A set of business researchers over in England did a bit of science to prove something we already know: language changes. All the time.
Evolutionary Linguistics is actually a pretty big topic, with scads of information. In my experience, slang usually comes first, before a word or turn of phrase is adopted into common usage. It’s a good thing, from an author’s point of view, challenging though it is to keep up with all the new words that are tried, accepted or dismissed aside. Like my friend Rich, who says pineapples to describe a bad idea or situation. In some circles, it’s starting to catch on.
The hard part about language is that no one really sees the new shape of a language until it has already evolved.
Still, the use of evolutionary linguistics can be a pretty interesting addition to any piece of speculative fiction. What languages have died out or changed beyond recognition in your Sci-Fi worlds? Are paranormal and supernatural creatures prone to use a completely different way, mode or dialect of speaking that isn’t standard in humanity as we know it now?
Have languages come back from the dead in a fantasy setting?
Ever since humanity left out shared origin in the Cradle of Life all those millennia ago, or language has become more diverse. Maybe that trend will continue on as we reach for farther stars in our sky. Maybe, instead, technology will bring all those disparate experiences back into a common tongue as technology helps bridge the gap in culture, place and time.
Maybe, in some distant future, we won’t speak at all.
-T.A. Creech
Author of LGBT romance and speculative fiction.