Language reform is a type of language planning by massive change to a language. The usual tools of language reform are simplification and purification. Simplification makes the language easier to use by regularizing vocabulary and grammar. Purification makes the language conform to a version of the language perceived as 'purer'.
Note that language reforms occur at a punctual point in time; this article does not discuss changes in languages that took place over several centuries, such as the Great Vowel Shift.
Read more about Language Reform: Simplification, Purification, Examples, Instances in Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the words language and/or reform:
“Language is filled
with words for deprivation
images so familiar
it is hard to crack language open
into that other country
the country of being.”
—Susan Griffin (b. 1943)
“All reform aims, in some one particular, to let the soul have its way through us; in other words, to engage us to obey.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)