CLUES TO LANGUAGE CHANGE FROM NON‐STANDARD ENGLISH

Colloquial speech has a different grammar from written English, and published descriptions of English are largely based on the written form; therefore the grammatical consensus may be missing important facts about everyday English. Non‐standard language often prefigures changes which spread eventually into the standard; sometimes it preserves forms lost elsewhere. Linguistic change in standard English can sometimes be detected by looking at different forms of non‐standard English, or by comparison of different national standards. These useful windows on the standard language are illustrated with examples from unplanned speech, internet data, and British and American usage.