Language Change Quotes

“The only languages which do not change are dead ones.”
― David Crystal

“Ye knowe eek, that in forme of speche is chaunge
With-inne a thousand yeer, and wordes tho
That hadden prys, now wonder nyce and straunge
Us thinketh hem; and yet they spake hem so,
And spedde as wel in love as men now do.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer

“Poets may boast [as safely-Vain]
Their work shall with the world remain;
Both bound together, live, or die,
The Verses and the Prophecy.

But who can hope his Lines should long
Last in a daily-changing Tongue?
While they are new, Envy prevails,
And as that dies, our Language fails.

When Architects have done their part,
The Matter may betray their Art;
Time, if we use ill-chosen Stone,
Soon brings a well-built Palace down.

Poets that lasting Marble seek,
Must carve in Latine or in Greek;
We write in Sand; our Language grows,
And like the Tide our work o'reflows.

Chaucer his Sense can only boast,
The glory of his Numbers lost,
Years have defac'd his matchless strain;
And yet he did not sing in vain;

The Beauties which adorn'd that Age,
The shining Subjects of his Rage,
Hoping they should Immortal prove,
Rewarded with success his Love.

This was the generous Poet's scope,
And all an English pen can hope
To make the Fair approve his Flame,
That can so far extend their Fame.

Verse thus design'd has no ill Fate,
If it arrive but at the Date
Of fading Beauty, if it prove
But as long-liv'd as present Love.”
― Edmund Waller

“but now I muſt recant and confeſſe that our Normane Engliſh which hath growen ſince William the Conquerour doth admit any of the auncient feete, by reaſon of the many poliſillables euen to ſix and ſeauen in one word, which we at this day vſe in our moſt ordinarie language: and which corruption hath bene occaſioned chiefly by the peeviſh affectation not of the Normans themſelues, but of clerks and ſcholers or ſecretaries long ſince, who not content with the vſual Normane or Saxon word, would conuert the very Latine and Greeke word into vulgar French, as to ſay innumerable for innombrable, reuocable, irreuocable, irradiation, depopulatiõ & ſuch like, which are not naturall Normans nor yet French, but altered Latines, and without any imitation at all: which therefore were long time deſpiſed for inkehorne termes, and now be reputed the beſt & moſt delicat of any other.”
― George Puttenham, The Arte of English Poesie