The English language, the only one I know, unfortunately, from its Roman origin has become a polyglot of other languages and many colloquial expressions over time. As a result of Pax Brittania English is the language of business worldwide.

But many dialects are being lost while many new buzzwords added. It's a messy business, that's for sure. But that is also the beauty of it. Archaeologists and anthropologists are very busy digging up the scratchings of the ancients and trying to figure out what they wrote. I find it interesting to see what kind of graffiti people wrote on the nearly impenetrable Amazon jungle location where high on cliffs that are difficult to reach with modern climbing gear, 750,000 pictograms and fractal like designs cover the walls. Twenty thousand years ago, 5000 before people were supposedly reaching the American continents from Asia.

Ron

Several places stepped out boldly from this writing for me — “….lips if closed/might bring silence of thought.” and the noun Punchinello I find would point to here as the satirical magazine offspun from the Punch publication….and the use being a ‘short-lived’ pamphlet much as the ‘fad’ terminology of each era within each demographic society would also do. I wrote something once a few years ago and received a comment from a millenial that it was ‘dope,’ after which I felt it a harsh discount, not knowing that the word had done a 360 to mean ‘great’. An ultra-rich line in here is: “words uttered carelessly with little thought.” To see youth reading an actual printed book is a joy to me. I appreciate your acknowledgement of the loss happening, of language, written, spoken, or read. Acknowledging this diminishment is a way of possibly slowing down the loss. ~~ djl

A person can be literate and creative and well read, and still be unable to communicate. That’s a very weird mystery. Every language has its own nature, its own beauty, uniqueness, its own parlance, idioms, neologisms, and phraseologies, etc. But humanities diversity of language tends to alienate man from man, tribes from tribes, and cultures from cultures. This has always been reflective of human nature. Once again, the third stone from the sun is nearing divine judgement. Human nature is growing progressively worse. Many don’t give a shit about anything except themselves anymore. Very few are literate. Even some who seem literate are just struggling to keep themselves from losing what little they have.
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Not everyone likes to read. My family is filled with non-readers. In my experiences: the more ignorant and self-consumed a person is, the more they tend to form negative opinions, gossip, and demean others, in thought or in deed. It’s a bit inflammatory (in a cool way) that you used the noun ‘Punchinello’ (a short humpbacked clown or buffoon in Italian puppet shows) as a descriptor for vocabulary. Also, the phrase “sapient conceit” tickled me. We humans like to think we’re wise, discerning, insightful, perceptive, prudent, possessing or expressing great sagacity, but most of us are just trying to keep the image we have of ourselves alive, and remain productive. Thanks for sharing.