One thing that I find kinda interesting is the fact that language evolves with us, and not the other way around. Might sound a little obvious, but it goes against our traditional schooling completely. At least for myself, we were always taught to adhere to a very strict set of rules. That isn’t how language is supposed to work, not entirely at least. It is true that language and the way we are taught to communicate shape the way we think. Despite that, I believe it’s a core function of a language to adapt to its speakers. Let’s expand on that.
Oral Tradition: When Storytime Was Everything
Fun fact: before it was written down, the Odyssey was memorized and performed live. That fact is interesting to me because I can hardly remember a single story from the Odyssey off the top of my head, let alone perform it off memory.
Anyways, long ago, before humans wrote stuff down, all knowledge was passed through speech. Ancient oral tradition incorporated rhyme and rhythm to make memorization easier, think obnoxiously catchy songs. Ironically, Plato himself warned that writing might weaken memory & dialogue. I find that silly because now everyone tells you to write things down to remember them. As someone who never takes notes, I can almost see where Plato was coming from. At the same time, I still think not writing things down is awful advice.
One valid criticism of writing is that it can’t adapt, per se. It can’t adjust to an audience or clear up a misunderstanding like live speech can. This is a problem because if the reader doesn’t understand the writer, communication fails catastrophically. However, in 2025, I believe this is becoming less of an issue. We now have things like emojis and tone indicators that would have made Plato tremble.
Writing: The Brain’s External Hard Drive
Writing was a game-changer because if someone didn’t remember a detail of a story, they could just check it. A big problem with events in an ancient historical context is that people didn’t write stuff down enough. And oftentimes when they did, it was decades or centuries later. Can you even remember what you had for lunch this day last week? Now imagine trying to remember this day a decade ago. Okay, not the most fair example, but still, I think it gets my point across. I think it’s a fair assessment that before writing things down, the second they happened became the norm, a lot of information was lost to time, not in bad faith, but simply due to lack of human internal memory storage and reliability.
Another feature of writing is the ability to slow down thoughts. If you have a written text in front of you, you can take the time to dissect every single word. Not really as feasible if you’re actively talking to someone. It allowed space for logic and analysis, and I think made dialogue less one-sided. Imagine trying to explain the U.S. constitution through only your memory and spoken word, not fun.
The Limits of Logic
One possibly devastating limitation of an evolving language is the limited application of traditional grammar knowledge. For someone learning English as a second language, half the things we say make no sense at all. I’m not the best person to give examples on this as I text like an unc, but ask any of my peers to look at their recent texts or list their favorite slang of the week and you’ll see what I mean. Since English is ever evolving, if you’re not in the cultural “know”, communication with native speakers can seem illogical at times. Even in the same spaces language can vary based on the mode of communication. Therefore traditional knowledge will only go so far. To engage in modern English you gotta understand the context and culture as well.
The Point
What I’m trying to get at there is that our method of communication literally changes how we think. Speaking, writing, and typing all use different Englishes, and it’s important to be able to adapt to the right context.
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