7 Grammar

Schoolchildren learn that grammar is a set of rules that should be followed to speak and write correctly. Until the twentieth century, grammar was prescriptive. It was a political project of pedagogy for empire building and the foundation of educational standards for the emerging nation-state. Then, when it became a field of research—what we know today as linguistics—grammar became descriptive, too. Prescriptive grammar books for schools continue to be produced, but a new genre of grammar was born, aimed at describing how languages are spoken and written.