The Structure of the English Language // Writing

The Structure of the English Language

The English language is very diverse and massive in its entirety. What more of its structure? Its contents? Its dips, folds, cracks, and corners make up the main language that our world uses today. It is both the cold, hard flesh of the dead and the pulsating organs of the living. Pertains so, to the changes and revisions that we encounter in this language as the time —  as slow, as it is swift — passes by.

The English Language is the knowledge of its structure and content, including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar. It is an endless cycle, in my opinion. It's like a lump of clay that one can shape into any form — of course, while retaining its beauty— using the hands as molders. We can distinguish these hands as the classes of words or parts of speech, meanings of words or semantics, how words are organised in relation to each other or syntax, how words are formed or morphology, the sounds of words or phonology and lexicography, how written forms represent these sounds.

Language has been described using both traditional terms and some of the categories and descriptions of modern grammar. English is not “derived” from Latin but has a Germanic origin, although much of our lexicon comes from French and the classical languages of Greek and Latin. Some of the language categories of traditional grammar have more coherence than others. I believe that there are such languages that which are still known and used in special contexts in written form, but not as ordinary spoken languages for everyday communication called Dead Languages. Some examples of these are Latin, Sanskrit, and Old Church Slavonic. But some scholars and archivists study them for the specific reason of learning. The point that I am making, is that languages can be confusing but they can be also fascinating and much more endearing if we intend know about it better.

It starts with the most basic units of meaning: the simple words or the elements of complex words. If we stop and think about it, the structure of the English language is changing. There is a saying that change is good. We continue to develop and thrive in our comprehensiveness, and that is a step to wisdom or a deeper understanding of things. The structure may be a conundrum, and a longer stretch of the language may be interesting, but the study of the structure of the English language is altogether, a uniquely different and enlightening experience indeed.