Spoken language: Raggedy but effective

A. Here, we hear part of a speech by Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. from the late 1960s, in the fundamentalist preaching style. As majestic as this passage is, its structure and language are rather simple. Sentences are short and repetitive. A composition teacher, if presented with the passage in writing, would likely advise the writer to use some graceful transitional words to knit the sentences together, such as although, seeing that, etc.

B. But this is how language is spoken casually worldwide. Standard English often comes in prose of this kind from Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire:

The whole engagement lasted above twelve hours, till the gradual retreat of the Persians was changed into a disorderly flight, of which the shameful example was given by the principal leaders and the Surenas himself. They were pursued to the gates of Ctesiphon, and the conquerors might have entered the dismayed city, if their general, Victor, who was dangerously wounded with an arrow, had not conjured them to desist from such a rash attempt, which must be fatal if it were not successful.

Here, a single sentence stretches endlessly, in elaborate structure that a composition teacher would approve of.

C. But this kind of language is possible only because there is writing. Writing is conscious and slow, allowing the writer to carefully compose long sentences and the reader to process them. Spoken language occurs in real time and generally occurs in packets of, on average, seven words.

D. If language had existed for 24 hours, then writing would have existed only since about 11:08 P.M. Only about 200 out of the 6,000 languages are “written” in the true sense of being used in official documents and having a literature. The elaborate traits of written language are a historical accident.