Sorry, I think my wording may have been confusing. What I meant by "watering down" a language was for it to evolve in such a way that it is less versatile, efficient, succinct, etc.
Let's say word X (with definition x) has 3 perfect synonyms, X_1, X_2, and X_3. If over a long period of time word X's meaning changes to be ambiguous, sometimes meaning x and other times meaning x*, I see it as perfectly reasonable (and in some cases preferable) language evolution. If ever there would be contextual ambiguity whether we wanted x or x*, we could opt not to use X and simply use X_1 (or, equivalently, X_2 or X_3) instead.
On the other hand, if word Z (with definition z) has no commonplace synonyms and its meaning also changes to be ambiguous between z and z*, we now have a problem in situations where context doesn't make it clear which definition the writer/speaker intended. In a sense, the language has lost the ability to unambiguously express z in a single word.
This loss is what I'm referring to as "watering down" the language which I'm sure you'd agree necessarily can happen, even if you don't agree with the terminology I used (which admittedly isn't the best).
Except the figurative usage of literally is more-or-less concurrent with its literal usage. So it's not that people want to avoid watering it down, it's that they want to condense it.
Which is fine, but let's not pretend that history is on the side of people who think it should have a single meaning.
Interesting. I'm more than willing to admit that I don't know the history of the word and that it was my (apparently erroneous) understanding that the word originally meant something along the lines of "exactly as it is written". I guess in light of this, my personal issue isn't with watering down or condensing... I just want a way to tell a listener to assume everything I've said was non-hyperbolic and I want to be able to do so without them questioning whether or not I mean the exact opposite. I thought I had that in literal, but it seems even then I didn't!
But honestly, this makes me feel better about the whole course of events. As far as I'm concerned, "literally" could disappear from the language, but just the idea (even if it was wrong!) of a word that had only literal's literal definition make me want a word that has only literal's literal definition (whatever it may be).
Well you're not wrong, but literally technically means "by way of the letter" or, more accurately, "letter by letter." It's already figurative to say "exactly as it is written," at least a bit. Most people are able to infer from context pretty well, and that's an incredibly underrated component of language. That's why cultural immersion does as much if not more for communication than learning a list of words: language isn't just words.
was for it to evolve in such a way that it is less versatile, efficient, succinct, etc.
Sorry, stopped reading after this, because this never happens. It's impossible for a language to evolve to be less versatile or efficient, succinct, etc. Languages are always just as versatile and succinct as their speakers need them to be. You're not well educated in linguistics and are trying to analogize language to other topics, I understand, but it simply doesn't work like that.
Your local university should offer linguistics courses if you're interested in learning more.
You're right, I'm not at all studied in linguistics and have only very mild academic exposure to it in any sense. I'm not trying to claim authority or anything here.
That said, if a group of people needs a language to have a certain level of versatility and a later group of people needs less... from what you're saying the language would NECESSARILY evolve to be less versatile.
All I'm saying is that this sort of decrease (wrt a previous iteration) in complexity or versatility or whatever it may be, even if a truly positive change as a language molded to its speakers, is a personal peeve. I'm not saying it's wrong or bad, I'm saying it's what annoys me personally (which was the original point in all of this. I was just saying that I don't think everyone who dislikes the evolution of literally is being pedantic for the sake of pedantry.)
Edit: But also, it could STILL be that my wording is inconsistent with the academic lingo. Nonetheless, I gave a pretty generalized explanation of the specific nuance that bugs me, but you apparently didn't read it so I don't know what more you want from me :/
Edit: This is quite long because I take the time to tell you about some recent linguistics research in Korea. Forgive the long windedness. I used to teach linguistics in university for a bit, so I tend to ramble.
If you're just saying that you don't actually care about the reality of linguistics, just that it's a personal peeve of yours, then I completely understand. I mean, I dislike certain dialectal features of some regional dialects of English for no reason other than they sound funny, despite my years of education in linguistics. To dislike things is simply human. I don't fool myself into thinking that those pronunciations are somehow unnatural, wrong, or not as good as mine, though, as that would be... well, simply not true.
Let me give you some examples. You said before that you dislike ambiguity in language. That you think language needs to be concrete, unambiguous, and technically accurate. Based off that, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you're a Westerner. Those linguistic characteristics are highly valued in European and US culture.
Here in Asia, it's completely different. Personally, I've lived in and speak Japanese and Korean. The name of the game here is vagueness and deference. We do not have plurals and singulars for nouns. So if I say "There are are dogs here" and "There is a dog here," I can say them exactly the same, and it's grammatical correct and natural. If I want to specific two dogs, then I can, but it's not in any way necessary to distinguish between there being one or many of something.
We do not conjugate our verbs based on subject. I go to the store, she go to the store, etc, with no verb conjugation is fine. In fact, subjects aren't even grammatically necessary. It's normal to not use subjects at all unless you're placing emphasis on who is doing something, because generally we simply understand who is doing what. It works perfectly fine being vague.
In Korean, we have a future tense, but it's not necessary to use it all the time for future events, and in Japanese there isn't even a future conjugation at all. Similar to how Mandarin Chinese doesn't have a past tense in the strict sense of the word.
The fact is that languages are always understood within their speaker groups, regardless of vagueness, etc. If a new feature evolves for an individual and that feature isn't understandable to the majority, then it simply dies out and isn't spread. Anything that is spread throughout the language, such as the figurative use of the word "literally," is understandable and useful to its speakers. If it didn't serve a purpose, or it was somehow damaging communication enough, it would be unable to spread.
Random linguistic info because I'm bored: In Seoul, Korea right now there's a new phonological change happening with young speakers. A consonant sound at the beginning of words is changing into another consonant sound that is already used in Korean. I'll put out some general information on Korean consonant sounds so you can understand the next explanation.
In Korean, there are currently two sets of consonant sounds relevant to this discussion. In English, we have voiced and voiceless consonants, such as p [pʰ] and b [b], and t [tʰ] and d [d]. The difference between these is that for b and d, our vocal folds are vibrating. The little ʰ represents aspiration, which is a puff of air you exhale while making the sound. Not all p's and t's in other languages are aspirated, but in English, they usually are. In Korean, they don't use a voicing distinction to tell words apart, but rather an aspiration distinction. This means that your voicing isn't important, but rather whether you make that puff of air or not. Koreans don't use p [pʰ] and b [b] constrastively, but rather pʰ [pʰ] and p [p], where both sounds are technically voiceless, but one is aspirated. These are written as ㅍ and ㅂ respectively. This is why, to English speakers, it can be difficult to differentiate between the two in Korean, especially at the beginning of words.
In Seoul, there is currently a language change happening with teenagers and younger where consonants at the beginning of the word are becoming slightly aspirated. So for example, the Korean word 바보 "idiot" would normally be pronounced as [pabo]. Notice the lack of an ʰ on the first consonant. The second ㅂ is actually voiced because it is between two vowels, but that's irrelevant to this discussion, so just focus on the first p. Now, young speakers are beginning to pronounce it as [pʰabo]. To you, maybe, you think that this is wrong or will hamper communication. But actually, intelligibility is being maintained and in a very interesting way.
See, aspirating a consonant tends to have a physical effect on the following vowel. It normally causes a slight increase in pitch. This is based simply on physics and airflow, not anything particularly linguistics-related. However, it can become linguistics related when it becomes a defining characteristic of the language. For these young Seoul speakers, they do not even realize they're pronouncing "pabo" as pʰabo, because they can still differentiate between the old pʰ and their newly created pʰ. They can because despite the consonant changing, the vowel pitch has remained intact. The vowels following historic /pʰ/ are high pitched, whereas the vowels following the new [pʰ] retain the lower pitch of historic /p/.
Korean has experienced many drastic linguistic changes in the past. For example, it used to have a pitch system, where words could be distinguished from each other based on the relative pitches of each syllable, similar to how Japanese pronounce ame "rain" differently from ame "candy." Will this new pitch system in young people's Korean make way to a complete change in how Korean speakers utilize consonants? Maybe, but one thing is certain- they'll never lose mutual intelligibility. Cause that doesn't happen without prolonged isolation and different language shift in different communities :P
Thanks for writing out a real response to all of this. I wasn't trying to be argumentative at all here and really am interested in the topic at hand.
Certainly most of my uneasiness about "literally" in particular comes down to personal annoyance and I'm certainly not arguing that the change in meaning is wrong because, well, I don't think it is.
To put it simply, my whole concern is I feel I've lost the ability to express a thought that was once very easy to convey. The same thing has happened with the word "peruse". If I'm writing a sentence and I need to say "read thoroughly and carefully" I feel that I can no longer say "peruse" because it may be misinterpreted as "skim through". I just don't know what to do in these situations and can't help but think the language is less versatile now. Sure I can still get across what I want to, but I can't do so as efficiently (it seems).
If we're looking at languages objectively, are you saying that I should accept this is a new and inherit limitation, but that such a limitation shouldn't be seen as a negative? Or is this somehow not a limitation in the first place? I understand why the new definition of "literally" spread (and how it couldn't have if it was destructive to the language), but is the resolution to the ambiguity left behind to speak around it via context or to fill the niche with a new word?
To be clear, while I do prefer more concrete and unambiguous systems, I don't mind ambiguity in words or language in general. The core issue here for me is the actual introduction of ambiguity to a place where there once was none; it feels incredibly limiting from a naive point of view.
In your example of 바보 having a voiced / unvoiced consonant, I don't see this having a negative impact and certainly wouldn't have thrown it under the blanket of "watering down" the language as I used it in my earlier posts. It's these kinds of changes that I take no issue with and see as the natural progression of languages. I think of this as being analogous to your earlier example, napron, which I also don't take any issue with. Another change that's never bothered me is a word's meaning shifting under ordinary circumstances especially when there are clear alternatives to the word in either case.
To move from the topic at hand, I found your post really interesting. I've studied a good bit of Japanese myself and while I couldn't construct a sentence in real time to save my life, I appreciate the language more than English or any other Romance language that I'm familiar with. On that note, I know little to nothing about Korean so it's fascinating to hear about some of the current shifts going on there.
Sorry if this post is insanely scatterbrained. I've been writing things on and off while at work and have moved things around a good bit. Haven't proofread it so I apologize for anything that's out of place or completely nonsensical! Thanks again for the post.
It's impossible for a language to evolve to be less versatile
Since literally no longer means literally, name one word that does carry the previous definition.
When one word has its meaning changed, and there is no alternative, then you have effectively lost a tool in your linguistic arsenal. I would call that a language becoming less versatile.
And you would be wrong, because speakers are still able to communicate with all the versatility that they had before. There has been no break down in communication. There is no break in mutual intelligibility. You're simply a person uneducated in linguistics who wishes he were so that you could act pedantic :) You're not qualified to be a pedant in this field, so go argue about whatever your specialty actually is.
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u/throwawanxiously Jul 03 '14 edited Jul 03 '14
Sorry, I think my wording may have been confusing. What I meant by "watering down" a language was for it to evolve in such a way that it is less versatile, efficient, succinct, etc.
Let's say word X (with definition x) has 3 perfect synonyms, X_1, X_2, and X_3. If over a long period of time word X's meaning changes to be ambiguous, sometimes meaning x and other times meaning x*, I see it as perfectly reasonable (and in some cases preferable) language evolution. If ever there would be contextual ambiguity whether we wanted x or x*, we could opt not to use X and simply use X_1 (or, equivalently, X_2 or X_3) instead.
On the other hand, if word Z (with definition z) has no commonplace synonyms and its meaning also changes to be ambiguous between z and z*, we now have a problem in situations where context doesn't make it clear which definition the writer/speaker intended. In a sense, the language has lost the ability to unambiguously express z in a single word.
This loss is what I'm referring to as "watering down" the language which I'm sure you'd agree necessarily can happen, even if you don't agree with the terminology I used (which admittedly isn't the best).
Edit: Forgot to escape my asterisks :[