Hebrew is anybody's first language - nor are Classical Chinese or Sanskrit - but that doesn't mean that people don't speak them.

[bitterlawngnome]

Well that's interesting! this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SignWriting? The deaf people I lived with just write sort of abbreviated English, it wasn't supposed to be a transcription.

[conuly]

It's the lingering effects of oralism at work. Even when d/Deaf kids are actually taught to speak a sign language - by no mean a guarantee even though, even with hearing aids and implants oralism is still a failure - people don't consider that they might benefit from being able to read and write in their own language. No, the goal is "normalcy".

[bitterlawngnome]

Makes sense, they would have been educated in the ~1960s in small town Ontario.

[conuly]

To my knowledge, the situation is not generally better today. Perhaps oralism is slightly less crippling due to cochlear implants, but those are not actually a cure-all.