Thomas: If you are new to Author Update, the Zeitgeist segment is where we step back from breaking news and look at longer cultural trends. Instead of focusing on individual developments, we examine the broader shifts shaping the culture. It is easy to focus on the trees and miss the forest.
Language shifts are one example. People rarely realize they are living through a language shift because these changes unfold gradually over long periods of time.
Jonathan: I am not sure that is always true. Some slang changes feel obvious.
Thomas: Slang is different. New slang appears and disappears constantly. Young people adopt expressions that fade within a few years. That is not the kind of change I am describing.
I am talking about structural changes in language itself. To explain that, we need to go back to the year 1066 in England.
In 1065, people in England spoke Old English. Then William the Conqueror defeated the English at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. After the conquest, French-speaking rulers governed England for roughly 250 years.
William the Conqueror did not speak English. The famous English king Richard the Lionheart did not speak English either. He spoke French. Prince John, who later became King John, likely did not speak English as his primary language.
The first king after this period to speak English was King Henry V. He shifted the national identity from a French monarchy ruling England to an English monarchy confronting France. As part of that shift, he instructed scribes to stop writing in French and begin writing in English.
The problem was that English had not been widely written for roughly 250 years. During that time, the aristocracy had written primarily in French or Latin. As a result, scribes began writing English phonetically, reflecting how people actually spoke at the time. This marked the beginning of Middle English.
Middle English initially aligned closely with spoken language. Over time, however, spoken and written forms began drifting apart. In some languages the separation becomes extreme. In China, for example, speakers of different regional languages may not understand each other orally, yet they can read the same written Chinese.
Returning to England, Middle English continued evolving. Writers such as Geoffrey Chaucer produced major works in the language. Then a major technological change arrived in 1476 when William Caxton introduced the printing press to England.
Printing created pressure for standardization. Printers preferred consistent spellings rather than multiple variations of the same word. Before this period, spelling was flexible and often phonetic. After printing spread, readers began expecting standardized spelling and grammar.
I see something similar when my daughter writes phonetically while learning to read. Some of her spellings resemble Middle English. They require a bit of interpretation, but they capture the sound of the words.
Two other developments soon reshaped English even more dramatically. The first was the work of William Shakespeare. The second was the publication of the King James Bible in 1611. Shakespeare continued to influence the language through education and literature, while the King James Bible became a foundational text for generations of readers.
Together with the earlier influence of the printing press, these developments helped establish the foundations of modern English.
Jonathan: A similar dynamic occurred in Islamic history with the Quran. When the Sunni and Shia traditions divided over leadership succession, different versions of the Quran circulated. The Sunni leadership eventually standardized a single text and ordered other versions corrected to match it.
Researchers have studied early manuscripts and found evidence of earlier text beneath later writing on reused papyrus. Those findings illustrate how religious and political forces can shape the standardization of language.
Thomas: Another major step toward standardization came with Noah Webster’s dictionary. Webster’s work effectively separated American English from British English and helped stabilize American spelling. Since the publication of Webster’s dictionary, American spelling has changed very little.
British English spelling has shifted somewhat more, but overall the system remains relatively stable.
That brings us to the present. We may now be approaching another major transition in English, possibly a form of postmodern English influenced by artificial intelligence.
More people are writing with AI tools or editing with software such as Grammarly. These tools tend to standardize sentence structures and encourage a uniform style. Just as the printing press encouraged standardized spelling, modern editing tools may be encouraging standardized sentence patterns.
Another emerging pattern involves what I call “vectorized sentences.” For example: “This is not just a small tweak to the language. It is a tectonic shift.” That type of structure appears frequently in AI-generated text.
Large language models convert language into mathematical vectors and relationships between ideas. Sentences that compare and reframe ideas in hierarchical ways align well with that structure. As a result, this pattern appears frequently in AI writing.
What caught my attention is that I began hearing myself use these structures in everyday speech. Vectorized phrasing has existed for centuries, but it used to be relatively rare. Now it appears frequently in both AI writing and human communication.
Jonathan: To clarify the concept, think of vectorization as a process that takes many forms of input and pushes them through a single output pattern. In a factory, different donuts might enter the system, but they emerge packaged in the same configuration.
AI writing often works the same way. Different ideas enter the system, but the output tends to follow similar patterns. That is why AI-generated text is often recognizable.
For fiction writers especially, relying heavily on AI output can flatten their voice. Readers want to hear the author’s unique expression, not a standardized output style.
Thomas: With careful prompting and context engineering, large language models can produce writing that feels less standardized. Most people, however, do not use these tools that way.
Many users enter a single sentence into a prompt field and expect high-quality results. In practice, AI tools respond much better to detailed prompts written in full paragraphs.
Because most users rely on minimal prompts, we are seeing increasing homogenization in written language. Sentence structures are becoming simpler and more repetitive. Certain words are also becoming unusually common because AI systems favor them.
Two outcomes are possible. One is that AI language gradually becomes the dominant style and people begin speaking and writing in ways that resemble AI outputs.
The other possibility is a backlash. Readers may become sensitive to the patterns of AI writing and seek out language that feels distinctly human.
At the moment, we appear to be approaching a fork in the road. The direction language ultimately takes will depend on how writers, readers, and technology continue to interact.
Sources:
English 2.0: AI-Driven Language Transformation
AI is quietly reshaping the way we talk
Audio Is the New Dataset: Inside the LLM Gold Rush for Podcasts
AI systems are built on English – but not the kind most of the world speaks
How AI-generated prose diverges from human writing and why it matters
AI Suggestions Make Writing More Generic, Western
