Question, question or two...

[conuly]

Okay, because I'm a broken record. Two things seem to be a common (and pollable) theme in the recent angsty discussion.

1. "If language changes, eventually we'll have lots of incomprehensible languages instead of just one"
2. "Double negatives are confusing, because two negatives can make a positive".

Now, the first one is pretty much true. Look what happened to Latin, or to Chinese (now Mandarin, Cantonese, etc.) However, the question isn't "is this true" but "do we care?". After all, in other places people *expect* to be multi-lingual, to know five or six languages. And we could always go the IAL route, have one auxlang that's not anybody's native language and let the rest of it all go its way.

The second one, I just don't believe. I don't think *anybody* has ever actually gotten confused when hearing a double negative. I know for a fact that it used to be an accepted part of the English language (which, yes, means that the educated classes said it) and that it's a required part of many other languages now. Edit: That's not true. I can certainly believe that *some* people have. However, I don't believe that any native speaker with normal language development has, and I'm fairly certain that most non-native speakers haven't, unless they had a well-meaning (but ill-informed) language instructer tell them that "In English two negatives are a positive", when the reality is "In English, two negatives are a negative, but this usage is considered to be uneducated".

So, poll!

[Poll #409457]

You all know my view by now, so it was hard for me to keep my bias out of this poll. My apologies.

Edit: Wow. I'm honestly surprised. I didn't expect *anybody* would pick "yes, recently, native speaker". Okay, I'm not too surprised with Moggy, because she's not typical I think, but the other (can't spell name gah)? I wasn't expecting that. I still think that my case still stands, most people are never gonna get confused by this usage after childhood. Keep voting, of course. I'm just chattering.

Comments

[rainbow-goddess.livejournal.com]

Double negatives in the English language are bad grammar, even if the person hearing/reading it can understand the meaning. If they're not bad grammar in other languages, that doesn't make them good grammar in English.

If a person does not speak English as their first language, or if they have a language-related learning disability, then I will excuse bad grammar. But I will not excuse it coming from a person who has presumably gone through the standard North American school system and does not have a learning difficulty.

My parents use double negatives all the time; I do not. My sister makes spelling and grammatical errors quite frequently; I do not. I don't care if that's how a person's family uses language; if a person has learned proper grammar in school, there is no reason not to use it.

[conuly]

But there *is* no such thing as "bad grammar". I mean, yeah, there is - saying something like "book cat sat-on" is bad grammar, it's completely ungrammatical. But a double negative, in English, isn't bad grammar, it's just a marker of a non-prestigious dialect.

[eofs.livejournal.com]

So if I could get people in my town to start saying "book cat sat-on" you'd then consider it valid? I'm genuinely curious.

[conuly]

Interesting question. If they were consistent with this structure, and it's rule-based... sure, why not? Other languages have really odd grammars too.

Of course, I could be snarky and ask you to do so first.

[eofs.livejournal.com]

But it wouldn't be rule based. And I'm not so sure that other dialectical constructions are.

Of course, I come from an area where "ey up me duhck" (hey up my duck) means hello so... ;0)

Other languages have really odd grammars too.

You can say that again. I just spent four months living in Finland. Finnish conjugates no, declines names, lacks articles (both definite and indefinite), has no gender at all (ie he and she are the same) and has no future tense. A far cry from the English and French grammar I've learnt the rest of my life.

Unfortunately I'm not inclined to convince the 60 000 population (plus 20k students from round the country/world) so we'll never find out.

[conuly]

Why wouldn't it be rule based? All I can say is what I've had drilled into me for the past few years - all dialects, all languages, have rules. Except pidgins, but they don't count.

[rainbow-goddess.livejournal.com]

I disagree. There are rules for English usage, and those rules are taught in school. If there were no such thing as good grammar, then no one would bother teaching grammar. I'm an editor because grammar is important to me. I'm sure you and I will disagree on this issue, but it is one that is important to me and one that has earned me the title "grammar nazi."

[conuly]

Everything I've read says that children master the rules of their native grammar by the age of six. If that's true, then either they're not speaking English (a possible argument) or they don't have to be taught English grammar in school.

I certainly never said there aren't rules for usage. There doesn't seem to be a language found that lacks rules. What I've *said* and *continue to say* is that no set of rules (no dialect) is better than another one. That is to say, the rules of SAE aren't correct while the rules of AAVE are wrong.

Anyway, I'm commenting here to say you, like cumae, are late and I've moved on since about 4am. And I got your card. Your handwriting looks like mine.

[eofs.livejournal.com]

Presumably though they only master the rules of their native grammar if they're normally developing in that regard (of course) and, importantly, are in a sufficiently nuturing environment. My mother teaches in a school on a socially deprived estate and huge numbers of the children she has taught over the years (5-6 for many years, then 5-7, now she takes them from 4-5) simply don't come from that sort of background. They come from households without books lying around, without parents who talk to them or read to them or help them with their homework. When are they supposed to pick up the rules of English grammar?

[conuly]

Well, yes. Children who are never exposed to language can't pick it up, that's obvious. However, unless these kids have parents who aren't talking to them, at all, and are, of course, typically developing, I don't see why they wouldn't learn the rules of their native grammar like any other child. At the age I'm talking about, most kids don't know how to read, they don't have homework. And kids in cultures without literature don't not learn grammar because of it.

It's just important not to confuse a nonstandard grammar with no grammar, or no rules.

[eofs.livejournal.com]

I don't mean they aren't spoken to at all, just that they don't get much (trust me, my mother has taught at this school for 15 years now, she's had her fair share of normally able kids coming from a disadvantaged background.) And I'm not talking about the nonstandard vs no grammar thing here, just curious about where you think children from such backgrounds are going to learn it if other children learn it at home and therefore it doesn't need teaching in schools.

I don't think Mum's 4-5 year olds have homework, no, although they might well have reading books they take home with them. Certainly 5-7 year olds have books to take home. In England schools begin teaching reading at 4 (I know this because I could read before I went to school, then I went to school and was un-taught *grins*)

[conuly]

Gah, stop it! I'm not talking about this anymore, I'm all talked out! Three days is enough.