Bonus: The Global Story - Is social media changing the way we speak?

Summary

Global Story: Is Social Media Changing the Way We Speak?

Podcast Information:

• Title: Global News Podcast
• Host/Author: BBC World Service
• Episode: Bonus: The Global Story - Is social media changing the way we speak?
• Release Date: November 24, 2024

---

Introduction

In this insightful episode of the BBC World Service's Global News Podcast, host Valerie Sanderson introduces the bonus segment, The Global Story. This episode delves into the profound impact of social media on language, examining how digital communication platforms are reshaping the spoken word. Valerie is joined by linguist Sophia Smith Gaylor and BBC Learning English expert Neil Edgela to explore these linguistic transformations.

---

Language Evolution and Social Media

Lucy Hawkings opens the discussion by highlighting the historical evolution of language in the UK and the increasing pace of change due to social media. She notes the shift from traditional "Queen's English" to a more dynamic, internet-influenced vernacular.

Lucy Hawkings [00:49]: "With the advent of social media, the pace of change may be running away from us. Phrases like 'it's giving ris, no cap' are terms attributed to Internet culture and younger generations."

Neil Edgela shares his experiences communicating with his teenage children about language changes, emphasizing the generational divide and the exclusive nature of contemporary slang.

Neil Edgela [02:24]: "I've become aware of this whole range of vocabulary used by this generation that seems completely and utterly exclusive."

---

Linguicide: The Death of Languages

Sophia Smith Gaylor introduces the concept of linguicide, discussing both overt and covert factors leading to the extinction of languages. She explains how social pressures and the dominance of global languages like English contribute to this phenomenon.

Sophia Smith Gaylor [02:53]: "Linguicide could mean criminalizing a language being taught or spoken, or more covertly, devaluing a language through shame or exclusion from official domains."

---

Emerging Vocabulary and Generational Slang

The conversation shifts to specific examples of emerging slang among younger generations. Words like "skibidi," "riz," and "rizla" are dissected to understand their fluid usage and the exclusivity they confer within peer groups.

Neil Edgela [04:13]: "The word 'skibidi' is very fluid grammatically, and nobody, including my kids, can tell me what it really means."

Sophia elaborates on how language serves as a tool for identity within subgroups, and once terms are adopted outside these groups, they lose their exclusive status, prompting the creation of new slang.

Sophia Smith Gaylor [04:51]: "Language speaking is also identity making. If you use phrases outside your subgroup, they stop being exclusive, and new ones emerge."

---

Sources of Linguistic Innovation

Sophia identifies the primary sources of new vocabulary, including Black and Latino LGBT cultures, the ballroom scene, and even older subcultures like the incel community. She emphasizes the role of social media in accelerating the dissemination of these terms globally.

Sophia Smith Gaylor [07:35]: "A lot of phrases are being innovated within groups and then introduced to the mainstream through social media."

---

Impact of Globalization on Pronunciation and Grammar

The discussion highlights how globalization influences pronunciation, leading to a blending of American and British English accents. Neil points out that distinctions are blurring due to widespread media consumption.

Neil Edgela [20:54]: "Now there's more fluidity, and we can't say with such certainty that this is American English and that is British English."

Regarding grammar, Sophia mentions the gradual changes, such as the trend of "verbing" nouns (e.g., "Google" becoming "to Google").

Sophia Smith Gaylor [22:23]: "We're seeing verbing, turning nouns into verbs, like 'to Google' or 'to friend.'"

---

The Role of AI in Language Change

As the conversation progresses, Sophia and Neil address the burgeoning role of artificial intelligence in shaping language. Sophia expresses concerns about AI-generated content potentially perpetuating uninspired or contextually inappropriate language.

Sophia Smith Gaylor [26:00]: "AI isn't all bad, but it has to be observed and watched. If it's misbehaving, it has to be told off."

Neil echoes this sentiment, noting that AI still requires human oversight to maintain linguistic quality.

Neil Edgela [26:46]: "AI and language will always need the human touch just to give it the once over."

---

Future Outlook: Language Change and Preservation

Looking ahead, Sophia anticipates that language will continue to evolve rapidly due to diverse global influences and technological advancements. She remains optimistic about language revitalization efforts, citing Māori language resurgence in New Zealand as a positive example.

Sophia Smith Gaylor [24:38]: "They are an example to the world on how a language that appears to be dying can revitalize and acquire new speakers."

Neil concurs, highlighting the ongoing challenge of preserving languages amidst the dominance of global languages like English.

Neil Edgela [24:53]: "Languages are dying all the time, and the homogenization brought by social media threatens smaller languages."

---

Conclusion

The episode concludes with a reflection on the inevitability of language change and the significant role social media plays in accelerating this process. Host Lucy Hawkings emphasizes the interconnectedness brought about by globalization, while Sophia and Neil underscore the importance of conscious efforts to preserve linguistic diversity.

Lucy Hawkings [27:19]: "We've never had as much input from so many different global sources of English as we ever have now."

As the Global Story wraps up, listeners are encouraged to engage with the ongoing conversation about language evolution in the digital age.

---

Notable Quotes:

• Lucy Hawkings [00:49]: "With the advent of social media, the pace of change may be running away from us."
• Sophia Smith Gaylor [02:53]: "Linguicide could mean criminalizing a language being taught or spoken..."
• Neil Edgela [04:13]: "The word 'skibidi' is very fluid grammatically."
• Sophia Smith Gaylor [07:35]: "A lot of phrases are being innovated within groups..."
• Neil Edgela [20:54]: "Now there's more fluidity, and we can't say with such certainty..."
• Sophia Smith Gaylor [26:00]: "AI isn't all bad, but it has to be observed and watched."
• Sophia Smith Gaylor [24:38]: "They are an example to the world on how a language that appears to be dying can revitalize..."
• Lucy Hawkings [27:19]: "We've never had as much input from so many different global sources of English as we ever have now."

---

This comprehensive summary encapsulates the key discussions, insights, and conclusions from the episode, providing listeners with a clear understanding of how social media is influencing language evolution.

Transcript

[Neil Edgela]

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.

[Valerie Sanderson]

Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service.

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

The podcast exploring the minds, the motives.

[Neil Edgela]

And the money of some of the world's richest individuals.

[Valerie Sanderson]

Listen now, wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Hello, this is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Valerie Sanderson with your weekly bonus from the Global Story, which brings you a single story with depth and and insight from the BBC's best journalists. There's a new episode every weekday. Just search for the Global Story wherever you get your pods and be sure to subscribe so you don't miss a single episode. Here's my colleague, Lucy Hawkings.

[Lucy Hawkings]

For many thousands of years, language has been changing here in the uk. The gradual departure from what became known as the Queen's English is a trend which has often been characterised as a threat to cultural identity. But with the advent of social media, the pace of change may be running away from us. Phrases like it's giving ris, no cap. These are all terms which we attribute to Internet culture and specifically to younger, millennial and Gen Z demographics. Guys, it's giving, it's giving, it's given.

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

Boss energy, it's given holiday spirit.

[Lucy Hawkings]

Today we're considering how the mass migration to living our lives online is having an impact on the spoken word in the real world. It's even made its mark on the Oxford English Dictionary. Well, with me here in the studio today is former BBC journalist, author and linguist Sophia Smith Gayler and Neil Edgela, who is from BBC Learning English. Lovely to have you both with us on the pod. Neil, last night I sat with my teenage kids, as I now know you did as well, and said, I'm discussing language tomorrow. Things have changed. I'm hearing these words from you all the time. Can we, can we talk about it? And they were straight away like, mum, don't do it. Don't use the words, don't embarrass yourself. You will never come back from this at all. You know, like, this is just steer clear, play it straight. What did you say to your teenage kids?

[Neil Edgela]

Pretty much exactly the same conversation. I've become aware of this whole range of vocabulary used by this generation that seems completely and utterly exclusive. And they find it funny when I try and use those expressions because I use them back.

[Lucy Hawkings]

Like, if you. Basically, you start using these words, you're tainted and it's a no go. And Sophia, you don't have kids, but, I mean, you're so aware of how language is changing and you're even writing a book at the moment about lingocide. What actually is linguicide?

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

Linguicide is the endangerment and eventual death of a language or extinction of a language. Linguicide could mean something quite obvious, like criminalizing a language being taught or spoken in a place, war, genocide, obviously having a huge impact on disappearing a number of speakers. Additionally, linguicide could be more covert, so it could perhaps be devaluing a language so much through shame or through not using it in places like the workplace or in government or as an official language to the point that eventually the language disappears as well.

[Lucy Hawkings]

And tell us about your job, Neil. You're creating content to help people learn English.

[Neil Edgela]

That's right, yeah. So at BBC Learning English, we make videos and podcasts and web pages to help learners of English around the world, at whatever level they are, to teach them English, but also to help them to enjoy themselves in English.

[Lucy Hawkings]

Well, language is obviously the social tool that we all use to communicate, but as we've already discussed, it's so different depending on the generation that's talking. And we alter our language depending on who we're talking to when it comes to our kids and what we're seeing, particularly with the younger generations. Neil, what sort of words are you seeing emerge at the moment?

[Neil Edgela]

Well, with the kids now, we're going to mention some of the words that we're not supposed to mention.

[Lucy Hawkings]

Okay, I'm going to let you do it.

[Neil Edgela]

I think of all of the things I've heard recently, the most fascinating is this word skibidi.

[Lucy Hawkings]

That was the first one that came up at my dinner table as well. Send this video to someone with skibidi, Ohio. Riz, can you use it in a sentence?

[Neil Edgela]

Well, I don't think I can effectively. I can try and I get laughed at, but it's very, very fluid grammatically. So, for example, I have heard the expression the skibidi rizzler. Rizzler is connected to this word Riz. Skibidi seems to be able to be thrown in almost anywhere, and nobody, including my kids, can tell me what it really means. I think that's part of the whole sort of exclusivity of each generation's use.

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

Of language, to the point about exclusivity and saying, mom, please don't say this word, or dad, like maybe your kids are linguists, because this is what linguists understand around usage when it comes to new words or expressions that generations seem to use in and of themselves. We should think of language speaking also as identity making. So if you are in a subgroup and you use particular phrases to signify, I am part of this group. The minute you start hearing these phrases adopted outside of the group, it's not the in group language anymore. So it stops being the in group language of teenagers, for example, because Mom's using it and then they'll just start using another one.

[Lucy Hawkings]

But Sophia, what Neil and I are finding challenging is this is changing so quickly all the time. Neil's already mentioned Riz. It's like when a boy moves to.

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

A girl and like, if they're good.

[Neil Edgela]

Looking and you can get them to.

[Lucy Hawkings]

Be your girlfriend, then that's Rizzo.

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

Would you say you Both got Riz? 100%, yes.

[Lucy Hawkings]

I remember doing quite a kind of academic interview around the word riz when it was the Oxford Word of the year back in 2023. I think that wasn't so long ago. The kids are not using Riz anymore. They might use it in a slightly patronizing, ironic way, but Neil's now saying they're using Riz Le. What's Rizler?

[Neil Edgela]

A rizzler is a person who has riz.

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

Duh.

[Lucy Hawkings]

See, I'm getting myself into all sorts of trouble here and all sorts of trouble. But it is so. It's evolving so quickly.

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

It's evolving really quickly. And if you think about in the past how languages developed and changed, a language will always change because our needs as people change and different and new things happen. And in the past, you may have lived in a remote village and the only language contact or contact you had with any kind of linguistic innovation would have been some trader rolling into town and then, and then moving forward. Or maybe perhaps you would move as the world of media developed, as we got the printing press and then we get broadcast media and everything, we get introduced to so much more language contact. The earliest broadcasts of the BBC would not have been diverse. You would have heard one accent often, I imagine, from a male broadcaster. Today, if you're consuming mass media, not in traditional broadcasts, but in social media, you're actually seeing a very diverse array of different voices from around the world.

[Lucy Hawkings]

And with some of these words, skibidi, riz, rizla, no cat. Where do they come from? Is it from different cultural groups? Is it from different sectors of society? Where are they actually emerging from?

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

A lot of the words are being innovated within, in groups, and then they get introduced to the mainstream.

[Lucy Hawkings]

So what kind of groups?

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

So there are lots of phrases. If I'm particularly thinking of Gen Z expressions or Gen Alpha, we're seeing a lot of vocabulary coming from black and Latino LGBT culture in the US Think ballroom scene. We're seeing loads of expressions, expressions coming from that, like it's giving. When you are serving face, you are giving the mug, you are giving the look.

[Neil Edgela]

It's essentially like walking the face category.

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

Come from those spaces. We're also seeing language emerging from what actually were incel subculture words from even the 2000s. Some of these expressions don't even come from the 2010s. They're a little older than we think. When it comes to social media and language change, we think a term is new, but in reality, it's likely been in cell circulation for some time. There was a study that came out recently that found new words are often in circulation for about three years. It could be before a sort of more influential person perhaps uses the term. And then we see the words leave these peripheries and leave these subgroups. They become mainstream. It's these words that then become more widely adopted. It's always happened, but today it might feel like it's happening more because the language contact has increased. So there is a reason why we are adopting words from a drag culture that's mainly in New York, because we're being exposed to mass media from New York. There's a reason why we're adopting loads of expressions from video games as well, because video game playing is now a globalized phenomenon. We're seeing so much innovation from here, so there's just more input.

[Lucy Hawkings]

And Neil, do you think it's also like with our kids? And I'm trying to think back to when I was young as well, it's a bit of an act of rebellion to use different words.

[Neil Edgela]

Yeah, absolutely. Yes. And I think the interesting thing, the language change we're seeing at the moment is just the pace in comparison to pre Internet discourse. The words are there all around the world immediately. Some get picked up, some don't. And that happened before, but it was just much slower.

[Lucy Hawkings]

I mean, I think we need to cast our mind back before 1989.

[Neil Edgela]

Yeah.

[Lucy Hawkings]

Well, why? What was happening with language before then?

[Neil Edgela]

Well, I remember when I was at school back in the day, the reinvention of the word wicked, meaning great or cool or whatever. I think I am just by about a year too old to use that and feel comfortable using it.

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

Wicked, sick, banging, shabby, hang, buff, wavy jokes.

[Neil Edgela]

These words have always come about and reinvented this, what they call semantic shift, where a word has an original meaning and then suddenly has a new meaning. And it's all tied up with the Exclusivity and stuff. But it's the pace with which it happens these days which is really astounding. We need to bear in mind that not all of these words will stick. So we have this whole array of new vocabulary. How much of it are we going to be using in two years time?

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

And we should also remember that linguistic change and innovation is not unique to young people. All generations do it. All generations are part of their own in groups and their own, their own communities and different spaces. And we also see a lot of appropriation of words that were existing already that develop a new meaning. A troll used to be some sort of ugly goblin under a bridge. Troll now also means someone who is abusing others. On social media we had a word like self and then developed it into selfie to create something new.

[Lucy Hawkings]

Before we had the Internet and it was more traditional media, Neil. I mean we were at the movies all the time and there must have been words and phrases from movies that we picked up.

[Neil Edgela]

Yeah. So Groundhog Day would be a good example of that. That expression was not used widely before that film came out. Now pretty much everyone would know what that. I think what's interesting about it because that's pre Internet and going back to this point about the pace at which language changes now is that it was very top down in those days. So people controlling the media would be able to disseminate these expressions like Groundhog Day. Now it's very democratic. These can come out of subcultures and suddenly be all around the world.

[Lucy Hawkings]

Sophia, you speak many languages?

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

A couple.

[Lucy Hawkings]

Italian, Arabic.

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

I studied Spanish and Arabic at university and my family speaks Italian. I grew up hearing it but not speaking it.

[Lucy Hawkings]

So what about these other languages in the world? Is it the same? I mean, are they experiencing the same kind of changes in these words that we are seeing in English?

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

Oh, certainly all languages are experiencing the phenomena we've described, such as linguistic innovation, adopting new words. The obvious difference that we may observe in other languages is the influence of English and the fact that English as a language, it holds prestige in so many global domains. If you are in sort of any workplace around the world or in any office environment, certainly one that uses technology, which I guess is probably pretty much every office environment now, you're going to see English words being introduced. If you work in fields like science, for example, engineering, you're going to see plenty of English words. So there is a lot of influence, sort of creep, linguistic creep of English.

[Lucy Hawkings]

And there are moves right around the world to try and protect language. I mean, I Spend some time in French speaking Canada, and there's real moves to stop the creep of English into French that's spoken there. I know Georgia Maloney, the leader in Italy right now, very protective of the Italian language.

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

Yes. Interestingly, countries have different attitudes towards how much they try and control linguistic change, which defies control. Speaking to linguicide that I'm writing about, the idea that a language can die much must. Must therefore mean a language can live. So as living things, they're really difficult to control. And if you say to people, you can't use this word that we're now hearing, lots of people say, you must use the French version. It's kind of coming a little bit too late because the French version didn't immediately dominate or resonate with speakers. So it can actually be quite challenging. You're trying to reverse time almost in something like that with the Italian example and, and seeing efforts where people may be penalized in certain environments for speaking English in numerous spaces around world. Trying to preserve the dominance of the national language is something that is done for, for nationalism. It's done because you want to be seen as prioritizing the value of patriotism, for example. We do see this a lot, I would say, from parties on the right wing and the far right. And when people say we must be speaking Italian, I'd say question what that means. What does it mean to enforce Italian in this way compared to perhaps other languages spoken in the country? Interestingly, Italy has lots and lots of languages. My family speak Emilian. This is a another language in the north of Italy. Everyone calls it a dialect, but it's not a dialect. It is a language in its own right, as with many other languages in Italy. But the policy of the Italian nation state is that Italian is our official language and, you know, the others are not.

[Lucy Hawkings]

So we've looked at how social media is changing language on the surface through vocabulary. But next I want to dig a bit deeper into other aspects of English, like intonation and grammar, and look at how AI might accelerate the change in the future.

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

Hello, I'm Simon Jack.

[Lucy Hawkings]

And I'm Sing Sing.

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

And together we host Good Bad Billionaire, the podcast exploring the minds, the motives.

[Neil Edgela]

And the money of some of the world's richest individuals.

[Valerie Sanderson]

Every episode we pick a billionaire and we find out how they made their.

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

Money and then we judge them.

[Neil Edgela]

Are they good, bad, or just another billionaire?

[Valerie Sanderson]

Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service.

[Neil Edgela]

Listen now, wherever you get your BBC.

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

Podcasts.

[Lucy Hawkings]

This is the global story. We bring you one big international story in detail Five days a week. Follow or subscribe, wherever you listen. I'm speaking to Sophia Smith Gaylor and Neil Edgela. Neil, I wonder if words as well in phrases that we use can sometimes just be fashionable. I mean, I'm not talking about riz only lasting 18 months or whatever, but other words and phrases that grab hold and are trendy but then kind of die away again, almost like fashion or clothing or music.

[Neil Edgela]

Yeah, I think that's right. You can look at expressions which are used by many people over a short period of time that then kind of vanish. So we have BBC Learning English, a podcast called the English We Speak. We look at idiomatic expressions that are sort of trending at the time. A couple of years ago, shortly after the pandemic, when people were coming back to work, we were talking about blended working. Blended working. Working at home and in the office.

[Lucy Hawkings]

Yeah, I haven't heard that one for a while.

[Neil Edgela]

People don't use it anymore and we all say hybrid working now. So yes, there is a fashion for these words, they come and go and.

[Lucy Hawkings]

Sophia, it's not just the vocabulary that you've been looking at and how it changes, it's also the way we say things and particularly intonation. I'm always interested in this because I'm from New Zealand, from the Antipodes. And we all speak with rising intonation, the sort of uptalk asking things as a question. Part of me wonders if that change has been influenced by the whole world. Watching neighbours for years. But what is this difference? Difference?

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

We have always used uptalk. I mean it's most characteristic, I think, for asking questions. I just did it there, asking questions that would be uptalk with this rising intonation at the end of the phrase. What's happened with uptalk is, particularly in US and even UK media, you've seen it attributed a lot to women in a negative way. So it's used to sort of complain about valley girl accent or it's used by people who say this. Uptalk is a quality of ignorance. You know, it's suggesting people don't really know what they're talking about when it comes to social media and using uptalk. Something that I've written about in the past is how asking is there a tick tock voice or accent? Is there a way that I speak that I adopt when I'm making a tick tock video that's distinctive, that's a little bit different to how I would speak in another situation? And. And the idea is that when we make video content we use a lot of rising intonation, possibly to relate to our audience. So I may be using a rising intonation to say, do you know about this thing? Do you know about this thing? That is really interesting.

[Lucy Hawkings]

It's more engaging.

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

It's more engaging. Another theory is that I'm keeping you listening. The rising intonation suggests there's more to come.

[Lucy Hawkings]

You're hooking people.

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

Hooking people in.

[Lucy Hawkings]

Can you give us an example of uptick and that questioning the way that you could say it and the way that you do say it when you're making a video?

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

I mean, if I was just asking you a question, Is there something wrong with this plant that had uptalk in the way that I would use in normal speech? Whereas if I was about to present a TikTok video and the hook was, is there something wrong with this plant? I'd probably say, is there something wrong with this plant? Or something a bit more like that. I don't know. But uptalk is the idea that you finish the sentence with rising intonation. Let's try it with lowering intonation so you can tell the difference. Is there something wrong with this plant? It's nowhere near as interesting.

[Lucy Hawkings]

Doesn't land in the same way.

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

No. You're kind of like, I don't know, is there? Whereas if I say it the first time, you're like, is there. Is there something wrong with this plant, Neil?

[Lucy Hawkings]

I guess one of the real changes is the fact that I can be speaking to my nephews at home in New Zealand, a world away, it seems to me, and yet they're using the same words as my teenage kids here in London. That wasn't the case when we were younger.

[Neil Edgela]

No, it wasn't. And that's part of this homogenization that social media brings, that the kids are using the same slang globally. When I was at school, the words that we would use to describe a really bright person or a less bright person might be different from the words used by someone who was brought up in a different part of the same country.

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

And the US is a trendsetter here. So the US is still where the content creation industry is its most powerful. It's where there is a enormous user base of content creators on different social media platforms that are making content content, pumping out content, and by sheer population volume, all of those videos, because it's all English language, are being sent around the world to us in the uk, to people in New Zealand, my own audience. I actually reach more Americans on my Instagram account than I do British people. So it's very possible with social media to reach vast audiences who speak the language, especially if you speak a global super language like English. That's why some London teenagers or people in their 20s can speak to New Zealand kids in their teens or twenties, and everyone understands each other.

[Lucy Hawkings]

What about the change to pronunciation? Are we seeing some British words change and they're now said in a much more American way because of globalization and also the prevalence of American culture?

[Neil Edgela]

Yes, I think so. And I think it used to be a much greater distinction between the way Americans would say or pronounce a word and the way that British people word.

[Lucy Hawkings]

In UK English, we say advertisement. In US English, it's advertisement. Not only does the stress pattern change, but so does one of the sounds. Is becomes eyes.

[Neil Edgela]

Now that's more fluid and we're not able to say with such certainty that that's American English and that's British English. So let's have an example of the word which I say as schedule. Younger members of BBC learning English say schedule and schedule is what we used to say was the American pronunciation. Ballet.

[Lucy Hawkings]

Ballet.

[Neil Edgela]

Debris.

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

Debris.

[Neil Edgela]

Does it matter if it's American or British now? Maybe it doesn't, but there used to be that line and I think it's now because probably of globalization data.

[Lucy Hawkings]

Anything goes is another one data. Financial. I'm saying all of this because of being a BBC news presenter. When I first started, I had to change some of the way I said these words because New Zealand had been influenced back then by America more rather than Britain, and I had to revert back to the British way of saying things. What about grammar then, Neil? Are we seeing those changes and they must surely be slower. We're not seeing changes in grammar in 18 months like we are with Riz and Risla.

[Neil Edgela]

Yeah, exactly. I think a lot of the changes that we we've seen that we've talked about have been that sort of surface level vocabulary, which is, as I say, surface level. We talked about intonation as well. That's something that happens a bit more slowly. But grammar really does change slowly. For example, you could pick up a copy of Frankenstein, which was written 200 years ago, and absolutely understand it completely. There's nothing in the grammatical structures which will confuse you, but something that has happened and has happened more quickly recently because probably of social media is something known as verbing, which is turning nouns into verbs. And the most obvious.

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

I love doing this.

[Neil Edgela]

The most obvious one is Google. To Google or to friend.

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

We are podcasting.

[Neil Edgela]

Exactly. And so that is actually a grammatical change which we have seen accelerate recently.

[Lucy Hawkings]

What about the future of language? If we could look ahead, Sophia, what do you think's going to happen in the next 20, 30 years? What do you think's next?

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

I think a lot of the future is predictable in that when I AM in my 40s, 50s, 60s, I'm probably going to start thinking, why are my kids or the kids around me saying all these bizarre words that I've sort of never heard of?

[Lucy Hawkings]

Is language change picking up momentum? Is it getting faster compared to what we've had in the last 50 years?

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

We've never had as much input from so many different global sources of, let's say, English as English speakers of English than we ever have had now. And basically every language will be going through that. It's not only English. I would say that as media will change, linguistic innovation will change. So it's already so hyper fast and powerful in the current vertical video climate that we're in and the amount of language we are exposed to, it's hard to imagine how that can get even sort of more hyperactive. But I'm quite confident it will and we'll see that change in the media and as a result we'll see increasing levels of input for us as language speakers. The one predictable thing about language is that it's going to change.

[Lucy Hawkings]

And what do you think, Neil? Do you think the other thing that might happen is that we'll see some language sadly die out, some languages, because of the prevalence of English, the prevalence of what people are consuming online is going to really influence what's spoken in the home.

[Neil Edgela]

Yeah, unfortunately that is a reality. I mean, languages are dying all the time. And one of the features of language in the social media age is homogenization. So languages, words from different languages appearing in each other and therefore probably threatening smaller languages.

[Lucy Hawkings]

I have a positive story to tell from New Zealand about that, about how much more Mori is spoken in New Zealand than when I was young. Now the weather on the TV is a lot of it is done in Mori. There is a lot of language spoken in the primary schools and it is now in common use. And when we talk about how quickly things change when I go back home, I can't believe how much more Mori is just spoken in everyday life among people, just casually. It's not a big thing at all.

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

They are an example to the world. They are used all the time in language revitalization work as examples of how a language that appears to be dying can revitalize and acquire new speakers.

[Lucy Hawkings]

I can't have any conversation about anything that looks at the future anymore without mentioning AI.

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Lucy Hawkings]

Is there an influence there as well? Is that going to change language?

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

It's quite funny with AI. One of the debates that's happening at the moment is considering how AI is sort of eating itself. AI is generating so much text that's now on the Internet that it's going to begin teaching itself not on other people's writing, but on its own writing, which is garbage. You know, the way that AI writes is deeply unimaginative. Unless you've trained it on a particularly good writer's data set. It's. It's very easy for us. In fact, there are machines that now exist that try and detect. Has ChatGPT or another LLM been used to craft this wording? I would say AI isn't all bad. It brings lots of very useful tools for communities, but it kind of has to be observed and watched and if it's misbehaving, it has to be told off.

[Neil Edgela]

Yes, I think we can see now. Obviously it's going to improve. But, but when you get those sort of AI generated suggested responses in emails and instant messaging, they're often ludicrous and completely inappropriate and there's no sort of context there. They're comical, really. I think the AI and language will always need the human touch just to give it the once over.

[Lucy Hawkings]

Well, it's been wicked to have you both on the podcast. Sophia, thank you.

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

Thank you.

[Lucy Hawkings]

Neil, good to see you. Thanks.

[Neil Edgela]

Thank you.

[Lucy Hawkings]

If you want to get in touch, email [e-mail] send us a message or a voice note on WhatsApp. All of those details are in our show notes. Wherever you're listening in the world, this has been the global story. Thanks for having us in your headphones. Goodbye.

[Valerie Sanderson]

If you enjoy listening to the Global Story and would like to hear more, there's a new episode every weekday. Just search for the Global Story wherever you get your BBC podcasts and be sure to click, subscribe or follow. We'll have another edition of the Global News podcast later. Until then, bye bye.

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

A search for the truth behind an.

[Lucy Hawkings]

International drug smuggling plot. There's something on this boat. A 10 of cocaine. There was a lot of adrenaline. I couldn't believe what was happening.

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

And the Brazilian police believed to be at its center.

[Neil Edgela]

Fox, Fox, Fox called the shots from.

[Sophia Smith Gaylor]

The BBC World Service. This is World of Secrets season five. Finding Mr. Fox. Search for World of Secrets Wherever you get your BBC podcasts.