Reddit reviews How Language Works: How Babies Babble, Words Change Meaning, and Languages Live or Die

How Language Works by David Crystal is the book that got me hooked on linguistics. It covers the major subfields of linguistics in bite-sized chapters you don't have to read in order, and Crystal knows his stuff pretty well.

OK I will just make points to prevent wall of texting.

Grammar =/= rules of language. It is one part of the whole thing. Grammar is also descriptive, and the rules are derives based on empirical study of the usage of native speakers. It can change, and does, naturally over time.

Beowulf was written in old english. It is a substrate precursor of middle and modern English, while an older form of french is a largely lexical contributor. I could have talked about Shakespeare, but I wanted to make more of a point. That language changes over time, even without outside pressures.

English is an evolving language that is completely unrelated to swahili, what you saying is equivalent to the crocoduck argument (http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Crocoduck).

Your definition of a language is pretty colloquial and quite different to the definition given by linguists, who are essentially language scientists.
This might help you http://ielanguages.com/linguist.html

I have read many books on language, sounds like you have read a school textbook on "grammar", maybe take a class in linguistics or read a book on it or something. Most of the "rules" you learn in school are heuristics and are in most cases incorrect descriptions of English syntax.

I would recommend you read this book.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Language-Works-David-Crystal/dp/158333291X

It is by David Crystal. He is considered to be a leading world expert on English Language especially British English and it's evolution over time.

He also wrote this book

http://www.amazon.com/Txtng-The-Gr8-David-Crystal/dp/0199571333

Which argues that text speak does not have a negative impact on literacy. He has also written ~120 other books.

I recommend David Crystal's 'How Language Works'

https://www.amazon.com/How-Language-Works-Meaning-Languages/dp/158333291X

>> It works like: "we as philosophers have decided that the term atheism means the belief there is no god". That was a wrong decision because it does not reflect the position that actual real wrold atheists hold.
>
> This is circular reasoning because it presupposes something that you're using the word 'atheist' for.

No it doesn't. The meaning of the word, as is the case for all other words, is determined by the way that people use it. If academics use a different definition for the same word they run the risk of ridicule because their conclusions will not relate to the real world.

> The group follows from the position, not the other way around.

It is the other way around in the real world. Usage in the real world gets to define language, not academics in ivory towers.

>> Just because they have been wrong for a long time

> Nobody was using the word any other way back then.

It has been used that way for a long, long time.

> What makes you think that you can just come up with a new definition and suddenly that's the correct one?

I didn't come up with it, real world usage has come up with it. That is the way language actually works.

How Language Works: How Babies Babble, Words Change Meaning, and Languages Live or Die

Language does not work by academics deciding on a meaning that nobody uses.