Colloquial language and slang are especially interesting, especially when it's from different eras. Jazz slang is one of my favorites. Although it continues to baffle me, Cockney rhyming slang is wonderfully interesting. I think it'd be so fun to master it. British slang is great, too. In fact, I'm fond of almost all foreign slang. The only problem is that when I try to sneak it into regular conversation, no one knows what I'm saying, and neither do I, really. I've just now discovered the word argot, and I find I'm partial to it. Words to desribe words have a special place in my word-worshipping soul.
When I was younger, I loved the Redwall series by Brian Jacques. In the case you're not familiar with them, the Redwall books are epic tales of fantasy and adventure, and the characters are various animals (mostly native to Britain). Aside from being excellent books, each species of animal has it's own dialect. It makes it awfully fun to read, and it gives all the animals such personality. The moles talk in a different way from the hedgehogs, or the sparrows, or the hares, or the rats, etc. This aspect of the books turned my brother off from the series, but I still dig it.
It's amazing how so many different styles can come from one language. The same words exist, available to all, but the diction can vary so drastically from writer to writer. Language in general is a marvel, in the way that we can express ourselves through letters and words and sentences. Equally miraculous is the way others can look at these strings of symbols and make sense of it all. Once or twice I came across a study showing that as long as the first and last letter are in place, most people are still able to read words written in such a way. For emxalpe, msot ploepe hvae no pboerlm rdanieg tihs... the huamn mnid is phaonmneal in tihs way, at lsaet in my oipnoin. Understandable not not, nonsense words can be fun. Made up languages are even better, like the sort used by twins (I don't know if this even exists outside books, but it's still neat to think about). Lately, I've been interested in Nadsat, the teenage argot Anthony Burgess thought up for A Clockwork Orange. Mom, if you by some chance happen to be reading this, please take note that it's the slang that interests me, not the rape and ultraviolence. Anyways, I've never read more than a handful of pages of the book, nor seen it's film adaptation, but I still think it's pretty cool to invent a language like that. Burgess was a linguist, so I've read, and a translator, too. Oooh, apparently he's written a couple books on the subject. I shall have to check it out. Speculative fiction can twist language is radical ways.
I think I elaborate too much; these blog entries are beasts. Ah well, that's what blogs are for, I suppose.
