(“There is the illusion that we speak the same language, but we really don’t.”)
Even in the most cosmopolitan cities, the vast majority of people we meet speak the language they grew up with: their native language. We naturally inherit the sounds, the pronunciations, the accents, the intonations as well as the words, the expressions, the culture of our environments. Radio and TV “feed” us daily with language … mostly originating in our home lands.
I suppose we could say that there are both national and local languages. As we move through time, passing from one year to the next, from one decade to the next, from one generation to the next, so our language habits change. The frequencies with which a word or expression … or proverb … is used change over time. What used to be is no longer and what is … is new. We adopt words. We discard them, too. Like clothes, we wear them … but, when they’re out of fashion, they stay in the closets until they’re given away, thrown out … or brought out again years later.
But what about the same “language” spoken by different cultures?
Here’s a link to an article written last April by Roger Cohen , columnist, called “On Loos and Language.” British … and American. Enjoy it.
