Rettelser

The language -the human ability to express thoughts and feelings- is born of each individual to become a social factor, therefore language is a cultural component by itself.

Like other aspects of culture, the language is changed and transformed over time.

For various reasons -like migrations, conquests, explorations- throughout the centuries different cultures have come into contact with each other causing language hybridizations of all kinds.

This happens because no culture exists in isolation from the others.

Calques and loanwords that were assimilated from other languages to become part of the English are evidence of these contacts in the past There’s another factor to take under consideration: the internal cultural changes, which are present in every society.

An example of those would be: the industrial revolution, the evolution on the role of women in society, technological progress, the inclusion of new sexual genres, etc. These factors require language mutation and evolution.

We must also take into account generational variation, sometimes the way younger generations speak does not correspond exactly to that of adults, and the cumulative effect of this produces a change after several generations.

In fact same of British most popular words were once a calque or loanword: • Serendipity(1st) -according to the Encarta English dictionary: is a "natural gift for making discoveries quite by accident"- was originated in the 10th century from The Three Princes of Serendip, an Arabian tale about three princes who had this ability.

• love (3rd) Old English lufian "to feel love for, cherish, show love to; delight in, approve," from Proto-Germanic *lubojan (source also of Old High German lubon, German lieben), a verb from the root of love (n.).

Weakened sense of "like" attested by c. 1200.

Intransitive sense "be in love, have a passionate attachment" is from mid-13c.

To love (someone) up "make out with" is from 1921.

To love and leave is from 1885.

• Peace (4th) originated from the Anglo-French pes, and the Old French pais, meaning "peace, reconciliation, silence, agreement" (11th century).

But, Pes itself comes from the Latin pax, meaning "peace, compact, agreement, treaty of peace, tranquility, absence of hostility, harmony." Of all this we can conclude that language can be thought as a living being, one that is born of the encounter of others, it develops, grows, transforms, loses some components and, in some cases, even die.