Question

What would English be like without grammar? If grammar didn't exist and there were no rules to language, how would that change the way we speak?

I made these questions on my own because I think it would be interesting to add into my paper.

Answer 1

My own thought is that language is of no use unless it can be understood by the other people we come in contact with or wish to communicate with. Spelling, rules of grammar, word usage (commonly understood meanings of words) are essential to that process. If each person, or each family, or each age group (whatever) invented its own language variations, communication would be severely impaired. What do YOU think?

Answer 2

Look up Beowulf and/or any of Shakespeare's plays in their original language. (No modern English translations!) Actually, look up anything written in English before 1700 and read it aloud.

Let us know what you discover.

Answer 3

Writeacher has a good point. Language (including the rules of grammar) does change over time. Such changes come about by common usage though, and in response to new ideas, ne developments in science, philosophy, etc., but by COMMON usage and need. Just the other day I read a comment on social media about collages (followed by a string of words that made no sense at all). I thought the writer was talking about a mixed-media art work. He wasn't. He was talking about institutions of higher education, but what he intended to say was still very unclear.

Answer 4

My answer was that no one would be able to understand each other but I didn't know how to write that.

Answer 5

You just said it very succinctly! Exactly. No one would be able to understand anyone else. The rules of grammar help make our words understandable to others.

Answer 6

Without grammar no one would know how to speak, leaving the world without no way to communicate