Article View: sci.lang
Article #2313Language committees
From: Cary Timar
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1986 00:39
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1986 00:39
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In article <8209@watrose.UUCP> rgdutton@watrose.UUCP (Rob Dutton) writes: >I hear that in Iceland the government has some committee set up to >monitor the day-to-day use/development of their language, to ensure >that it doesn't change in any undesirable way. Actually most major languages (except English) have such committees. I do know they exist for French and Hebrew, and I believe that such committees were responsible for spelling improvements in German, Spanish and Hungarian in the 19th century. A text I once used mentioned a tribe whose language had to change rapidly because of taboos. This tribe had a council of elderly women whose function was to decide the new vocabulary as necessary. This institution might have been ancient. At any rate, this leaves English as the (only?) major language which evolves freely as the need arises, rather than being restricted by arbitrary rulings of a governing body. -- -- Cary Timar
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Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site watrose.UUCP Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!watmath!watnot!watrose!cctimar From: cctimar@watrose.UUCP (Cary Timar) Newsgroups: sci.lang Subject: Language committees Message-ID: <8212@watrose.UUCP> Date: Tue, 21-Oct-86 20:39:04 EDT Article-I.D.: watrose.8212 Posted: Tue Oct 21 20:39:04 1986 Date-Received: Wed, 22-Oct-86 05:25:44 EDT References: <3489@utcsri.UUCP> <8209@watrose.UUCP> Reply-To: cctimar@watrose.UUCP (Cary Timar) Distribution: net Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario Lines: 21 Keywords: linguistic change, language committees, tribal languages Summary: Icelandic is not the only one