boudicca wrote:(not only financial poverty but every other kind as well).
Three examples against what you said:
1-Dieter Bohlen, German pop-star, host and jury of the german starsearch-clone, multi-millionair who if at all has beginner skills at his native language.
2-Bushido, German rap star. Former member of the Berlin gang "Islamic Force". His lyrics deserve being printed on toilet paper, if at all. According to what I read he doesn't even write them himself. Several of his songs were proven to have been rip-offs of Dimu Borgir tunes. (
) He's popular to no ends with the kids out here. Consider him an example for all da rulaz of da ghetto here.. Another involuntary clown.
3-Katja Burkhardt, newsreader and host of RTL Punkt 12, a noon news&lifestyle magazine. She uses a version of german grammar she probably invented herself.
All of them are wealthy and famous-With language skills of mediocre performing ten year olds.
The bastard public can relate to that. It sells.
I am not even such a grammar and spelling nazi myself, and could have been better at school at all those subjects myself. (And beg forgiveness for what I sometimes do to your language, but please bear in mind that by now I stayed in England for only ten days.) But I do feel your pain. It seems to happen in all languages that a sloppyness with language in general becomes popular enough that it distorts contents of what's being said to a point where thoughts can't be transported anymore.
Language is just one aspect of inteligence. I know some folks who are briliant technicians, but can't get a sentence out right. But most of them are a real menace of a company.
By the way: I think the sheer number of people who speak English as native or second language (Probably several times the population of the UK) contributes to your problem. There seems to be some "crtical mass" at which a group begins to redefine their language and localize it, shape dialects which morph on to become a new language.
If the environment understands everything you say, you don't need to adapt to it anymore.
In Berlin there are quarters where you can spend your whole life without needing to speak a word of german, Turkish will help you through all your days. By now there doesn't seem to be some special "German-Turkish dialect", but then this situation of Turks being a majority in quarters of cities has only started some 25 years ago, which is a shake of a lamb's tail for the development of a language or dialect.
The situation for English where the native speakers very probably are the minority has been around somewhat longer, though. (it has been the international standard language for some 70 years, or more?) Could what you see happening to your language be an aspect of that?
That surely has its part in what happens to the language.
"These are my principles! And if you don't like the just says so, I have others, too!"
~Rufus T. Firefly