The Organic Nature of Language

Some time back I had seen a piece on 60 minutes about Canada, and in particular French Canada, where they passed laws which required all signs to be in French, and not English.  I recall how positively totalitarian of the local government to want to control the way people presented their message. 

My mind had wandered back to my days in high school when I studied the French language.  I remember my French teacher emphasizing that the French government had a strangle hold upon the French language.  They in fact had established a governmental body whose exclusive purpose was to oversee the French language to make sure that it maintained an orderly traditional language.  My French teacher made a huge deal about the introduction of the term le hamburger to the French language.  Perhaps this is why people have a problem with the French.

I always thought of language as something organic which changed over time as a matter of usage and accent.  The organic nature of language can be seen in the way words are used.  Think of the word “bad.”  The literal meaning of bad is a negative.  If I say the song is bad, if you took me literally, you would think that the song isn’t worth listening to.  However, in the 70’s the term somehow took an 180 degree turn.  “Bad” seems to be good.  This especially true when used with the term “ass,” as in “That Dude is bad assss!”

A more recent word to get a “make over” is the word drama.  When I was a kid, drama was a play.  However, the word morphed to mean a melodramatic situation a person might have found themselves in.  Teenagers often find themselves in “dramas” over silly things like boyfriends/girlfriends and parents.

There are times, though, when a culture steps a little too far and try to avoid letting a word grow organically.  For example, there was a word  that was passed around when I was teaching eighth grade English.  At that time, the word “crunk” was in use.  I never quite got its meaning, never quite understood its usage.  There was no apparent origin for the word.  It seemed to be a word create out of the fabric of nothing. 

Language should be allowed to do what it does without the help of others.  It should be organic.  It should be allowed to change and morph and adapt to the change in times.  However, language should not be manipulated in unnatural ways such that it has no background, no tradition.  Accordingly, language can only be rich and have depth when it is allowed to grow organic.

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