Does a language stop evolving if it's over-reliant on loanwords?

Matthias Brombach wrote:
What about Gaelic in Wales and Scotland? Is it still spoken naturally and in a modern context, or only by elder people who still master it as their true native language, and not just because they keep it alive because they want to?

Tom in London wrote:

Irish is spoken as a first language in the areas shown. It is not a first language everywhere because in the past, the British banned the use of Irish. But today all Irish children learn Irish in school, except in the North, which is still under British administration. Most Irish people speak some Irish but not as a first language. I don't speak it because I grew up in the North and was not taught it. I'm trying to learn bits of it. There is a large body of literature and poetry that only exists in the Irish language- and many contemporary writers write in Irish.

One of the interesting things about the map is the tiny piece of green in the north-east. This is the Glens of Antrim, where Gaelic Scotland is very close, visible across the sea.







[Edited at 2021-11-22 07:35 GMT]

Tom in London wrote:

This is updated every year!

https://public.oed.com/updates/new-words-list-march-2021/

Philip Lees wrote:

..... P.G. Wodehouse wrote quite a lot about about a gentlemen’s club.
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Mario Cerutti wrote:

That all languages evolve, albeit variably from country to country, is a fact. However, those who do not know the Japanese language will find grasping the linguistic monstrosities that have been being bred for some time here very difficult.

You walk into a shoe shop and ask "I would like those *black shoes*" (黒い靴, or kuroi kutsu), and they would stare at you as if they didn't quite understand: "Ah, ano *burakku shūzu* desu-ka" (transliterated from black shoes).

You walk into a car dealer and say "I would like a *red car*" (赤い車, or akai kuruma), and they would very likely say "Ah, *reddo cā* desune!" (transliterated from red car).

I could go on with hundreds of such examples, even worse from the linguistic point of view. (It often makes us foreigners laugh when new, all-Japanese concepts that are born today are inaugurated directly with their funny English and transliterated with the alphabet they have invented specifically for imported words).

While it is true that the Japanese language too has been influenced by other languages—mainly Chinese—before Japan chose to "westernise", this evolution happened by necessity, naturally and over centuries.

But, as the two examples above make clear, this is no longer natural evolution. The Japanese are gradually giving up their language, just as they have given up their Asian-ness. It is no longer evolution triggered by natural interaction with other languages over time, but evolution forced by pure xenophilic desire. And it's even more ludicrous if you think that the Japanese are the less proficient in English among all Asian countries.

This is why I fear that in a not so distant future the Japanese might start speaking like this:

ザ・ジャパニース・ドリンク・ツウ・マッチ, to be read za japanīzu dorinku tsū macchi, the "evolved" Japanese version of "The Japanese drink too much".

[Edited at 2021-12-03 04:33 GMT]

Zolboo Batbold wrote:

Italy is facing the same problem with Itanglese. Global domination of English? And we're not even talking about the authentic Shakespearean English. The English that is spreading throughtout the world is the Capitalistic English, that glorifies consumerism.

Zolboo Batbold wrote:
Italy is facing the same problem with Itanglese. Global domination of English? And we're not even talking about the authentic Shakespearean English. The English that is spreading throughtout the world is the Capitalistic English, that glorifies consumerism.

Mario Cerutti wrote:


I don't know if it's the capitalist aspiration that leads to this strange phenomenon (maybe partly yes, because in fact the western capitalist model is still strong and goes hand in hand with cultural globalism).

I think there may also be other reasons linked to the geo-political history of the two countries, so different but common in creating a new lifestyle mirage.

Italy, for example, suffered enormous and constant foreign influences until the Risorgimento, in the nineteenth century, while Japan, after a rather long period of self-seclusion, discovered that the Western model was more modern and fascinating than the Chinese one, its first and lasting love, and so began to copy it in every way, creating this curious cultural jumble which for the Japanese is the ideal combination of tradition and, precisely, modernity.

Is there the same problem in Mongolia today? Is the Mongolian language experiencing a major linguistic evolution from other languages?