# Will a 'world language' evolve over time?



## Gramm838 (Feb 25, 2014)

Sat on a bus in London today I was struck by the variety of languages I could hear, and it made me question whether, in a 100 years or so, we'll have developed a polyglot language across the connected world? 

There will always be parts of the world that retain their own distinct language, but when I think back to when I was in the Army: nothing was free, it was buckshee; nothing was brand new, it was ganz neu; we didn't do laundry, we did dhobi; if you had a girlfriend, she was a bint - and a lot of those terms were used wherever in the world I served...and even in my home area of Newcastle, an older man is sometimes known as a gadje (which is a word with Persian roots I believe)

Maybe Esperantu wasn't so far off the mark after all?


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## Harpo (Feb 25, 2014)

Spandaringlish


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## The Ace (Feb 25, 2014)

English has pretty much filled the role for which Esperanto was intended.


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## Brian G Turner (Feb 25, 2014)

I'm waiting to see what new words British English will pick up from our East European arrivals.


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## Mouse (Feb 25, 2014)

Kochanie. My kochanie.


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## Gramm838 (Feb 25, 2014)

I said:


> I'm waiting to see what new words British English will pick up from our East European arrivals.



Zaibatsu? (I'm re-reading a lot of William Gibson at the moment!)


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## Mirannan (Feb 25, 2014)

Gramm838 said:


> Zaibatsu? (I'm re-reading a lot of William Gibson at the moment!)



Possibly, but AFAIK that word is actually Japanese.

I find it interesting that so much Army slang is a holdover from the days of the British Raj. It's been 70 years now, after all!


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## River Boy (Feb 25, 2014)

Doubt it, but I hope the human race becomes resourceful enough for each individual to be fluent in 3 or 4 languages. This is entirely possible if there is a focus on second-language learning in the early years period, when our minds can still be trained to become fluent.

Countries like Germany have shown this to their advantage, and in many other regions, including poor countries, you'll find adults fluent in several languages. For some reason here in the UK there is no support for it from education ministers or bodies, even though we'd all have brighter prospects as a result. People who speak more than one language tend to have stronger brains in many other areas, even if they never leave their own country.


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## Mirannan (Feb 26, 2014)

Technology is likely to be the driver of what happens in this area. English seems to be on the way to being a lingua franca for most of the globe, probably by the power of the Internet. However, many cultures would prefer to keep their own languages (as part of their cultural identity) as well.

It may well be that technology is going to solve the problem. Already demonstrated is an augmented-reality smartphone app that provides on-the-fly "good enough" translations of printed material presented to the camera; and speech-to-text conversion is getting better all the time as is machine translation. We might get Star Trek's universal translator, at least for Earthly languages, a couple of centuries ahead of time.

It's worth noting that, in the apps I've described, the heavy work is being done by supercomputers (or close to it) operated "in the cloud" by Google and its ilk. Your phone doesn't have to do all the work!

Of course, this fact leaves room for shenanigans involving (slight?) mis-translations...


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## Stephen Palmer (Feb 26, 2014)

Languages fragment and morph so often I think it's unlikely that a global language will develop. There'd need to be a "global society" or "global culture" - unlikely imo.


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## Parson (Feb 26, 2014)

I agree with Stephen. Real language is always changing, sometimes dramatically. I suspect that there will never be a global language that is the first language of nearly all humans, but there may be a global language that is the first and more often the second language of humanity. At this point in time English is getting closer to this. But ever in English isn't the same all over. English is southern Africa is quite different than the North American English.


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## thaddeus6th (Feb 26, 2014)

I don't think so. However, there are many English variants (Chinglish, Denglish etc) which is a kind of basic English mingled with local language.


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## Nick B (Feb 26, 2014)

I don't mind as long as words (though of course not really words anyway) such as yolo and swag are banned. In my day if something was _sick_ it was ill.


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## Aquilonian (Mar 15, 2014)

Parson said:


> ... Real language is always changing, sometimes dramatically. I suspect that there will never be a global language that is the first language of nearly all humans, but there may be a global language that is the first and more often the second language of humanity. At this point in time English is getting closer to this. But ever in English isn't the same all over. English is southern Africa is quite different than the North American English.



I agree. Linguists reckon there are more extinct languages than living languages, just as there are more extinct species. Trying to prevent the evolution of languages is one of the most pointless activities. Language is organic, it evolves and adapts due to changing needs. 

Some factors encourage melting together of languages, eg mass education imposed a standard variety of the language in many countries including England. There are some accents that you only hear properly among old people. International media such as American films continues the process on a wider scale, will all kinds of americanisms creeping into British English for the past 100 years or so. But if international communication broke down, then the different versions of English would begin to diverge, and in a thousand years they might no longer be mutually comprehensible. 

Other factors encourage splitting of languages, eg nationalism, religion, and use of slang by in-groups. For instance, 30 years ago the language of Yugoslavia was Serbo-Croat, whereas now Serbia describes their national language as Serbian, Bosnia speaks Bosnian, etc. Many languages have been revived, Hebrew in Israel being the most obvious success. 

Chinese will be a serious rival to English for the rest of this century, and the long term result may depend on the outcome of the conflict between USA and China which I think is very likely before 2100. The Chinese cannot easily switch to English, even if they wanted to, because their ideographic writing system is actually very useful for them given that the different "dialects" of Chinese are actually different languages, so that words may sound completely different if the sounds are transcribed into English script, but are represented by the same Chinese character. 

Arabic will also survive for as long as Islam survives, because the Quran is said (by Muslims) to be untranslatable into other languages. 

Russian will survive as long as Russia rmains a strong and assertive country. It's alphabet is well-adapted to Russian sounds, eg shch is represented by a single letter in the Russian alphabet.


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## Aquilonian (Mar 15, 2014)

Incidentally, language evolution would be an interesting factor if interstellar travel at near-light speeds was ever attempted, enabling the crew to make journeys to distant planets lasting half a lifetime in on-board time but returning to Earth to find that 100s or even 1000s of years have passed. THey would of course find all Earth languages incomprehensible on their return. Perhaps they would have to be fluent speakers of a language that is already dead and thus no longer evolving, such as Latin, Ancient Greek, or Sanskrit? On return to Earth they could communicate only with Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and Hindu priests. Unfortunately few priests are scientifically educated so they would be unable to understand the space travellers' discoveries, and might well regard them as demons if civilisation had regressed!


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## Parson (Mar 15, 2014)

Aquilonian said:


> Incidentally, language evolution would be an interesting factor if interstellar travel at near-light speeds was ever attempted, enabling the crew to make journeys to distant planets lasting half a lifetime in on-board time but returning to Earth to find that 100s or even 1000s of years have passed. THey would of course find all Earth languages incomprehensible on their return. Perhaps they would have to be fluent speakers of a language that is already dead and thus no longer evolving, such as Latin, Ancient Greek, or Sanskrit? On return to Earth they could communicate only with Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and Hindu priests. Unfortunately few priests are scientifically educated so they would be unable to understand the space travellers' discoveries, and might well regard them as demons if civilisation had regressed!





Parson shakes his head. Oh, what a horrible thought. (Parson reminds himself that the church has also been the savior and nurse maid of scientific endeavor from time to time.)I've read a lot of "hard" S.F. and time dilation is a common thread, but I can't recall one where the returning star farers could not communicate, but this is a very real possibility, especially if the civilization as regressed as you say. I suspect if the scientific base grows or at least holds it own, communication would be possible. Especially of the written variety.


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## Mirannan (Mar 15, 2014)

I can think of an even worse future scenario. One in which the only language that they could communicate in was Arabic.


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## lonewolfwanderer (Mar 16, 2014)

I think that a single world language will be a possibility, and even become a necessity. Especially when we start to colonize other planets, but then it will be more like the Language of Earth, the Language of Mars, etc. 

Naturally in this sense, each world will have their own smaller communities with their own traditional languages, but in terms of a universal language I think it is quite possible that it could, and will, happen.

English is already pretty much a world language.


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## Nick B (Mar 16, 2014)

I think it is not only likely but also necessary. It is also likely that if we do colonize other planets that a common language would remain especially if interplanetary travel and trade were prolific. There would almost certainly be sub-languages and local dialects too, much as our own languages do today.


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## alchemist (Mar 16, 2014)

Mirannan said:


> I can think of an even worse future scenario. One in which the only language that they could communicate in was Arabic.



Are their verbs THAT difficult to conjugate?


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## Mirannan (Mar 16, 2014)

alchemist said:


> Are their verbs THAT difficult to conjugate?



No idea. What, however, is the most likely reason for the scenario I describe?


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## chrispenycate (Mar 17, 2014)

The advantage of classical Arabic is that is rigid, no word allowed that isn't in the Qu'ran. So it's stable, doesn't change over centuries, excellent as a choice for a language that'll still be comprehensible in a couple of centuries time.

The disadvantage is that it's a useless language for anything technical. When a language can't communicate concepts like 'computer' or 'television' (listen to modern Arabic broadcasts; you are continuously hearing technical words in English or French because the equivalents don't exist in Classical Arabic). So Saudi, for example, is evolutive; very slow, but the language changes with time. And drifts into incomprehensibility with time.

Computer data is stocked differently with time; would there be all the back translations, each generation of software, or would it be a question of regenerating old programs, as was almost the case in NASA already?


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## JoanDrake (Mar 17, 2014)

Mirannan said:


> Possibly, but AFAIK that word is actually Japanese.
> 
> I find it interesting that so much Army slang is a holdover from the days of the British Raj. It's been 70 years now, after all!




How do East Europeans use zaibatsu? In Japan it used to mean "military- (government?)- industrial complex" and remains a pretty important aspect of their entire culture to this day.


While disliking acronyms one military example from WWII (?) has a particular charm for me. OSIAT, Oh **** It's A Tank, just seems to tell a whole little story in just one word.


I agree with others here that we're  developing a sort of World pidgin already, and it's based on English, though in number of speakers Chinese still mostly beats everything.


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## Moonbat (Mar 17, 2014)

One of the points made earlier was that language diverge when the speakers do not have contact with each other. In the modern global community the speakers do have contact and will (unless a zompocalypse happens) continue to have contact, so will this means that language will converge onto a global generic language, that still evolves over time but one that everyone has access to and so can keep up-to-date.
The world is only (probably) going to get more connected, not less, so maybe the rate of convergence will increase.


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## Stephen Palmer (Mar 17, 2014)

Moonbat said:


> One of the points made earlier was that language diverge when the speakers do not have contact with each other. In the modern global community the speakers do have contact and will (unless a zompocalypse happens) continue to have contact, so will this means that language will converge onto a global generic language, that still evolves over time but one that everyone has access to and so can keep up-to-date.
> The world is only (probably) going to get more connected, not less, so maybe the rate of convergence will increase.


 
We have more than one different language/language style - ie textspeak for texts/Twitter and real speaking for real people. Even a totally internetted world would still have thousands of niches where individual languages could evolve.


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## Mirannan (Mar 17, 2014)

Stephen Palmer said:


> We have more than one different language/language style - ie textspeak for texts/Twitter and real speaking for real people. Even a totally internetted world would still have thousands of niches where individual languages could evolve.



Indeed. Other dialects (other than traditional ones, which can be fairly impenetrable) might include Fannish, various technical jargons, MBA-speak, PC-speak and government bureaucratese. Oh, and politician-speak in which the whole idea is to avoid saying anything while sounding as if you are saying something profound.


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## Moonbat (Mar 17, 2014)

Would these be different languages or just dialects of a single language? Not to be too pedantic but you said 'thousands of niches' but only actually listed 2, and then Mirannan only listed another 5, but I don't think PC-Speak can be classed as another language, in some cases words might have a meaning that isn't the exactly the same as the general public might use, but it isn't a different language, it is just different jargon.


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## Gramm838 (Mar 17, 2014)

JoanDrake said:


> How do East Europeans use zaibatsu? In Japan it used to mean "military- (government?)- industrial complex" and remains a pretty important aspect of their entire culture to this day.



That was me mis-reading the context of the book - it was centred around Russians but used zaibatsu a lot!

Maybe the whole world population should learn sign-language as the face to face communication...it might stop teenagers using the word 'like', every other word, and totally out of context. I mean, OMG, literally.


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## Mirannan (Mar 17, 2014)

Apparently the English used in Singapore is significantly different from standard English, too - lots of Chinese and Malay loanwords and butchered pronunciation of English ones. This is going to happen a lot, where English is used as a second language or lingua franca.

Fun question: What was the trade language generally used in the Roman Empire, at least the Mediterranean shore part?


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## Parson (Mar 18, 2014)

It has to be Greek. Although one might think Latin, Greek was the trade language.


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## Bowler1 (Mar 19, 2014)

Travel anywhere and there are always local words (usually naughty swear words) that have meaning for that area only. I believe us humans have a natural tribal instinct and group/herd mentality and this creates divergence - a good thing in my humble view.


The real question I would pose is why we'd need a single world language?


Take a word, any word, any language- and type it into Google. You will get a translation. This is basic stuff and already we have this power at our finger tips, in our phones and with us all the time (assuming you use a smart phone). Google glasses may be the next step in this evolving computer power, who knows. But I can see a point when I say hello in English, you say hello in Russian and we both get translations and chat away happily. So I don't see the need for a single world language, when we can use computers to translate for us (sometime soon I suspect). Humans being naturally lazy, we'll just use our computers (phones, glasses, implants) to help us along and not bother learning a language when we don't have to. If enough people are lazy (I raise my hand here, and proudly say - I'm lazy) then a world language won't ever take off. 


I don't see convergence happening today, and I really doubt it will happen tomorrow.


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## Gramm838 (Mar 19, 2014)

Bowler1 said:


> If enough people are lazy (I raise my hand here, and proudly say - I'm lazy) then a world language won't ever take off.



I served in the Army in Germany for almost 12 years and spoke the language well...and the lazy British attitude of not bothering to learn a foreign language really pissed me off every time I came across it 

With your description of the future world, we'll all end up like the passengers on the Axiom!


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## Bowler1 (Mar 19, 2014)

Yay... WALL-E. 

Axiom with a google marketing logo on maybe?


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## Aquilonian (Mar 23, 2014)

Bowler1 said:


> ...I believe us humans have a natural tribal instinct and group/herd mentality and this creates divergence - a good thing in my humble view.



Very much agree- divergence and convergence may be about equally matched over very long periods of history. But I disagree with this:




Bowler1 said:


> The real question I would pose is why we'd need a single world language? Take a word, any word, any language- and type it into Google. You will get a translation.



-because this assumes that all words are directly translatable, and they're not. Different cultures don't think the same, they have different assumptions at the most basic level. Therefore, apparently equivalent translations can be very misleading.

One example- the concept of "peace". In classical Arabic, peace = "salaam". This is related to "Islam" which is translated as "submission", and "muslim" which means "one who submits". (Related Arabic words often have the same consonants but different vowels). So the underlying assumption seems to be that peace is obtained through submission, in this case submission to the will of God. Whereas another society might assume that peace is obtained through mutual toleration. So the use of one word to translate two very different concepts could cause serious misunderstanding. 

Another example- when people ask me "do I believe in God?", I'm very cautious about answering "yes" or "no" unless I already know what they mean by "God".


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## chrispenycate (Mar 23, 2014)

Not only do my thought patterns modify when I change between thinking in even the few indoeuropean languages I can speak/think in (how much worse for different roots?) but every human language contains contradictions (Lewis Carroll loved pointing these out in English – as in his 'nobody goes much faster' scene). So the best universal language would not be anybody's first, would have no poetry in it, no flexibility, but would be understandable by computers, without sophisticated AI. And, when everybody can speak a language with simplified grammar and syntax, with no illogic built into its structure (which will take a lot of work to generate, since everybody's thought structures contain the root illogic of his own mother language; all thought beyond 'ouch' are in language), then it can be used between peoples of different logic structures. At least for logic-based communication; it'll be pretty useless for emotions, or seduction, or diplomacy, things based on uncertainties and lies.


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## Bowler1 (Mar 24, 2014)

Aquilonian said:


> because this assumes that all words are directly translatable, and they're not.




Of course there not, but I suspect my Google glasses would enable me to get about and order food (maybe not a beer in this example), drinks and generally make do. Tourists always look different no matter where they are and will always make small mistakes the locals hate (standing on the right used to really get my goat, but I've moved out of London now) and this is usually allowed carry on, with a little sniggering maybe. The odd wrong word choice would not be the end of the world and happens when anyone is not familiar with a language. 


I also know from living in London that salaam is not to be used with me as I'm not a believer. My Arab car mechanic explained this to me one afternoon and why he'd would only ever say hello to me, with no disrespect intended as I'm not a Muslim - but I do still take your point.


I fully agree with Chrispy below and I think in Irish, which is English, but twisted about with loads of poetry - most of it a little rude, but that's the Irish for ya!


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## The Ace (Mar 24, 2014)

chrispenycate said:


> Not only do my thought patterns modify when I change between thinking in even the few indoeuropean languages I can speak/think in (how much worse for different roots?) but every human language contains contradictions (Lewis Carroll loved pointing these out in English – as in his 'nobody goes much faster' scene). So the best universal language would not be anybody's first, would have no poetry in it, no flexibility, but would be understandable by computers, without sophisticated AI. And, when everybody can speak a language with simplified grammar and syntax, with no illogic built into its structure (which will take a lot of work to generate, since everybody's thought structures contain the root illogic of his own mother language; all thought beyond 'ouch' are in language), then it can be used between peoples of different logic structures. At least for logic-based communication; it'll be pretty useless for emotions, or seduction, or diplomacy, things based on uncertainties and lies.




Wasn't that the thinking behind Esperanto ?  24 letters from the Roman alphabet, all pronounced only one way, no silent letters, no irregular verbs or plurals, simplified grammar........

People seem to've (as I've already said) opted for English instead.  

I speak French and German with a reasonable degree of competence, Spanish very badly, with a few stock phrases of Latin, Mandarin (I speak a few words and phrases, but I'm completely illiterate), and Dutch - I could never get my head around Esperanto, though.

Of course, it goes without saying that my natural Scots is virtually incomprehensible to some people - leading to the argument that most Scots are bilingual to a degree, switching between dialect and, 'BBC English,' at will.


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## AlexanderSen (Mar 25, 2014)

The problem is the grammar. 

How ridiculous grammar would get in an world language:
Octopus - Merriam-Webster Ask the Editor - YouTube


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## Mirannan (Mar 26, 2014)

AlexanderSen said:


> The problem is the grammar.
> 
> How ridiculous grammar would get in an world language:
> Octopus - Merriam-Webster Ask the Editor - YouTube



Yup. Quite a few problems are caused by people trying to be clever.  Take the issue of the word "virus" in English. Some, particularly in the computer field, hold that the plural is "virii" or "viri" from its Latin roots. There are some problems with that.

One is that the word has been absorbed into English and there is a long-standing school of thought that using standard English inflections, for words borrowed in such a way, is fine. Another is that "viri" is actually the plural of the Latin for "man". And a slightly more subtle point is that "virus" in Latin is a mass noun anyway, similar to "sand" or "water" and as such shouldn't have a plural anyway!


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## Stephen Palmer (Mar 26, 2014)

chrispenycate said:


> Not only do my thought patterns modify when I change between thinking in even the few indoeuropean languages I can speak/think in


 
A crucial point. Erich Fromm pointed out decades ago that language is a filter for thought. Different languages therefore are different filters - including social filters, ie how we behave.


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## Gramm838 (Mar 26, 2014)

I always think you can completely confuse non-natural English speakers with the word 'mine' - "that mine there is mine, but the mine next to my mine isn't mine", and so on

Anyway, doesn't everyone in the world dream in English? lol!


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## Aquilonian (Mar 29, 2014)

An English-speaking friend of mine once volunteered at a telephone counselling service in Japan. It was mostly used by expats, but quite a few Japanese would also call them despite the service being English-language. They explained that they found it easier to express their emotions in English (ie a foreign language) than in Japanese (their native language) because such expression was unacceptable in Japanese culture. So by switching languages they switched mindset- although I guess it also helped that they knew they were speaking to Westerners.

A similar example concerns Korean airlines (think I read this in one of Har Joon Chang's excellent books). Following a plane crash, it was found from the cockpit voice recorder that a more junior crew member had realised something was wrong with the plane, but was unable to express himself assertively enough to the captain. The airline therefore ordered that in future English should be used (despite all their crews being Korean). This was to facilitate better communication between junior and senior crew members. 

English is a very "democratic" language compared to many others- for example we only have one form of the second person pronoun (you). Most European languages have two forms, one familiar and one formal, thus in French there's a word "tutoyer" meaning "to speak to someone using "tu" instead of "vous". But the interesting thing is that lower-grade office workers increasingly use the word "yourself" rather than "you" when speaking to potential customers. For example, "we would like to set up a meeting with yourself". Strictly speaking this is nonsensical, because "yourself" is a reflexive pronoun, but in this case "yourself" is used a sort of substitute "polite" form of the pronoun. In a hundred years time it may have entered the official grammar, and kids will be told off for not addressing teacher as "yourself". Alternatively, we could have had a Socialist revolution, and "yourself" may be ridiculed as a relic of the class system to be used only by Telegraph readers, monarchists, and similar cranks.


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## Aquilonian (Mar 29, 2014)

Incidentally, Benny Lewis's "Fluent in 3 months" blog contains loads of fascinating info and discussion about languages. Also found a forum about languages generally (forget the URL) with a fascinating discussion about "Mutual intelligibility". The thread was started by an American guy who had a Czech-speaking friend who'd lived in the USA since she was 15. This woman could hold a basic conversation in most Slavic languages despite not having studied any except her own. The ensuing discussion was very contradictory, but mostly consisted of speakers of different Slavic languages maintaining that they could NOT understand other Slavic languages. 

My own conclusions from this discussion were as follows.

1) Peoples' ability to understand languages similar but not identical to their own is very variable. Therefore, saying that two languages are "70% mutually intelligible" is meaningless- it depends who's talking and what about. English-speakers find the concept of "mutual intelligibility" difficult  to grasp, precisely because English has no "official" languages with  which is it mutually intelligible. So it's an unfamiliar idea for us for  a language to be "foreign" yet understandable. 

2) Ability to understand a similar language will depend largely on intelligence, since its largely about intelligent guesswork based on context. 

3) Another big factor would be psychological- ie, how anxious do people feel in the presence of a foreigner? And this in turn is largely cultural- does the speaker distrust or even hate foreigners generally, regarding them as spies, infidels, or parasites? Does their culture think it's OK to mock peoples' mispronunciations or grammatical errors- in which case they'll be inhibited from speaking themselves for fear of making errors?

4) How much practice do they have in all of the above? People in remote rural areas may never meet anyone with a different dialect, whereas in big cosmopolitan cities they're surrounded by them and learn early to make sense of different modes of speech. 

5) Finally, language is very political. Apparently when Bulgaria and Macedonia were negotiating about something, the Macedonians insisted on having a translator, whereasthe the Bulgarians made a point of not using the translator but replying to the Macedonians in Bulgarian (which the Macedonians could understand perfectly well).


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## Aquilonian (Mar 29, 2014)

The Ace said:


> Of course, it goes without saying that my natural Scots is virtually incomprehensible to some people - leading to the argument that most Scots are bilingual to a degree, switching between dialect and, 'BBC English,' at will.



The only reason Scots was traditionally regarded as a dialect rather than a language is because Scotland was (for the last 200+ years) not an independent country. Many official "languages" are as mutually intelligible as English and Scots. Personally I don't find Scots that difficult- then again from age 18 I was working with colleagues who routinely spoke in Jamaican patois.


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## Grimward (Mar 29, 2014)

> I suspect that there will never be a global language that is the first  language of nearly all humans, but there may be a global language that  is the first and more often the second language of humanity.



Tower, thy name is Babel.


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## Parson (Mar 30, 2014)

Grimward said:


> Tower, thy name is Babel.


 Toward the end of that story is this wonderful line, which could be a thinking point for any S.F. book.  "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them." (Genesis 11:6)  --- Makes you think, doesn't it?


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## AlexanderSen (Mar 30, 2014)

Are you kidding? If there is one world language we all would be poorer. Everyone would be forced into following the hive mind, and we would be controlled by the grammar Nazis. We would be judged by mono-culture of super human genetically engineer perfect androids which would evoke death to you for having the slightest variation in genetic flaws such as a slur or dyslexia and for being in any way different. One error and you would fall from grace forced into slave camps to write grammatically correct jargon and political propaganda. No change would be allowed in the system and all things becoming static/rote would mean an existence of zombified  living death. 

So if you like that sort of thing, you can join the Vulcans, Androids, and Big Brother from 1984. OR you could say there is already one language in the world and it's called LOVE. Cue Beetles "All You Need is Love," flowers, and rainbows. (Might I add the Pretty Dancing Girls from Benny Hill  )

I am going to go get another beer...


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## AlexanderSen (Apr 19, 2014)

Now that I am a little less drunk. I thought I 'd apologize and try to keep the conversation going. 

Some points to note: Language evolves over time. If you look at any of the older texts outside you own lifetime you'll see how hard it is to understand language over time. The terms and words change over time due to evolution in culture. Take "Thee" and "thou" for example. It is no longer used in modern English, yet it was common a few hundred years back.

Ideas also evolve, and new political parties arise. Slang is used by youth and underdogs to break free from the power of authority figures, finding freedom in secrecy. In hostile conflicts secret codes are used to keep vital info secure. Language as a tool that always needs a level of protection for more sensitive or high priority issues; thus hierarchies and politeness. Yet it is interesting that modern English tries to do away with these such hierarchies to create a common standard English form. But then the question is how does one prioritize information?

Just a note in regards to Zaibatsu as an idea is quite fascinating. Actual Japanese has four  alphabets it uses. Japanese is structured in a way which allows you to  understand which part of the sentence is a noun and verb and how the  verb is inflected/modified visually by the type of alphabet used. So would there be different alphabets, Russian mixed in for example, to develop Zaibatsu?

Also with revolutions in communications technology the common population base of a language grows. When you can communicate to a large audience more people understand the "in" lingo. Just like watching a popular show, people catch new phrases and sayings due to the cultural influences. 

Even with a standard world language there is the problem of comprehension and understanding. Dialects evolve over time, and local accents influence communication between people from different parts of the world.


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## JonH (Jun 3, 2014)

Parson said:


> Toward the end of that story is this wonderful line, which could be a thinking point for any S.F. book.  "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them." (Genesis 11:6)  --- Makes you think, doesn't it?


It makes me think uncharitable thoughts about the Almighty if that's his reason for destroying the tower.


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## Parson (Jun 3, 2014)

JonH said:


> It makes me think uncharitable thoughts about the Almighty if that's his reason for destroying the tower.



Well that's what the Bible says. The probable implication is that there is "no evil" that humanity wouldn't put themselves to accomplish. But that does read something into the text. I like to think that in the end humanity's potential will be realized and it will be wonderful.


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## AlexanderSen (Aug 10, 2014)

Was just reading this and thought of this thread.

'Superdialects' On Twitter Might Be Voicing Your Cultural History | Popular Science


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## Michael Colton (Aug 10, 2014)

River Boy said:


> Doubt it, but I hope the human race becomes resourceful enough for each individual to be fluent in 3 or 4 languages. This is entirely possible if there is a focus on second-language learning in the early years period, when our minds can still be trained to become fluent.
> 
> Countries like Germany have shown this to their advantage, and in many other regions, including poor countries, you'll find adults fluent in several languages. For some reason here in the UK there is no support for it from education ministers or bodies, even though we'd all have brighter prospects as a result. People who speak more than one language tend to have stronger brains in many other areas, even if they never leave their own country.



I see this as more likely. A tourism vendor I met in Stockholm spoke five languages (Swedish, Norwegian, English, French, and German). And according to my uncle who felt like jokingly testing him in four, he spoke them very well and without hesitation. I am not sure where the Anglo-American disregard for emphasizing early age multilingualism has come from, but it is one of the largest things I regret about my U.S. education (besides the general quality as a whole). Especially when I meet people from other countries and see how multilingual they tend to be. It is always a bit embarrassing to be standing there like fool until they all realize they need to switch to English so I can understand what is going on.


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## Mirannan (Aug 10, 2014)

I suspect that most English speakers can't speak any other language because there is no need for it.

Speaking for myself, currently I can only speak English; but there was a time way back when (preteen!), during which I was bilingual in English and Afrikaans, as was my sister who is about three years younger than me. Why Afrikaans? Well, we were living in South Africa at the time...

Somewhat later, I was reasonably fluent (understandable, at any rate) in French and could probably still make a reasonable stab at translating French text. Vocabulary might be an issue. And because of the extremely rusty Afrikaans, I might be able to manage after a short while in Dutch. I say might, because Afrikaans has simplified syntax compared to Dutch and is liberally sprinkled with loanwords from various African languages.

So that's me, and I don't think I'm all that unusual. English only for now, but would be able to adapt to at least two other languages reasonably quickly if I had to. I think.


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## AlexanderSen (Aug 10, 2014)

the beauty of learning another language is that you learn new ways of expressing yourself. As each language has its own unique way in which you can express.


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## paranoid marvin (Aug 10, 2014)

There are enough troubles in the world with people not speaking the same language. I dread to think how much worse this would be if we could all realise or understand what others were saying about us.


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## Ray McCarthy (Aug 10, 2014)

Only about 1/3 of China speaks Mandarin. I don't know how many in China can speak English.
Because of Technology and all the incompatible native languages, popularity of English in India is rising faster than ever.

English is now the universal language and all main stream programming languages use English nouns and verbs (Properties/Variables/Constants,  Functions/Actions/Procedures).  
I've edited programs written by people with other language than English as their native language, Basically I only had to use "google translate" for comments, though programmer created named variables and parameters are  usually in mix of English and the other language.

"google translate" is a bit tricky at times and misleading. It uses the "rosetta stone" brute force method rather than parsing, grammar, AI etc imagined for 40 years. They took loads of EU documents as their initial "Rosetta Stone" as these use all the official EU languages to say exactly the same thing.  Hence I find, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Arabic, Farsi (Iranians) and Hebrew hard (via Google). The Irish is poor. But partially because a lot of Irish is poor!

Strange fact ... The closest living languages to the Celtic family are Arabic and Hebrew. Unlike Arabic and Irish (Irish simply adjusts spelling of English words), Hebrew has developed "modern" words for keyboards etc that are actually used.

(Irish & Scottish Gaelic are very close to allow mutual understanding. Manx, Cornish and Welsh hard to impossible for Irish speaker. Manx adopted English Spelling rules, so the written language is a bit harder for Irish speakers unless they read it as if it's English! I find Irish pronunciation almost impossible from the written word, though I do know some rules, but the pronunciation of vowels is completely different in Ulster and Munster)


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## Vertigo (Aug 10, 2014)

I believe that with the advent of true global communications we will gravitate towards a common language. This is already happening with English being the universal technical lingua franca (for example it is the only language used internationally for air flight control). We are still very much in the early days of global communication as, for most of us, it only dates to the rise of the internet; maybe 15 years, which is nothing. Whilst English might not be spoken by the largest number of people globally it is spoken by the largest number of different nationalities. 

Personally I believe this to be inevitable; it might take 100 years and the final language might be somewhat different to the English in common use today, but maybe not as different as you might expect. Slang additions to English come and go but the core language doesn't really change all that much (I have no problem at all reading and understanding books written a hundred and fifty years ago, though I may find the structure a little different and some of the words that have fallen into disuse). Different languages, dialects etc. evolved through isolation which is largely gone in this brave new world of ours.

Current local languages will continue to be used for quite some time, I'm sure, but are likely to go the way of languages like Gaelic or Welsh; marginalised with less people using them (despite the best efforts of enthusiasts). There were a series of street interviews done with teenagers in the Hebrides (main stronghold of Gaelic) a few years back. Amongst other things they were asked whether they used Gaelic to speak amongst themselves. The almost universal answer was 'no, we use English to chat amongst ourselves and only really use Gaelic when talking to our grandparents.'

I do think it is rather sad but I also think it is inevitable. And for those of you who condemn the English for not learning other languages and for the English speakers who feel guilty about it, remember that pretty much throughout the world everyone is constantly exposed to English through music, film, TV, books, internet and radio (particularly the BBC World Service) whilst English speaking people mostly have very little exposure to other languages. It is inevitable that we look bad linguistically.


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## Parson (Aug 11, 2014)

paranoid marvin said:


> There are enough troubles in the world with people not speaking the same language. I dread to think how much worse this would be if we could all realise or understand what others were saying about us.



Interesting thought. My intuition on this goes the other way. The better we can communicate with each other there is more chance for understanding and compromise. If you will pardon a Biblical allusion. One of the verses about the tower of Babel has God saying "The Lord said, “If as one people *speaking* the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them." (Gen. 11:6) At the vary least this says that people in antiquity thought speaking a common language was a great asset.


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## AlexanderSen (Aug 11, 2014)

Like me, English is a ******* language which incorporates everything it touches. In regards to English: Here is video I thought was interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3r9bOkYW9s


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## paranoid marvin (Aug 11, 2014)

Parson said:


> Interesting thought. My intuition on this goes the other way. The better we can communicate with each other there is more chance for understanding and compromise. If you will pardon a Biblical allusion. One of the verses about the tower of Babel has God saying "The Lord said, “If as one people *speaking* the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them." (Gen. 11:6) At the vary least this says that people in antiquity thought speaking a common language was a great asset.



I agree that it _should_ be a great asset, and would be if the majority if the human race was understanding and willing to compromise. Unfortunately many people aren't , and quite often use religion as a reason for not being so.

To paraphrase, it is better to be ignorant of another's language and think them disparaging of us than to understand them and remove all doubt.


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## Gramm838 (Aug 11, 2014)

Having listened to a a blonde airhead talking on her phone for the whole of my journey home on the train tonight (and she was still talking as I got off), there clearly is a new world language, and its called 'Iwaslikeohmygodlike?'


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## Abernovo (Aug 11, 2014)

Since when is that a new language? It's, like, so over...I mean, gnarly much?

I'm sure others will get the reference.


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## Ray McCarthy (Aug 11, 2014)

Fake blonde.

I mean how many blonde men do you see? Real blondes probably now dye raven or chestnut so they are not mistaken for these "blondes" you speak of.

I think Samuel Pepys makes similar remarks about people's use of English, and they didn't even have phones.


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## Michael Colton (Aug 11, 2014)

I was not aware that the 'blonde' thing was still a running joke. How passé.


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## paranoid marvin (Aug 11, 2014)

You thought blonde jokes had dyed out?


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## Michael Colton (Aug 11, 2014)

Yes, I have not heard one in quite a long time. At least a decade. It seems so archaic.


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## Parson (Aug 12, 2014)

paranoid marvin said:


> I agree that it _should_ be a great asset, and would be if the majority if the human race was understanding and willing to compromise. Unfortunately many people aren't , and quite often use religion as a reason for not being so.
> 
> To paraphrase, it is better to be ignorant of another's language and think them disparaging of us than to understand them and remove all doubt.



I mostly agree but I believe the majority of the human race is understanding and willing to compromise. It's just that those who are not are extremely loud and vocal, and call those who do not agree with them as something less than patriotic to whatever cause they are espousing and this gives them a power far beyond their numbers.


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## Vertigo (Aug 12, 2014)

My position on this is that I firmly believe we will eventually, through the internet's ever increasing global communications, come to share a common language. And, whilst culturally there may be much to mourn in that, I truly believe it is the one chance we have of not destroying ourselves as a species. It is so much harder for military and governments to demonise an enemy when their citizens are 'chatting' with that enemy on the likes of Facebook. 

I can't emphasise how much I believe the internet is our best chance of eventually achieving peace. Some of the examples of it's use in recent conflicts give a tiny hint of what might be achieved. Of course it will take time; you don't change the habits of thousands of years in, what, fifteen years?


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## Gramm838 (Aug 12, 2014)

Michael Colton said:


> I was not aware that the 'blonde' thing was still a running joke. How passé.



She was blonde, so it was accurate description. The airhead bit was not tied to the hair colour.

Get a sense of humour, mate.


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## Anne Spackman (Mar 30, 2015)

A lot of rare languages will likely die out and then some time later we'll be left with a form of English, Spanish, Russian, and Chinese perhaps.  I wonder what hybrid languages will develop as well.


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## Ray McCarthy (Mar 30, 2015)

Hundreds of languages are expected to die out over next 20 years.
Chinese, English and  Spanish look like being the biggest for a very long time. The artificial Inter-Languages have revived slightly due to internet which now supports Chinese quite well. But it doesn't look like any hybrid language is likely in next 50 years anyway. 
Noam Chomsky's website seems orientated to his politics than any of these Linguistic questions.


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## Anne Spackman (Mar 30, 2015)

I would guess that it will take at least a couple to several hundred years before we have any kind of hybrid language, if we ever do have one.  I actually think that what will happen is that English and the other main languages spoken on Earth will become more simplified in the vernacular first, and if not simplified over time they will at least change, and that many different English dialects will disappear in the next hundred years, leaving a more universal type of spoken English around the world.  This will happen to Spanish and the other languages as well.  Eventually we may have a few main languages that have some words in common--I already see a lot of "Americanisms" in European languages that didn't used to be in them.  The French are trying to keep this from happening to their language.  I wonder if other countries will do the same and try to maintain their linguistic independence.


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## Faisal Shamas (Apr 7, 2015)

Don't know whether it will evolve, but we are sure going to need new languages to make new songs. There are words and phrases becoming repetitive, we might even want to develop a new grammar, a different art of saying things, if our society is to maintain novelty


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## J Riff (Apr 7, 2015)

The trick will be to keep English from degrading any further than it already has.


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## Alexa (May 18, 2018)

This tree might be interesting for those who wanna know how the old world languages evolved over time.


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## Alexa (May 18, 2018)

And another one for those who wonder how many speak the same language.


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## Parson (May 18, 2018)

Wow, thanks for this @Alexa. I do wonder how all of those languages spoken in China got counted as Chinese in general. My impression is that a lot of them can not or can barely talk to each other. In my first church I had a family who were Taiwanese Chinese. The mother of the family could speak, Mandrin, Japanese, and English. She was visiting the main land and where she was (I forget 30 years makes a mess of things) she found that she could only deal with the shop keepers in English.


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## Alexa (May 18, 2018)

I suppose there is no space left for dialects.


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## Sum Dude (May 18, 2018)

My best guess is it will be some combination of English, Spanish, Urdu (I think that's what they speak in India) and Mandarin Chinese.

What would be most interesting would be if we could combine letters with eastern characters or make them referential in some way.


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## Harpo (May 18, 2018)

Alexa said:


> I suppose there is no space left for dialects.


Dialects would need  an entire series of diagrams of their own. Just within England there's Cockney, Scouse, Black Country, West Country, Geordie, etc.
These can be further subdivided in some cases - Brummie is different in Wolverhampton and Dudley, for example (comparable perhaps to the various accents within NYC)


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## chrispenycate (May 18, 2018)

The only reason I can see for languages to concentrate faster than they diverge would be if we regularly wanted to talk to computers. The need for a universal infoglot could possibly outrace the kids' dialects developing at street level, and diverging from their motherlodes. But it wouldn't be spoken between humans much, and there would very soon be regional differences. Swiitzerteuch (Swiss German) is invariably classed as one language, but there can be so much difference between the versions spoken in adjacent valleys that they use High German or English to communicate between each other.


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## Alexa (May 18, 2018)

In this case, English should be the logical choice.


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## chrispenycate (May 18, 2018)

The language should really be more logical than English, with sufficient distinction between phonemes that it remains comprehensible despite accents and enunciation difficulties, and avoid homophones, neither of which English (in its multitude of subvarieties) is particularly strong in (as I discovered when I tried to dictate into Dragon dictate. The only reasonable solution is to have a specially created language that everyone learns and only a few total geeks talk by choice. Like church Latin, everyone can communicate, but it lacks emotional overtones, and poetry.


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## CTRandall (May 19, 2018)

A few years ago I read some research which found that regional dialect differences in the US were growing, not lessening. Despite the influence of mass media, regional identities, in the form of accent and dialect at least, are strengthening. And in Britain, try driving from York to Newcastle to Edinburgh to Aberdeen. It's all English, yet I have to translate when my parents visit from the US because they can't understand a word.

Finally, with machine translation growing in power and accuracy, it may not be long before people have little need to learn their neighbour's language. The odd mix of cultural richness and poverty presented by that possibility is interesting to contemplate.


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## Onyx (May 19, 2018)

chrispenycate said:


> The language should really be more logical than English,


Probably, but if you're talking about something evolving into a standard rather than being imposed, the selection criteria is unlikely to be logical. If we had the power to choose and then impose a language - design a new one from scratch.



CTRandall said:


> A few years ago I read some research which found that regional dialect differences in the US were growing, not lessening.


I'm not shocked by this, but I would want to see how that is happening along with population sizes and incomes. Small pockets of poor people becoming more insular isn't shocking, but their influence and reach are probably diminishing in proportion to their dialectic variance.


I think it is possible to argue that English is already the de facto world language, so the real question is whether other languages will diminish or whether more people become bilingual.


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## Parson (May 19, 2018)

Esperanto is a language which was developed to be a World Language in the 1880's I believe. My understanding is that there are people who still speak it but it has never really caught on. It is mostly considered an interesting but failed attempt at a world language.



Onyx said:


> I think it is possible to argue that English is already the de facto world language, so the real question is whether other languages will diminish or whether more people become bilingual.



Indeed one reason given for the inability for Esperanto to catch on is that English is now what Greek was two millennia ago. The language of international commerce and considered a near necessity to know if one is to be considered truly educated in most places in the world.


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## Sum Dude (May 19, 2018)

chrispenycate said:


> The only reason I can see for languages to concentrate faster than they diverge would be if we regularly wanted to talk to computers. The need for a universal infoglot could possibly outrace the kids' dialects developing at street level, and diverging from their motherlodes. But it wouldn't be spoken between humans much, and there would very soon be regional differences. Swiitzerteuch (Swiss German) is invariably classed as one language, but there can be so much difference between the versions spoken in adjacent valleys that they use High German or English to communicate between each other.



I second this, computer programming is a language, so computers are the only thing resembling a "language" that people of all cultures know and use.


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## RJM Corbet (May 22, 2018)

Concerning English as world 'lingua franca': a Chinese person working to master the English language is walking past a theatre in an English town and sees a poster which reads 'Pantomime is pronounced success' -- and thinks 'I'll never get this language right' ...


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## Onyx (May 22, 2018)

Sum Dude said:


> I second this, computer programming is a language, so computers are the only thing resembling a "language" that people of all cultures know and use.


Computer programming "languages" are more just alternative symbols that substitute for large blocks of numbers. You can't really use them to express something that couldn't also be said in binary, and it really isn't possible to say "I'm hungry for chips" in ones and zeros. The use of the term "language" is a bit misleading in this context.


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## CTRandall (May 23, 2018)

And here I thought love was already the universal language, with lust providing the syntax.


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## AstroZon (May 28, 2018)

I've seen accents merge and become less pronounced in my lifetime.  Additionally, lesser spoken languages are quickly dying off.   It will take 500 years or more, but I suspect that it will come down to one.


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## Onyx (May 28, 2018)

AstroZon said:


> I've seen accents merge and become less pronounced in my lifetime.  Additionally, lesser spoken languages are quickly dying off.   It will take 500 years or more, but I suspect that it will come down to one.


In 500 years, will all humans live within real time communication range?


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## AstroZon (May 28, 2018)

Onyx said:


> In 500 years, will all humans live within real time communication range?



If we don't demolish ourselves first, I say yes.


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## Onyx (May 28, 2018)

AstroZon said:


> If we don't demolish ourselves first, I say yes.


No star travel, even at relativistic speeds? We went from the invention of steam power to nuclear in 100 years.


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## AstroZon (May 29, 2018)

Yes, science and technology did advance rather quickly in the last 150 years (this conversation stands as proof.)  Still, I'm not sure how far into space we're going to get in the next 500 years.  It's just so vast.     

Likely we'll have sent probes to Alpha Centauri and a few other nearby solar systems.  The best hope for the next 500 years would be a space travel method that moves outside of of 3D space - like a warp.  Personally, I think it's possible.


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## Onyx (May 29, 2018)

AstroZon said:


> Yes, science and technology did advance rather quickly in the last 150 years (this conversation stands as proof.)  Still, I'm not sure how far into space we're going to get in the next 500 years.  It's just so vast.
> 
> Likely we'll have sent probes to Alpha Centauri and a few other nearby solar systems.  The best hope for the next 500 years would be a space travel method that moves outside of of 3D space - like a warp.  Personally, I think it's possible.


I'm more optimistic about interstellar flight, but even the orbit of Neptune is 4 light hours across - which prevents real time speaking between people. That might be more than enough for dialects to drift.


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## Vertigo (May 29, 2018)

Onyx said:


> I'm more optimistic about interstellar flight, but even the orbit of Neptune is 4 light hours across - which prevents real time speaking between people. That might be more than enough for dialects to drift.


We might be outside real time communication but that doesn't mean people won't talk. Also media will have a greater affect, I think, than just people talking and media - news, movies, blogs, forums etc. - will still be shared. 

I think a single language is inevitable but accept that we may settle in something comparable to high and low german; one language or dialect for international/interplanetary communication and one for 'local' communication. But I expect the latter to be no more than a dialect of the former rather than a totally different language. Just my view and of course but I think we can see it starting with English becoming the general international communication language. It is already the official international communication language for air and marine traffic and it has become the de facto language for international trade and scientific communications. I can't quote and figures for this, but I suspect that there are probably more English words on the internet that all other languages put together.


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## thaddeus6th (May 29, 2018)

Vertigo, that sort of exists with things like Chinglish, Denglish*, etc.

*Although it's worth noting many Germans have fantastic English, often better than, er, English people.


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## Vertigo (May 29, 2018)

thaddeus6th said:


> Vertigo, that sort of exists with things like Chinglish, Denglish*, etc.
> 
> *Although it's worth noting many Germans have fantastic English, often better than, er, English people.


Yeah that's exactly what I mean and why I think it's inevitable eventually. The French won't like it though.

And yeah other nationalities tend to be better at English than we are at their languages but, to be fair, they tend to get bombarded with English form an early age on media (films, tv, music) and on the internet, whereas we get almost no exposure to other languages other than at school and on holiday (where everyone tends to immediately switch to English despite my best (appalling) attempts at their language).


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