From Latin to Memes: Notes on Evolution, Economy, and Context in Communication

Abstract

The use of languages, occurring within human communities, has always been accompanied by attempts at standardization, norm-setting, and the refinement of linguistic practices, especially in educational or scholarly environments. The widespread eagerness to speak of a “superior dialect” or of certain practices being more “correct” than others has always led to a growing attachment to certain traditional forms and a kind of prejudice against not only specific linguistic changes but also communicative shifts in general. Indeed, we currently observe this prescriptive practice even in the rejection by some groups of the communicative trends of digital media and social networks, which many classify as degrading due to their often involving a formal simplification in comparison with previous forms. Starting from an interest in problematizing these prejudices against any type of evolution in our forms of communication, this text takes an expository journey through some specific examples of natural changes that have occurred in languages such as Latin and Spanish, which have often involved some loss of formal complexity, leading to an approach to what we might consider one of the most interesting recent phenomena in the evolution of our communication: memes. These discourses, which have dominated the digital sphere for some years now, allow us to express ourselves and communicate easily and efficiently with others.