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Linguists hold that while many
languages of the world are both written and spoken, more languages of
the world are only spoken, and many languages of the world are spoken
by more people than are written, therefore what is primary about
language it that it is spoken. Written language is derived from
spoken language, not vice versa. Therefore if we see a conflict
between what is written and what is spoken, we will describe the
language as actually being what is spoken. In fact most discrepancies
between one norm or another in prescriptive grammar are conflicts
over whether to follow spoken usage or written usage. Written usage
is usually the norm of a previous stage of the language.
Harold Schiffman
Fri Jan 17 09:48:04 EST 1997