ssheda, Yes, language is constantly evolving. One good example of the evolution of language in English is the verb "shall". If you are a little older you probably learned a rule in school about its use. In the first and third person."shall" was used to express the simple future or an intention, and "will" was used to express determination. The great public unconscious or mass mind decided against this usage, and in only a matter of a few generations "shall" became obsolete in America. Grammar teachers both in America and in England tried to save it by continuing to teach it, but evolution had its way. "Shall" has gone the way of the dinosaur and is now almost extinct, and even grammar teachers have now accepted its demise. (I understand that it is still hanging on by its fingernails in Britain. :) Anton, An opinion about whether a change in a language is good or bad is irrelevant. Changes in language happen naturally whether we agree with them or not. The dinosaurs were very complex and beautiful creatures....that however did not save them from extinction.

Always! But of course a single idea takes time to pass around millions of people, so the evolution is slow, thankfully.

yes, language is a constantly evolving and changing process. "slang" is an example of this, each generation has its own slang, old word begin to have different meanings etc. =)

Gosh! So many people like slang. I am starting believing that in spite of the fact that formal education is becoming more and more widespread, mass mind is as far from the understanding of the true treasures of human civilization, as it was centuries ago! "Evolution" is when something becomes richer and more advanced (compare "Darvinism"). When something becomes more primitive and simple, it is called degradation!

Yes, sure. I think that there are four major ways of evolution of a language: 1. (The main one!) Literature. Great works immensely enrich language. Pushkin and, I believe, Shakespeare come to mind first. Well, I am not quite familiar with English literature, so it might be more correct to mention here, say, Byron or someone else, instead of Shakespeare. 2. Borrowings. New words come to the language from other languages. 3. Slang. The bad way, from my point of view. New words come from slang. They spoil the language, I think. Intellectuals try to avoid such words. 4. Decret. Some grammar rules may be changed by a law. I know that this was done in Germany and in China (with their simplified alphabet), for example. I don't think that this is good either.