Contents › Section 5: Sociolinguistics, historical development and politics › answer 18 of 45
Does language improve over time, or does it just change?
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What's interesting in this context is that the original historical linguists were driven by exactly the opposite motivation. They were convinced that languages were deteriorating over time and their mission was to record the perfect state (and if possible to halt the decline). Labov describes it in his Principles of Linguistic Change
© Dominik Lukeš. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Originally published on Linguistics Stack Exchange, attributed there to Dominik Lukes (profile).