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Originally Posted by HarryT
Doubtful. The effect of mass communication has been to essentially freeze the structure of the language.We get new words, but the underlying language remains much the same.
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This is the most prevalent theory, and it is consistent with the theory that language change occurs due to isolation. It seems to be very clear that *lack of isolation* doesn't cause language change, although it's still sort of an open question to linguists whether lack of isolation prevents language change. But there really hasn't been enough time to evaluate this empirically.
WRT new words, the structure of the language hasn't changed much since Shakespeare's early modern English (it's changed a little, but thees and thous don't usually cause problems); the difficulty in reading Shakespeare comes primarily from the fact that the vocabulary has changed a lot. And secondarily from the fact that people aren't as used to reading poetry.
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The English of 2013 is pretty much the same as that of 1913, 1813, and (to a slightly lesser extent) 1713. You would have not the slightest difficulty in reading "Pride and Prejudice", which was published 200 years ago, in 1813, and Jane Austen would equally have no difficulty in understanding a novel written today.
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