Zyobot
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Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
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Post by Zyobot on Sept 23, 2018 13:56:40 GMT
Ever since the dawn of civilization, humans have spoken multitudes of languages across this diverse, eternally-changing Earth. The contrasts between ancient and grammatically inflected Latin, analytic and character-written Mandarin Chinese, and the linguistic melting pot that is English, are self-evident and just a sampling of what results when the course of history and happenstance shape the ways that people communicate. Heck, some of us even construct our own languages, like Esperanto or Klingon.
Given that this trend will likely continue indefinitely, what kinds of languages might emerge and be used in the incoming future?
Could space colonies develop dialects that evolve into separate tongues altogether? Will English or Arabic today become the Latin or Greek of tomorrow? Or is it possible that as we transition over to a globalized society, we start to speak a common, likely hybridized world language--perhaps one that doesn't yet exist in 2018?
And that all bars the rise and potential proliferation of technological languages, distinct from human-spoken ones.
Thank you in advance,
Zyobot
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Sept 23, 2018 14:03:54 GMT
Ever since the dawn of civilization, humans have spoken multitudes of languages across this diverse, eternally-changing Earth. The contrasts between ancient and grammatically inflected Latin, analytic and character-written Mandarin Chinese, and the linguistic melting pot that is English, are self-evident and just a sampling of what results when the course of history and happenstance shape the ways that people communicate. Heck, some of us even construct our own languages, like Esperanto or Klingon. Given that this trend will likely continue indefinitely, what kinds of languages might emerge and be used in the incoming future? Could space colonies develop dialects that evolve into separate tongues altogether? Will English or Arabic today become the Latin or Greek of tomorrow? Or is it possible that as we transition over to a globalized society, we start to speak a common, likely hybridized world language--perhaps one that doesn't yet exist in 2018? And that all bars the rise and potential proliferation of technological languages, distinct from human-spoken ones. Thank you in advance, Zyobot Chinese could become the languages of tomorrow replacing English. |
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Post by eurowatch on Sept 23, 2018 15:04:33 GMT
Ever since the dawn of civilization, humans have spoken multitudes of languages across this diverse, eternally-changing Earth. The contrasts between ancient and grammatically inflected Latin, analytic and character-written Mandarin Chinese, and the linguistic melting pot that is English, are self-evident and just a sampling of what results when the course of history and happenstance shape the ways that people communicate. Heck, some of us even construct our own languages, like Esperanto or Klingon. Given that this trend will likely continue indefinitely, what kinds of languages might emerge and be used in the incoming future? Could space colonies develop dialects that evolve into separate tongues altogether? Will English or Arabic today become the Latin or Greek of tomorrow? Or is it possible that as we transition over to a globalized society, we start to speak a common, likely hybridized world language--perhaps one that doesn't yet exist in 2018? And that all bars the rise and potential proliferation of technological languages, distinct from human-spoken ones. Thank you in advance, Zyobot Chinese could become the languages of tomorrow replacing English. No it can't, it is to difficult for that. Personally I think that new Languages and dialects Will continue to develop but that translator Technology Will develop to the point that it won't really matter what languege you speak. |
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kyng
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Post by kyng on Sept 29, 2018 1:04:44 GMT
Yeah, personally I doubt that Chinese will replace English as an international lingua franca. It'll become an increasingly common second language - but, it's really too complex to take the place of English as a language of global communication (it's very difficult to really master it unless you were born into it). Perhaps some more Chinese vocabulary will be adopted into English (in particular, terms for future Chinese inventions and discoveries), and English may be modified to make it easier for Chinese people to speak, but that's probably as far as it'll go.
I expect the number of spoken languages in the world will continue to decline (we're at about 6,000 now), but new languages will continue to emerge as new nations wish to differentiate themselves from their former overlords. (For example, Montenegrin is really just a dialect of Serbo-Croatian right now, but in 100 years' time it might be a fully-fledged language)
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Zyobot
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Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
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Post by Zyobot on Sept 29, 2018 19:30:40 GMT
Yeah, personally I doubt that Chinese will replace English as an international lingua franca. It'll become an increasingly common second language - but, it's really too complex to take the place of English as a language of global communication (it's very difficult to really master it unless you were born into it). Perhaps some more Chinese vocabulary will be adopted into English (in particular, terms for future Chinese inventions and discoveries), and English may be modified to make it easier for Chinese people to speak, but that's probably as far as it'll go. I expect the number of spoken languages in the world will continue to decline (we're at about 6,000 now), but new languages will continue to emerge as new nations wish to differentiate themselves from their former overlords. (For example, Montenegrin is really just a dialect of Serbo-Croatian right now, but in 100 years' time it might be a fully-fledged language) I wonder if we’ll see today’s lingua francas become more hybridized in the coming decades and centuries, in that they steadily incorporate elements of foreign vocabulary and the like. In that case, English will do what it’s historically done best and become even more hybridized than it is nowadays. Frankly, I look forward to the prospect of more words to pick-and-choose from and enrich the language, but that’s just me. |
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kyng
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Post by kyng on Oct 2, 2018 23:24:05 GMT
Yeah, personally I doubt that Chinese will replace English as an international lingua franca. It'll become an increasingly common second language - but, it's really too complex to take the place of English as a language of global communication (it's very difficult to really master it unless you were born into it). Perhaps some more Chinese vocabulary will be adopted into English (in particular, terms for future Chinese inventions and discoveries), and English may be modified to make it easier for Chinese people to speak, but that's probably as far as it'll go. I expect the number of spoken languages in the world will continue to decline (we're at about 6,000 now), but new languages will continue to emerge as new nations wish to differentiate themselves from their former overlords. (For example, Montenegrin is really just a dialect of Serbo-Croatian right now, but in 100 years' time it might be a fully-fledged language) I wonder if we’ll see today’s lingua francas become more hybridized in the coming decades and centuries, in that they steadily incorporate elements of foreign vocabulary and the like. In that case, English will do what it’s historically done best and become even more hybridized than it is nowadays. Frankly, I look forward to the prospect of more words to pick-and-choose from and enrich the language, but that’s just me. Most probably, yes. I also expect the structure of the language will be simplified, even more than it already is. Not sure about spelling reform, though: while it would help make the language easier to learn, it'd face a lot of resistance from native speakers who think the new spellings are simply misspellings. |
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