When does poor grammar become evolving language?
In: 1546
From the first moment. Grammar is not language. Language defines grammar, not the other way around.
The point is, a grammar is a MODEL of actual language. It’s not the thing itself, and like any model, it has its limitations. With the exception of artifical languages such as Esperanto, no-one sat down and “designed” the rules by which the languages any of us speak would actually work; they evolved over time. So any grammar is inevitably incomplete, overly simplistic and out of date. And in the case of any grammar, it’s also inevitably geographically and culturally biased, to boot, reflecting the culture and prejudices of the people whoi drew it up.
There are contexts in which understanding a grammar of a language is useful – but anyone who thinks that “bad grammar” is somehow the same as “poor usage of the language” simply doesn’t understand how language works.
Latest Answers