The average IQ of the world’s population, which from postwar to late 90 s had always increased, over the last twenty years is declining….It’s the return of the Flynn effect. It seems that the intelligence level measured by tests is declining in the more developed countries. Many can be the causes of this phenomenon. One of these could be the impoverishment of language. In fact, several studies show the decline in lexicon knowledge and impoverishment of the language: it is not only about reducing the vocabulary used, but also about linguistic subtleties that allow the elaboration and formulation of complex thought. The gradual disappearance of times (subjunctive, imperfect, composite forms of the future, past participle) gives rise to almost always thought to the present, limited at the moment: unable to projections in time. Simplifying tutorials, caps disappearance and score are examples of ′′ deadly blows ′′ to accuracy and variety of expression. Just one example: Removing the word ′′ miss ′′ (already decouette) means not only giving up the aesthetics of one word, but also unwittingly fostering the idea that between a girl and a woman there are no intermediate stages.
Less words and fewer conjugate verbs involve less capacity to express emotions and less chance to elaborate a thought. Studies have shown that part of violence in the public and private sphere comes directly from the inability to describe their emotions through words. No words to build a reasoning, complex thinking becomes impossible. The poorer the language, the more thought disappears. History is rich in examples and many books (Georges Orwell-1984; Ray Bradbury – Fahrenheit 451) have told how all totalitarian regimes have always hindered thought by reducing the number and meaning of words. If there are no thoughts, there are no critical thoughts. And there is no thought without words. How can you build hypothetical-deductive thinking without conditional? How can you consider the future without a conjugation in the future? How is it possible to capture a storm, a succession of elements in time, whether past or future, and its relative duration, without a tongue that distinguishes between what could have been, what was, what is, what could be , and what will be after what could have happened, did it really happen? Dear parents and teachers: we give to speak, read and write to our children, our students. Teaching and practicing language in its most different forms. Even though it seems complicated. Especially if it’s complicated. Because in that effort is freedom. Those who affirm the need to simplify spelling, discontinue the language of their ′′ faults “, abolish genders, times, nuances, everything that creates complexity, are the real artifices of the impoverishment of the human mind.
