The Sammich: I'm so old, I can see language change!

When I was young, I was very interested in languages and linguistics.  I wanted to study linguistics but I had some medical problems in my youth which I'll probably bore all of you with one of these days.

I learned smatterings of lots of languages, the most I've ever learned of any one language is French.  My favorites are Welsh and Latin.  And of course, I'm a huge Tolkien fan and have practically memorized his essay "A Secret Vice" in which he discusses language creation as a hobby.

A while ago, I noticed people starting to use the word sammich for sandwich.  More and more its turning up, mostly on the internet.  Supposedly, sammich is not just any sandwich but is applied only to the best and most delicious of sandwiches.  

This is quickly falling by the wayside as my girlfriend these days uses the terms interchangeably and mostly favors sammich these days as the primary way of referring to sandwich.  This effect is actually how come we refer to dogs as dogs while in almost every other Germanic language they use some variant of hund, hond.  Our original word for dog, hound, still survives but is not as widely used. 

Now, coining new words, neologisms, neoglossia, these things happen every day.  Either through borrowing or some radical word change.  The recent appearance of the term cray, or craycray "crazy" is one example.  (Duplication of the word root to indicate emphasis is very widely used, especially in SE Asian languages and elsewhere). 

But sammich is, I think, a genuine example of sound change through time.  The sound law ND > M is a common one in Indo-European linguistics and is actually used by Tolkien in 'evolving' is Elvish languages from a root original to the 'modern' forms.  

Also, the leveling of the w to m afterwards is very common in language change.  There's a term for it, but I can't remember right now.  This is why the m in sammich is 'long', that is its sam-mich, not just sam-ich.  The 'w' has been absorbed into the m for agreement and because its easier to say.  No really, sometimes language change and the human mind work like that!

Why is this occurring now and why hasn't this happened in the few hundred years that the term has been around, ever since John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, couldn't be bothered to take a break from his card games?  I don't know, I just like this stuff, go ask Noam Chomsky!

Seriously though, its a real eye-opener when you can see actual language change in progress.  Not just coining or borrowing, or changing meaning, but honest to goodness processes like this.  It will be a long time though before sandwich vanishes and sammich is our only word for it.  The two words might exist in parallel for some time.  Perhaps sammich will only be applied in certain situations.  Or like the word dog, sammich could quickly eclipse its elder in usage altogether.