> you cannot extricate the language that people speak with the culture and history of a region.
This, to me, is the reason for the diversity of language (and the reason for learning foreign languages, and for conserving your own language).
Whether or not a speaker is familiar with his own literary and historical traditions, he relies on them in the idioms he uses, the jokes he makes, and in his understanding of the actions and utterances of others. If everyone in France spoke only English, they'd struggle to understand themselves.
This is the main reason I consider myself a prescriptivist, in lexicographic terms. If you strip your language of what some people consider archaisms, you lose the ability to read the old plays and poetry, the soil from which your culture germinated.
This, to me, is the reason for the diversity of language (and the reason for learning foreign languages, and for conserving your own language).
Whether or not a speaker is familiar with his own literary and historical traditions, he relies on them in the idioms he uses, the jokes he makes, and in his understanding of the actions and utterances of others. If everyone in France spoke only English, they'd struggle to understand themselves.
This is the main reason I consider myself a prescriptivist, in lexicographic terms. If you strip your language of what some people consider archaisms, you lose the ability to read the old plays and poetry, the soil from which your culture germinated.