Sociolect and language formation

   Three pictures of a sheep used to literally mean three sheep. In a time with no language to express this, people were locked in a state of silence. When someone handed another person an object this meant a transaction was expected from the giver, objects replaced words. The receiver would then show a price in coin and the two would grunt in general agreement or disagreement similarly to how chimps interact .Agriculture and early language formation have a very close link (.http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2003/s848585.htm) With language came vast intelligence, ideas could now be expressed which had been locked away or lost in translation between brain, hammer and stone. Early man began to transcend as the dominant species as they possessed a unique way of communicating that was far superior to their animal prey, this allowed for intelligent planning and gave humans a constant edge above rivals. This spoken language was forced into being communicated in a silent form, and so the alphabet was pressed into formation… so theorists believe.

I found that little academic research has been done on the actual formation of Sociolects. What I can explain is the formation of my own and how it juxtaposes that of early language formation. My personal Sociolect has developed with a few of my friends to reach the point where it would be possible to have a conversation entirely using words we have formed from our root word. Almost identical to how early language was formed; a central word or sound (the five vowels/tease) is naturally expanded into various words through contractions, borrowings, phrases and play much like how modern English formed. Comedy greatly catalyses my Sociolect expansion, with the reward for making an inventive or further abstraction of the root word rewarded with laughs or interesting group partnership. This partnership usually leads to a naturally formulated meaning for the abstraction of the root word from the volume and tone that becomes associated with it that works in a comical way. For example the closer an abstraction sounds to another the word the higher the chance it will replace that word entirely in conversation. Such is the case now that words have been fully replaced in natural conversation eventually leading to a secretive yet basic way of communicating.

  "People participating in recurrent communication situations tend to develop similar vocabularies, similar features of intonation and characteristic bits of syntax and phonology that they use in these situations" – (Ferguson 1944 : 20)

  It seems many similarities occur between sociolect and language formation, abstractions of my root word have risen and fallen in usage similar to how trends in popular language rise and fall, comedy led to the expansion of my own sociolect in numerous ways leading to the formation of entirely new words which only people familiar with the sociolect would understand. So what separate's my sociolect of newly formed words from becoming a language entirely? Do not enough people speak it?  Is it too underdeveloped and noncomplex?  In a language with its own miniscule micro– languages, one thing is for sure – we don't need hieroglyphics anymore.

By Rob Strutt