Time changed: Your kids are updating your language
Posted by: adonis49 on: May 8, 2010
Time changed: Your kids are updating your language;
Nowadays, almost every new technology or upgraded versions generates a language of its own: They are producing specialized professionals to compose and edit in the new language.
A century ago, only books and theaters required special languages or sort of consensus among the professionals of the written materials.
Currently, you cannot write a novel and then be asked to write the scenario of your book for films and television series: They are two different languages in the business. Even scenarios for movies and for radios are two different languages. Writing cartoon manuscripts requires different languages and skills.
Every new technology has the purpose of displacing all the previous languages with the obscure intention of making the new language easier to master.
New technologies are displacing previous talents that required so much efforts and time to master the language in order to secure steady jobs coupled with quality production.
Modern technology is generating every couple of years “higher performing versions of languages” and you are asked to update your skills and be initiated to newer languages.
Bottom line: tough luck to all the previous “archaic” talents and skills; either you get on the band wagon or remain a half illiterate on the job market.
What about the skills in sound recording, synthetic images, lighting language, and faster photo-montage video clips?
In action movies, no take is to last longer than 3 seconds even if the take is basically the same for a minute.
There are profusion of new specialized languages while a few specialists are doing their best to saving dead languages of dying cultures that people have no time to think that they do exist.
You take a book published 5 centuries ago in a local language (such as English, German, Spanish…) and you can comprehend the language with a little effort. You used to learn riding a bicycle and it was good for thirty years, the skill and the bike.
It is said that hens needed an entire century to learn NOT to cross roads. Mankind is forced to change reflexes every couple of years for using new gadgets, cars, and computer languages.
Who can now comprehend a new language composed even ten years ago? Even if you were in the profession you feel hopeless and outdated within less than a decade.
Currently, you learn a new language and it is obsolete in a blink. The present is shrinking quickly and mankind is falling behind to visualizing the closer future.
Rite of passage, such as public exams during high school or even getting your physician license to practice, which proved that your knowledge has matured is becoming total nonsense. You have got to continue upgrading and updating your knowledge and education to be in this rat race.
Time changed: Time to beg your kids to initiate you in updating your language.
A language is associated to a professional that can still finds companies and institutions ready to deal with his language and support system as not obsolete. I feel that a language is linked to its support system for optimum production commensurate to skills and talents.
Suppose a writer is most productive qualitatively when using paper and pencil support, and then he is pressured to shift to word processing. Until the new support system and language feel friendly and extensions to the previous system then production will degrade in quality and quantity even if the new language was “designed” to increase production.
Thus, it is imperative that moratorium be imposed on creating new languages before professionals recoup investment in time and efforts into learning a language.
Note: This post generated pertinent comments that required clarification.
Adonis Diaries 
May 8, 2010 at 12:35 pm
Good points, Adonis. I think back in the 21st century, some of the most used kid-words were “Epic Fail,” “Random,” and “Awkward,” to name a notable few. There were verbs that used to be nouns, such as “To pluto,” something, or “To google,” a word. Truly parents had become outdated…imagine not knowing what btw means!
-J. P. Cabit
Editor, Fedwick Reporters’ Agency
May 8, 2010 at 6:36 pm
What is btw? My article considered your comment on inventing new words as given; my understanding of ‘language’ is more general; it is the need to be updated and upgraded in knowledge to be able to keep your job as new communication inventions are sold on the market. Keep your comments coming.
May 9, 2010 at 1:32 am
Adonis, as I understand it you’re talking about language as in understanding. For instance, the language of emailing, the language of car-driving, the language of internet surfing, even the language of blogging. A language, in your words, is simply the know-how. Am I on target?
In this case, yes, language is continually updating. From standard shift-sticks to automatic transmission. From ENIAC to the personal computer. The world is a constantly-changing whirlwind, and it’s hard to keep up, but children seem to be the ones who are becoming “Multilingual.” Just like children soak up language whether they’re born into a household that speaks French, or Russian, or English, or even Icelandic, they soak up and understand text-messaging, or social networking. Could it be that children are more pliable than adults? Adults have been doing the same thing for years…why should they change now?
-J. P. Cabit
Editor-In-Chief, Fedwick Agency
May 10, 2010 at 9:19 am
You are almost on target. Know-how practically means that you can apply new technologies in your profession; you may apply your old proven ways or language but if companies and institutions are reluctant to using your old ways then you are unable to disseminate your knowledge and earn a living. Yes, mankind needs a moratorium on newer languages that permit professionals to recoup their investment in time and effort into learning older languages.