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" English does have a larger vocabulary than other languages because of its history as the primary language of science and its global reach. "
David Crystal
Reach
History
Other
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" Everybody wants to say who they are and where they're from. And the easiest and cheapest and most universal way of doing that is through their accent. "
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" One of the lesser-known ways of making new words is to form a blend - and a blend is when you run two words together to make a third word. "
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" There's nothing unusual about a single language dying. But what's going on today is extraordinary when we compare the situation to what has happened in the past. We're seeing languages dying out on a massive scale. "
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" Although many texters enjoy breaking linguistic rules, they also know they need to be understood. "
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" Over the last 50 years or so, we have seen an increasing cultural diversification across the country. Accents are a reflection of society, and as society changes, so accents change. "
David Crystal
Society
Change
Changes
" You don't talk to a linguist without having what you say taken down and used in evidence against you at some point in time. "
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You
Time
Talk
" Ever since the arrival of printing - thought to be the invention of the devil because it would put false opinions into people's minds - people have been arguing that new technology would have disastrous consequences for language. "
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Devil
Thought
Technology
" Language itself changes slowly, but the Internet has speeded up the process of those changes so you notice them more quickly. "
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Up
Language
Internet
" Of all the mediums that influence language, I think film is the one that has the most effect. Not so much from the point of view of pronunciation and grammar. I don't think we pick up very many sounds and grammatical instructions from the films we see - but the catchphrases. "
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See
Influence
Language
" Likewise, there is no evidence that texting teaches people to spell badly: rather, research shows that those kids who text frequently are more likely to be the most literate and the best spellers, because you have to know how to manipulate language. "
David Crystal
Research
Know
People
" As I get older and I get a few more years experience I become more like Dad, you know, King Lear. "
David Crystal
Know
You
King
" We are rearing a generation of kids who are more equitable and more understanding about the existence of language variety and why it is there. "
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Understanding
Why
Generation
" English has been this vacuum cleaner of a language, because of its history meeting up with the Romans and then the Danes, the Vikings and then the French and then the Renaissance with all the Latin and Greek and Hebrew in the background. "
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History
Renaissance
Meeting
" One notable feature is that English doesn't have much of a system for expressing relative social status. "
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Much
Expressing
System
" A community, once it realises that its language is in danger, can get its act together and introduce measures which can genuinely revitalise. You've seen it happen in Australia with several Aboriginal languages. And it's happening in other countries, too. "
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Community
Act
You
" One of the places the full stop is really being revised in a really fundamental way is on the Internet. You look at the Internet or any instant messaging exchange - anything that is a fast dialogue taking place. People simply do not put full stops in unless they want to make a point. "
David Crystal
People
You
Look
" Academics don't normally manage to alter people's way of thinking through their strength of argument. "
David Crystal
Strength
Thinking
Argument
" The main effect of the Internet on language has been to increase the expressive richness of language, providing the language with a new set of communicative dimensions that haven't existed in the past. "
David Crystal
Language
Past
New
" Bilingualism lets you have your cake and eat it. The new language opens the doors to the best jobs in society; the old language allows you to keep your sense of 'who you are.' It preserves your identity. With two languages, you have the best of both worlds. "
David Crystal
Society
Language
Identity
" Vocabulary is a matter of word-building as well as word-using. "
David Crystal
Well
Matter
Vocabulary
" You don't usually get a compound word where the first part is a slang thing and the second part is a rather ordinary or formal thing - they don't usually mix - but 'gobsmacked' is a perfect exception to that rule. "
David Crystal
Perfect
First
Word
" At any one time language is a kaleidoscope of styles, genres and dialects. "
David Crystal
Kaleidoscope
Time
Language
" It doesn't take a language long to disappear once the spirit to continue with it leaves its community. In fact, the speed of the decline has been one of the main findings of recent linguistic research. "
David Crystal
Community
Language
Long
" What turns teenagers on more than the Internet these days? If you can get a language out there, the youngsters are much more likely to think it's cool. "
David Crystal
Internet
Language
Think
" Word books traditionally focus on unusual and quirky items. They tend to ignore the words that provide the skeleton of the language, without which it would fall apart, such as 'and' and 'what,' or words that provide structure to our conversation, such as 'hello.' "
David Crystal
Focus
Ignore
Language
" I don't have any particular desire to see words making a comeback. They are of their era, after all, and that is their identity - they form part of the linguistic color of a period. "
David Crystal
Identity
Desire
Comeback
" Text messaging is just the most recent focus of people's anxiety; what people are really worried about is a new generation gaining control of what they see as their language. "
David Crystal
Control
Focus
People
" There's an old little jingle: 'The chief use of slang is to show that you're one of the gang.' What that means is that every social group has its own linguistic bonding mechanism. If there's a group of lawyers, they have their own slang. If there's a group of doctors, they have their own slang, and so on. "
David Crystal
Group
You
Own
" Enshrined in a language is the whole of a community's history and a large part of its cultural identity. The world is a mosaic of visions. To lose even one piece of this mosaic is a loss for all of us. "
David Crystal
Identity
History
World
" Sending a message on a mobile phone is not the most natural of ways to communicate. The keypad isn't linguistically sensible. "
David Crystal
Message
Phone
Mobile