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The meaning of words, and the way we used them, change all the time - and that's OK with linguist John McWhorter of Columbia University. He writes about how the English language has evolved in his new book, Words on the Move: Why English Won't - And Can't - Sit Still (Like Literally). This is a terrific book, by the way, with lots of entertaining examples of language shift, semantic drift, linguistic blending and contracting: perfect read for Words R Us. Highly recommended!

People in Philadelphia speak with a distinctive Philly accent, and those who converse in sign language are no different. The area is known for having one of the most distinctive regional sign language accents, and two researchers based at the University of Pennsylvania are trying to figure out why. In sign language, an accent is apparent in how words are signed differently-it's a lexical difference, similar to how some Americans say "pop" while others say "soda," explains Meredith Tamminga, one of the professors conducting the research. Some possible reasons: the first sign language teacher in the United States and the person who founded the first Philadelphia school for the deaf, Laurent Clerc, was a Frenchman. Many Philadelphia deaf signers were educated at the school, and moreover, remained geographically stable, limiting their exposure to signers who used conventional ASL. While ASL has evolved to a distinctive American sign language over time, the Philadelphia version maintains more of its French roots.

The increased acceptance of the word "hopefully" to modify an entire sentence symbolizes a battle over the evolving English language: prescriptivism vs. descriptivism again.

"Ancient Egyptians did not speak to posterity only through hieroglyphs. ... people in everyday life spoke a different language and wrote a different script, a simpler one that evolved from the earliest hieroglyphs. ... Now, scholars at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago have completed almost 40 years of research and published online the final entries of a 2,000-page dictionary that more than doubles the thousands of known Demotic words."

Oral forms like ballads and epics exist in every culture, originating long before the advent of written language. In preliterate eras, tales had to be appealing to the ear and memorable to the mind or else they would simply disappear. After all, most messages we hear are forgotten, or if they're passed on, they're changed beyond recognition - as psychologists' investigations of how rumors evolve have shown. In his classic book Memory in Oral Traditions, cognitive scientist David Rubin notes, "Oral traditions depend on human memory for their preservation. If a tradition is to survive, it must be stored in one person's memory and be passed on to another person who is also capable of storing and retelling it. All this must occur over many generations… Oral traditions must, therefore, have developed forms of organization and strategies to decrease the changes that human memory imposes on the more casual transmission of verbal material." What are these strategies? Tales that last for many generations tend to describe concrete actions rather than abstract concepts. They use powerful visual images. They are sung or chanted. And they employ patterns of sound: alliteration, assonance, repetition and, most of all, rhyme. Such universal characteristics of oral narratives are, in effect, mnemonics - memory aids that people developed over time "to make use of the strengths and avoid the weaknesses of human memory," as Rubin puts it.

Emoticons - representations of facial expressions using colons, dashes, parentheses and other text symbols - originated in the days of the telegraph as a substitute for the facial expressions, hand gestures and vocal clues for different emotions that humans pick up during in-person meetings. Because printed words alone can't always convey the full emotional meaning of a conversation, emoticons have evolved into a separate language, especially with the world increasingly relying on texting, tweeting and e-mail. Called Stickers, Facebook's emoticons were born out of more than two years of research into the compassion of Facebook members, then fine-tuned by scientists specializing in human facial expressions. And while they were inspired by evolutionist Charles Darwin's studies in the mid-19th century, Facebook believes they could be a vital part of human-to-human relationships in the digital 21st century.

This article and video explains how recent research on bird brains could give us clues as to how human language evolved.

Discusses current and ongoing changes in our language, and how language might evolve in the future.

I'm surprised by how much texting and "fingered speech" has evolved throughout the years. "lol" doesn't literally mean "laugh out loud" anymore. In a way, it just evokes more empathy of a certain topic. Just like in the Japanese language, "ね"at the end of a sentence adds emphasis on the subject.

Researchers at Harvard University have found that humans aren't the only ones who can groove to a beat - some other species can dance, too. The capability was previously believed to be specific to humans. The research team found that only species with the capacity for vocal mimicry, that is, copying sound, seem capable of beat induction, the ability to discern the beat in music. Beat induction also enables such actions as clapping, making music together and dancing to a rhythm. The data suggests that some of the brain mechanisms needed for human dance may have originally evolved to allow us to imitate sound.

"Computer" language is increasingly evolving to become the newest, popular language. Languages like "C" and "Java" are becoming well known.

Download this document as a pdf. Yes, and so is every other human language. Language is always changing, evolving, and adapting to the needs of its users. This isn't a bad thing; if English hadn't changed since, say, 1950, we wouldn't have words to refer to modems, fax machines, or cable TV.

As far as we know, humans are still the only ones with language. But what separates language from communication? Why can't we assume that whales, with their elaborate songs, are simply speaking "whale-ese"? To be considered a true language, there are a few elements that are usually considered to be essential, says Kershenbaum. For one, it must be learned rather than instinctive - both whales and birds have this piece covered. For instance, killer whale calves learn a repertoire of calls from their mothers, and the sounds gradually evolve from erratic screams to adult-like pulsed calls and whistles. What holds whales and other animals back from language is that there is a limit to what they can express. There are only so many calls that each may convey different emotions, but only we have an unlimited ability to express abstract ideas.

Language is common to all humans; we seem to be "hard-wired" for it. Many social scientists and philosophers say it's this ability to use language symbolically that makes us "human." Though it may be a universal human attribute, language is hardly simple. For decades, linguists' main task was to track and record languages. But, like so many areas of science, the field of linguistics has evolved dramatically over the past 50 years or so. Today's science of linguistics explores: -the sounds of speech and how different sounds function in a language -the psychological processes involved in the use of language -how children acquire language capabilities -social and cultural factors in language use, variation and change -the acoustics of speech and the physiological and psychological aspects involved in producing and understanding it -the biological basis of language in the brain This special report, compiled by the National Science Foundation, touches on nearly all of these areas by answering questions such as: How does language develop and change? Can the language apparatus be "seen" in the brain? Does it matter if a language disappears? What exactly is a dialect? How can sign language help us to understand languages in general? Answers to these and other questions have implications for neuroscience, psychology, sociology, biology and more.

This article explains how American english has been evolving for more than 400 years. Influenced by other cultures and technology we have advanced as a society. So why isn't american considered a language after all of that? This article explains all of it through Americas history.