Elitist Language

Oftentimes, people might tell others that they’re speaking incorrectly, or that their language is inappropriate or impure. Although this can be true if the other’s syntax is completely unintelligible, many times, the complaint can have no meaning outside of pure elitism. Many attempts to purify language are caused by the wealthy upper class rejecting the language of the poorer class.

A common argument against the claim that it’s just elitism is the idea that we need to keep language “pure.” However, what does this really mean? MIT linguist Noam Chomsky, who revolutionized the field of linguistics at a young age, and was once asked in an interview what, say, the French theorists mean when they say they want to keep the French language pure, which would then entail a higher status to those who use the “pure” form of the language as oppose to those who don’t. “That doesn’t mean anything” was his response. Language is extremely subject to change and evolution. Chomsky goes on to explain that in fact, because, for most of history, and even in many places today, people speak a different language than the people in the next village over, the concept of a national language is a modern phenomenon. In addition, because language will naturally evolve anyway, there is no point in trying to control it, and there is especially no point in trying to purify it considering some forms of language to be “impure”, whatever that means, based on things like social class.

One may try to argue that the language cannot be controlled by elites because there is no concrete case of that happening. Well, there are many cases in which it happened, take the catholic church for example. In the middle ages, the rules of society were heavily determined by the church, and also during this time, Latin was considered to be the proper language of the upper class. The bible was then only written in latin, so that only the upper class priests could read and interpret what they were saying, which would then determine the rules of society. This type of system only ensures that the poor are excluded from governmental decision making, and it’s done through the exclusion of language, specifically in refusing to translate the bible to the common languages of the time.

Another huge example of unnecessary language prohibition is the idea of curse words, which are words that are deemed to be inappropriate in certain circumstances. By inappropriate, I mean that if someone were to say one of these words in any general situation, it would be considered rude or inappropriate. Now, that would not be true in a very informal setting, such as a local bar, or just friends hanging in the privacy of their own home, but it would hold in most circumstances. Now an argument against this is that these words actually are bad and you shouldn’t say them. Well, why not? Who decides they are bad? The reason why they are considered inappropriate varies, but it usually is from prior elite individuals deciding they are bad arbitrarily to ostracize the poor. One such example is from the battle of hastings.

This battle took place in 1066 between the Normans (norse/french people) and the Anglo Saxons (the ancestors of the modern day english), and the Normans were the successors. As a result, the Normans were the ruling class, and the anglo saxons were the poor working class. (Vizarra, 2019). Now, due to the merging of these cultures, the languages also merged, changing the English language. An example of such change is the words used for food. The working class referred to animals they worked with using english words (i.e. cow and pig), whereas the elites referred to the animals that were served to them in Norman (beef and pork). 

The english words were considered less refined, and sometimes, so bad, that they developed into curse words; like the word shit for example, of Anglo Saxon origin (Dent, 2018). So essentially, the word shit is considered inappropriate because the elite normans didn’t like the poor anglo saxons using them.

Well, certainly that type of thing only happens to curse words right? Wrong. The word “ain’t” used to be considered proper, believe it or not. But then, “ain’t became associated with lower-class characters” (Thesaurus.com, 2019). And now, ain’t is associated with the lower class, improper grammar, and isn’t really even considered to be a word. However, some might notice that it’s literally just a contraction of “am not”. This just goes to show that time after time, elites will consider certain forms of language (typically that of the poorer class) to be improper for no good reason whatsoever, and that these norms are carried throughout time, usually unquestioned. It seems as though the reason why it’s done is to subtly discriminate against people of the lower classes from the upper class.

So in summary, because people in power want to remain tend to try and control or purify language, seemingly out of an unwillingness to accept other cultures, and as a way of othering the lower class. And, this must be because there are numerous historical examples, and the idea of a pure language doesn’t actually mean anything. Curse words tend to originate from touchy subjects, but many times will be exasperated by the upper class to belittle the lower class. So the next time you feel that your language isn’t proper or refined, just remember that the idea of a proper language is arbitrary and baseless, so that if your language effectively communicates to people, then it’s completely valid.

References

AHEF. (2017, March 17). The Reformation Led to the Translation and Printing of the Bible into the Peoples’ Common Languages. American Heritage Education Foundation, Inc. https://americanheritage.org/translation-printing-bible-common-languages

Dictionary.com. (2019, August 11). Why Is “Ain’t” Such A Controversial Word? Thesaurus.com. https://www.thesaurus.com/e/grammar/aint-amnt-haint-baint/

Chomsky, N. (1989). Noam Chomsky: upon reflection interview with al page  The Concept of Language (Noam Chomsky) (youtube.com)

Dent, S. (2020, October 9). Susie Dent: how English swear words went away from the holy and back to the shit again. inews.co.uk. https://inews.co.uk/opinion/columnists/susie-dent-english-swear-words-171621#:~:text=The%20word%20comes%20from%20%E2%80%98scitte%E2%80%99%2

Orlando, A. (2023, September 5). The history of swear words: Where the &%@! do they come from? Discover Magazine. https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/the-history-of-swear-words-where-the-and-do-they-come-from

Vizarra, I. ( 2019, October 14). Battle of Hastings: The War that Changed the Course of English Language Forever. Medium. https://medium.com/@ianvizarra/battle-of-hastings-the-war-that-changed-the-course-of-english-language-forever-c85f3d1269b7

vulgar | Etymology of vulgar by etymonline. (n.d.). Etymonline. https://www.etymonline.com/word/vulgar C%20%E2%80%98excrement%E2%80%99%20%28and%20not%2C,majority%20of%20swear%20words%20are%20Anglo-Saxon%20in%20origin.