Historia – kultura – język. O mechanizmach rozwoju polszczyzny

Interpreting the myth of the Tower of Babel enables us to capture the general mechanism of language development: an event / experiences / history > cultural changes > linguistic changes, i.e., an extra-linguistic phenomenon > external language changes > internal language changes. Among the most common extralinguistic phenomena are migrations, political events, supernatural and civilization-driven events. External factors affecting language change form an array of four divergent processes along two separate lines: democratization ↔ eliticization; ethnicization ↔ globalization. These factors also influence the emergence of language patterns, the repertoire of which boils down to five types of oppositions: conservatism – modernism, cosmopolitanism – nationalism, purism – liberalism, normativism – volitionalism, rationalism – emotionalism. The impact of extralinguistic and language-external factors overlaps with the internal linguistic mechanisms that balance the components of a linguistic system: completion, economization, unification, repartition, and nobilitation.