language contact, language change, and language ideology

(1) languages come into contact.  this is inevitable.  linguistic features and bits of the lexicon start to get shared and swapped between varieties.  this is also inevitable, and a natural part of language contact.

(2) language changes.  sometimes, language changes as a result of language contact; other times, language change is internal.  language change is natural, and also inevitable.

(3) however, the inevitability and naturalness of languages coming into contact and languages changing doesn’t negate the fact that people can and do have feelings about this contact and change.  sometimes, the feelings that people have are oppressive—for example:

(a) the idea that prescriptivist standard varieties of languages, which often resist change, are superior and more legitimate than those spoken by marginalized groups—the standard is what is spoken by people in power and what arbitrarily becomes normalized because of that power; there is nothing inherently more legitimate or “correct” about a standard variety versus a nonstandard variety.

(b) the idea that, since the meanings of words change, people not targeted by slurs can use those slurs however they damn well please, since they’re not using the slurs in ~*that*~ way—slurs are tied to long histories of dehumanization, oppression, and violence; they’re taboo and offensive for a reason, and using the slurs when you’re not part of the group affected by the slurs is a linguistically oppressive act that, knowingly or not, draws from that violent and oppressive history.  

if you are not part of the group that was targeted by that slur, you do not get to reclaim it.

(c) the idea that mocking or appropriating a stigmatized variety as a non-speaker of that stigmatized variety is wholly inconsequential and just a linguistically natural part of language contact—many people who speak stigmatized varieties (aave, english accented with other languages, latin@ & chican@ english, etc.) can ONLY speak those varieties.  they do not have the luxury of being able to switch into standard english like those who mock and appropriate can do.  

when you mock a stigmatized variety, you contribute further to its stigmatization, and when you appropriate it as a non-speaker of it, how you use that stigmatized variety can often also further stigmatize it and make life more difficult for those who only speak that variety.  

people also have feelings about the spread/non-spread of language varieties that are very bounded within specific communities—and these feelings and concerns are very valid, legitimate, and stem often from responses to racist, imperialist, and colonialist treatment of those varieties.  

for instance, some indigenous peoples are wary of linguists, especially white linguists, coming into their communities and studying/dispersing their languages because of a history of linguists exploiting those resources for academic gain.  

people who speak ethnolects like aave are often also wary of the spread of ethnolects to non-ethnolect speakers because of the constant history of theft, whitewashing, and invalidation of their cultures, especially black american culture, which has a long, long history of being shafted by people, especially white americans.

so—just because languages come into contact and language changes does not mean that we do not have to examine and understand the ideologies we have about language.  language ideologies are real and have very real impacts on people’s lives.  they can be oppressive, and they can be responses to oppression.  they’re not something to be ignored just because language is always in flux.