Future World Languages
- Thread starter Strategos' Risk
- Start date
I'd like an evaluation of the major languages I had in my first post:
World Mandarin
Standard English (many Spanish words included)
Hindi
Arabic
EuroEsperanto
Russian
Japanese/Korean (is there a way to combine? If not, which would be in more use?)
Swahili/Hausa (Are there any major African languages besides Swahili?)
World Mandarin
Standard English (many Spanish words included)
Hindi
Arabic
EuroEsperanto
Russian
Japanese/Korean (is there a way to combine? If not, which would be in more use?)
Swahili/Hausa (Are there any major African languages besides Swahili?)
World Mandarin-Plausible; Uses two scripts, and includes significant English-derived vocabulary, see Singlish.Strategos' Risk said:
Standard English-Definitely plausible and likely, with Spanish and maybe East Asian words intertwined?
Hindi-Possible, but not likely, as the use of English speads in India and already among Hindi speakers abroad.
Arabic-Likely, it could be the only major world language not to use the Roman script by the twenty-third century
Euroesparanto-A more cohesive, antianglophone European Union develops, and adopts Esparanto as its official language. A similar policy could be implemented in part(s) of Latin America
Russian-Possible, but could be replaced with EuroEsparanto. Cyrillic could be abandoned, but the use of Russian would depend on a resurgence.
Japanese/Korean-Likely the former will go into broader usage, then again, there are more Korean churches in the West and many Japanese speak English...
Swahili/Hausa-Nice idea. It could include elements of Bambara and/or Malinke.
Leo Caesius
Banned
I'm game.Strategos' Risk said:
World Mandarin - While many of the world's artists, politicians, scientists, and literati will be Chinese in the coming century, Mandarin is encumbered with a very difficult writing system which makes it a bad choice for a global interlanguage. It takes westerners years to master a basic kindergarden-level reading proficiency. If Mandarin were written with a romanized script... a la hanyu pinyin ... that might be a different story.
Standard English (many Spanish words included) - I'm not so sure the loanwords would be so predominantly Spanish. What we'll see is the rise of a written standard of English (such as the "International English" option used in IT) increasingly departing from the colloquial varieties to the point where the two are no longer mutually comprehensible. The situation will be very comparable to e.g. French, where people appeal to a common standard when writing, but no one actually speaks that way.
Hindi - I'd also add Urdu to this. Unlike Mandarin, however, the English language is fairly widespread as an auxiliary language wherever Hindi and Urdu are spoken.
Arabic - I'd imagine that Arabic will disintegrate into regionalized colloquial dialects in the coming centuries. Some simplified version of fusha (the standard written dialect) may survive as a written standard, but it will become increasingly marginalized as Latin did in the history of Europe.
EuroEsperanto - I don't see much of a future for Esperanto, to be honest with you. Or Europanto, for that matter, which started as a joke.
Russian - If the Russians are able to pull their demographics out of freefall, then Russian will survive, although in the 23rd century I don't expect Russian to be any more important than Mandarin is in our time.
Japanese/Korean (is there a way to combine? If not, which would be in more use?) - Note that these two languages are mutually incomprehensible and there is some doubt about their relation to one another. Of the two, Japanese is more prestigious and IIRC numerically more significant. I expect Japanese will occupy a position similar to Norwegian or Scandinavian in today's world - spoken at home, but giving way to English (or, in this case, Mandarin) for international contacts.
Swahili/Hausa (Are there any major African languages besides Swahili?) - Yes, tons. Swahili is largely a trading jargon derived from a Bantu base with a heavy Arabic admixture. Hausa is a member of the Chadic group of the Afro-Asiatic family of languages. The two are not related.
I don't really see either language becoming a regional interlanguage in the 23rd century. All of Subsaharan Africa is likely to go English or Arabic in the future. Certainly, the Bantu and Cushitic languages are likely to be spoken in the homes, but their sphere of usage will be continually constrained.
Leo Caesius
Banned
Singlish can refer to any number of phenomena along a dialect continuum from pidgin English (heavily influenced by Malay and various Chinese dialects, above all Hokkien) to fairly standard English with a few Hokkien admixtures (such as the word kiasu). It really doesn't have much to do with Mandarin at all.Wendell said:
Mandarin, on the other hand, is famous for having very few loanwords at all, because they don't adapt to the phonetic structure of the language. For example, instead of computer, they use the term dian nar, meaning "electric brain," whereas every other language uses some variation on the English term. Off the top of my head, the only truly English loanword in Mandarin that I can think of is han bao bao (hamburger). There may be others (in which case I'm sure Hendryk will ellucidate them).
Whats the future like? I think who ever got into space and colonized it first might have the predominat language. Personally, nations would keep some form of their orginal lanuage. On top of that would be a somewhat world language. Like how right now most people learn English, because of how much business people do with English speaking countries. Maybe in forty years people would learn Mandarin.
Barring some kind of major event altering the course of things, I would expect the EU to become a more-or-less English-speaking area in the next century or so. National languages will not disappear - indeed, most of the major ones will continue to be used in everyday life by millions of people - but people meeting in any kind of formal context will use English. Right now, there is an increasing movement to learn English (all children going to school in the old EU today are required to), English-language secondary and tertiary education is becoming popular in many countries (my home town now has 14 anglophone schools and a private English-language university, and Germany is a latecomer to this development compared to the Netherlands or Denmark). In much of the EU, films are not dubbed and everyone watching TV is routinely exposed to English. In the EU's institutions, only the French still insist on not speaking English. I would expect a distinctly EU English to develop in the next century or so, less Spanish and more Slavic than the US variant.
As to the rest,
As to the rest,
You are forgetting Spanglish, it will be the US language in a near future.
Around 2076 the "Spanglish only" law will be issued
Around 2076 the "Spanglish only" law will be issued
For Spanglish bein a major international language, that's doubtful outside the American continents; Australia in particular, and AFAIK Canada, have nothing like the US' huge Spanish-speaking majority (if what I've heard is correct). Britain IRC is in about the same boat, and India having the largest English-speaking community in the world would be heavily influential in the development of English.
Whoever suggested the dissolution of English as a cohesive whole is probably right, with a "High English" hanging around like Latin does today, an American "Spanglish", an Indian version (I don't know what it'd be like, I know few Indian peeps), and a roughly standard "Low English" spoken in England itself and the Oceanic colonies.
Mandarin is, as Leo pointed out, a bitch to learn. I had five-and-a-half years of it, and, while in the same amount of time I developed enough French to be able to go on exchange with little difficulty, could barely carry a conversation on a proscribed topic. Maybe if they adopted pinyin as the standard (as I understand it's currently taught alongside character), and became lighter on the tonal variations, it might gain more use as a world language.
-Though I always did like how they used literal translations of things.
I reckon Esperanto's a crock; from having learnt Latin and French and being a native English speaker, I can understand Spanish, yet Esperanto goes straight over my head. Whoever thought it up was on crack, IMHO. It's too forced and contrived, and attempts to combine too many disparate elements. If you want a bastardised European language, English is already there, so why make up another one?
AFAIK, Japanese and Korean don't match up. However I do see words from Japanese definitely leaking into English through the fanboy subculture, then trade links. The same would go for Chinese if it weren't so alien to European languages with its block-construction linguistic method.
Russian, a mate of mine who's Ukrainian can read Russian, so, maybe a pan-Slavic language might be appropriate, if, as Leo said, they can pull their demographics out of freefall. It'd be interesting what happened to all the other non-slavic European languages, like Greek, if they managed to survive.
Sum, a (further) bastardised English hanging around, with a simplified version of Mandarin gaining precedence as a trade language (depending on Chinese migration patterns; if they all stay home, it might just stay local), competing with the Spamericans' own bastardised English.
Africa & Middle-East, I got little clue, except that I know Arabic is kept relatively standardised by the Qur'an. Mebbe as Leo said, local variants taking precedence.
... And that's probably the worst-edited post I've made here so far...
(if what I've heard is correct). Britain IRC is in about the same boat, and India having the largest English-speaking community in the world would be heavily influential in the development of English.Whoever suggested the dissolution of English as a cohesive whole is probably right, with a "High English" hanging around like Latin does today, an American "Spanglish", an Indian version (I don't know what it'd be like, I know few Indian peeps), and a roughly standard "Low English" spoken in England itself and the Oceanic colonies.
Mandarin is, as Leo pointed out, a bitch to learn. I had five-and-a-half years of it, and, while in the same amount of time I developed enough French to be able to go on exchange with little difficulty, could barely carry a conversation on a proscribed topic. Maybe if they adopted pinyin as the standard (as I understand it's currently taught alongside character), and became lighter on the tonal variations, it might gain more use as a world language.
-Though I always did like how they used literal translations of things.
I reckon Esperanto's a crock; from having learnt Latin and French and being a native English speaker, I can understand Spanish, yet Esperanto goes straight over my head. Whoever thought it up was on crack, IMHO. It's too forced and contrived, and attempts to combine too many disparate elements. If you want a bastardised European language, English is already there, so why make up another one?
AFAIK, Japanese and Korean don't match up. However I do see words from Japanese definitely leaking into English through the fanboy subculture, then trade links. The same would go for Chinese if it weren't so alien to European languages with its block-construction linguistic method.
Russian, a mate of mine who's Ukrainian can read Russian, so, maybe a pan-Slavic language might be appropriate, if, as Leo said, they can pull their demographics out of freefall. It'd be interesting what happened to all the other non-slavic European languages, like Greek, if they managed to survive.
Sum, a (further) bastardised English hanging around, with a simplified version of Mandarin gaining precedence as a trade language (depending on Chinese migration patterns; if they all stay home, it might just stay local), competing with the Spamericans' own bastardised English.
Africa & Middle-East, I got little clue, except that I know Arabic is kept relatively standardised by the Qur'an. Mebbe as Leo said, local variants taking precedence.
... And that's probably the worst-edited post I've made here so far...
American English will likely incorporate a lot of Spanish as demographics shift.
Esperanto isn't likely to go anywhere.
Esperanto isn't likely to go anywhere.
World Mandarin- being a standardised form of Chinese and derivatives?
Standard English (many Spanish words included)- Maybe American English as it drifts away into Spanish. American in the sense of being spoken in all the Americas, including ex-Spanish colonies. Perhaps a blurry line across the USA when true english takes over for day-to-day use.
Hindi- Yes, but it woudl tend to borrow from English (and not just due to tele-help centres). Perhaps a sharp division on religious grounds between Hindi and Arabic-base in Pakistan, Bangladesh etc.
Arabic- unlikely to change, on religious grounds...
EuroEsperanto- Get off! True English (as in, the English spoken by England, Canada, Australia and most of the world's population (as a second language) will deviate from AmerEnglish, but the divide won't be sharp- I doubt mutual unintellibility will be possible in a globalistic world. Mostly a matter of vocabulary and speed.
Perhaps a tendency to consolidate into Teutonic/Norse, Slavic and Romance, as mentioned above. Certainly the French would die before adopting ENglish as a national language.
Russian- see above, Pan-Slavic language amalgam.
Japanese/Korean (is there a way to combine? If not, which would be in more use?)- I don't think they're terribly similar (no expert, mind) but the Japanese might tend towards a seperation into dya-to-day True English and traditional Japanese (with differing scripts etc) for formal occasions- almost like the Latin/French/Saxon divisions in English society circa 1100AD.
Swahili/Hausa (Are there any major African languages besides Swahili?) Depends on the definition of major. Change here would depend on how cynical/hopeful you are about Africa.
Standard English (many Spanish words included)- Maybe American English as it drifts away into Spanish. American in the sense of being spoken in all the Americas, including ex-Spanish colonies. Perhaps a blurry line across the USA when true english takes over for day-to-day use.
Hindi- Yes, but it woudl tend to borrow from English (and not just due to tele-help centres). Perhaps a sharp division on religious grounds between Hindi and Arabic-base in Pakistan, Bangladesh etc.
Arabic- unlikely to change, on religious grounds...
EuroEsperanto- Get off! True English (as in, the English spoken by England, Canada, Australia and most of the world's population (as a second language) will deviate from AmerEnglish, but the divide won't be sharp- I doubt mutual unintellibility will be possible in a globalistic world. Mostly a matter of vocabulary and speed.
Perhaps a tendency to consolidate into Teutonic/Norse, Slavic and Romance, as mentioned above. Certainly the French would die before adopting ENglish as a national language.
Russian- see above, Pan-Slavic language amalgam.
Japanese/Korean (is there a way to combine? If not, which would be in more use?)- I don't think they're terribly similar (no expert, mind) but the Japanese might tend towards a seperation into dya-to-day True English and traditional Japanese (with differing scripts etc) for formal occasions- almost like the Latin/French/Saxon divisions in English society circa 1100AD.
Swahili/Hausa (Are there any major African languages besides Swahili?) Depends on the definition of major. Change here would depend on how cynical/hopeful you are about Africa.
Leo Caesius
Banned
The written standard for Arabic today is actually quite different from Classical Arabic. People who can read newspapers struggle with the Qur'an and other classical texts. Believe me when I say that it has already changed quite a lot.Smuz said:
In any case, the written standard is already quite artificial (and was from its very inception; it's doubtful that anyone actually spoke this language, at least not the way that appears in the texts) and there's no reason it can't be tweaked further. I know I've been wracking my brains over some rather obscure expressions in newspaper Arabic for minutes before finally realizing that they were word-for-word literal translations of English idiomatic expressions.
Has anyone read Heinlein's Farnham's Freehold? It's one of his worst, but he has a neat idea in it. In the future, the white races of the earth (that is, industrialized nations like WENSA, China, Japan) nuke themselves out of existence and the mantle of civilization passes to the dark-skinned populations. They develop a kind of regular Esperanto out of Arabic, Hindi, and some Bantu African languages, written in a modified form of the Arabic script, which becomes the world language in Heinlein's TL.
If you are in Spain and you listen to our local tribal leaders (er... nationalistic) you would deduce immediately that basque, catalonian and galaic are the true languages of the future.
My guesses:
Europe will be mostly the same, but I think that most of Scandanavia (with the exception of Finland) will speak predominantly English. The area is highly bilingual with English now. I know Norwegians and Swedes who converse among each other in English for example. I think it's possible the same thing will happen in the Baltics, and the Belenlux countries. Besides that, I see little change in languages, though some small turkic and ugric languages in Russia will likely die out.
Asia will see Chinese increasingly spoken as the lingua franca for all commerce. Overseas Chinese already control the economies of most of the southeast Asian nations. I think it will become a more popular second language around the pacific rim than even English, and possibly be the world language of commerce. India will probably have even more English use than today, but I doubt that any of the large languages will be affected. I also think that Arabic will be standardized (currently the dialects of Arabic spoken in North Africa are so different from Arabian that they are basically different languages, but media is changing that), and there will possibly be an effort to have a standardized Turkic language as well (many of the languages, like Azeri, Turkish, and Turkmen, are already mutually intelligble.
Africa is very hard to predict...so much rests on how it develops. I doubt we can tell what the standards could be that develop. They may be English, French, or some regional language. Honestly, while I expect some of the smaller languages to die out as people move to the cities, I don't expect any linguistic unity.
The Americas is fairly easy. All Native American languages will have died out north of the Rio Grande except possibly Navajo and Inuit. Below that, the amount speaking them will be on the decline as well, though a lot of languages, like Quecha, Mayan, and Guarni are large enough to likely survive.
I don't think there is much to say about Australia except I would guess all the Aborigine languages will be gone. In New Guinea, I expect Tok Pisin, the english pidgin language, will become predominant, and most of the hundreds of languages spoken will begin to dissapear.
I know it doesn't sound all that different, but I think it's best to look at these things conservatively. Look at the languages of the world 300 years ago. Besides some 'native' languages dying out for obvious reasons, there has not been a great change. I expect that to continue with time.
Europe will be mostly the same, but I think that most of Scandanavia (with the exception of Finland) will speak predominantly English. The area is highly bilingual with English now. I know Norwegians and Swedes who converse among each other in English for example. I think it's possible the same thing will happen in the Baltics, and the Belenlux countries. Besides that, I see little change in languages, though some small turkic and ugric languages in Russia will likely die out.
Asia will see Chinese increasingly spoken as the lingua franca for all commerce. Overseas Chinese already control the economies of most of the southeast Asian nations. I think it will become a more popular second language around the pacific rim than even English, and possibly be the world language of commerce. India will probably have even more English use than today, but I doubt that any of the large languages will be affected. I also think that Arabic will be standardized (currently the dialects of Arabic spoken in North Africa are so different from Arabian that they are basically different languages, but media is changing that), and there will possibly be an effort to have a standardized Turkic language as well (many of the languages, like Azeri, Turkish, and Turkmen, are already mutually intelligble.
Africa is very hard to predict...so much rests on how it develops. I doubt we can tell what the standards could be that develop. They may be English, French, or some regional language. Honestly, while I expect some of the smaller languages to die out as people move to the cities, I don't expect any linguistic unity.
The Americas is fairly easy. All Native American languages will have died out north of the Rio Grande except possibly Navajo and Inuit. Below that, the amount speaking them will be on the decline as well, though a lot of languages, like Quecha, Mayan, and Guarni are large enough to likely survive.
I don't think there is much to say about Australia except I would guess all the Aborigine languages will be gone. In New Guinea, I expect Tok Pisin, the english pidgin language, will become predominant, and most of the hundreds of languages spoken will begin to dissapear.
I know it doesn't sound all that different, but I think it's best to look at these things conservatively. Look at the languages of the world 300 years ago. Besides some 'native' languages dying out for obvious reasons, there has not been a great change. I expect that to continue with time.
Abdul Hadi Pasha
Banned
It sounds like crap. I can still read Elizabethan English with not too much difficulty, and something like Gibbon, nearly 3 centuries ago, is easily understood. In 2100 old people will be confused by young people's slang, as has been the case since time immemorial, and the writing of today will be easily understood but sound quaint or perhaps elegant.
I can still read Elizabethan English with not too much difficulty, and something like Gibbon, nearly 3 centuries ago, is easily understood. In 2100 old people will be confused by young people's slang, as has been the case since time immemorial, and the writing of today will be easily understood but sound quaint or perhaps elegant.Fenwick said:
Abdul Hadi Pasha
Banned
Turkish will likely still be around - it's one of the largest languages and is spoken over a gigantic geographic range, and if Turkey enters the EU...
Leo Caesius
Banned
Education in Fus7a (the written standard) is inevitably at the expense of literacy. For most Arabs, written Arabic is their most difficult subject, and most educated Arabs prefer to used English rather than attempt a conversation in Fus7a. As anecdotal evidence, I spoke to the director of a tour company in Lebanon whose clientele were largely Gulf Arabs. They had an "Arabic" (really fus7a Arabic) and "English" bus. The Gulf Arab tourists overwhelmingly chose to ride the English bus because they found following standard Arabic to be too difficult and/or taxing.eschaton said:
I have met Arabs who refuse to speak the dialects and prefer to use the prestige version, but they are rare and a dying breed. When I'm with my friends, they insist upon using colloquial or not speaking Arabic at all; I quite literally can't find Arabs willing to speak standard Arabic, only other westerners like myself.
The rise of the Arabic novel, which is one of the biggest developments in the Arab world, should change things. Each country has its own novelist tradition (the most famous being Egypt, of course, but other North Africans have contributed honorably to this phenomenon), and the novels are intensely popular. They also make greater use of colloquial material than the newspapers or other printed media. I expect this to increase as the novel tradition evolves and the Arabs become more divided.
The other possible development involves Egyptian Arabic. The Egyptians are currently something like 80 million strong and account for 1 out of every 3 Arab speakers on the globe. Already the Egyptian dialect, as screwy as it is (and it is screwy) is internationally recognized. It is possible that Egyptian will rise to become the standard Arabic dialect, replacing fus7a and all the various colloquial dialects.
Well one thing that is likely to happen with English if it continues its march as world language is that there will be a standard form that is used internationally but no-one actually speaks at home, in the pub etc. Words will move between the international dialect and the base dialects but may come to be used differently.
Exactly what will happen is up for grabs, it is possible that there are stresses already in the language that will lead to a radical shift making 2300 English very different.
There may also be a tendency to regionalism. With a series of world languages and the possible decline of nation states, existing dialects of national languages, which currently are moving together might begin to diverge again. If people in Hamburg communicate with people in Vienna in English, then their is no more pressure for standardization in German.
Exactly what will happen is up for grabs, it is possible that there are stresses already in the language that will lead to a radical shift making 2300 English very different.
There may also be a tendency to regionalism. With a series of world languages and the possible decline of nation states, existing dialects of national languages, which currently are moving together might begin to diverge again. If people in Hamburg communicate with people in Vienna in English, then their is no more pressure for standardization in German.
I don't see that much Spanish entering English. What is more likely is a lot of Indian loan words (I know Indian isn't a language- I'd expect words from lots of different Indian tongues), India does have the most English speakers of any country after all.
For regionalism- this is dying out for definate. There has been studies into it for years, ever since TV and radio the language has began to become more standard. If you take a geordie from 200/300 years ago you will find his day to day speak is some weird German sounding thing when compared to a southner. Now though the only difference is a bit in the accent and a few dozen words.
I don't see Chinese spreading. I remember a piece on TV a year ago with the leaders of west pacific nations meeting to discuss furthering trade and what have you. As part of this they all agreed on a massive drive for people to learn English. The Chinese ambassador was asked by the journalist why everyone didn't just learn Chinese as China has such a huge population. It then went into just how difficult China is to learn. As a foreign language it is very difficult to learn to speak- nearly impossible to read fluently.
For regionalism- this is dying out for definate. There has been studies into it for years, ever since TV and radio the language has began to become more standard. If you take a geordie from 200/300 years ago you will find his day to day speak is some weird German sounding thing when compared to a southner. Now though the only difference is a bit in the accent and a few dozen words.
I don't see Chinese spreading. I remember a piece on TV a year ago with the leaders of west pacific nations meeting to discuss furthering trade and what have you. As part of this they all agreed on a massive drive for people to learn English. The Chinese ambassador was asked by the journalist why everyone didn't just learn Chinese as China has such a huge population. It then went into just how difficult China is to learn. As a foreign language it is very difficult to learn to speak- nearly impossible to read fluently.
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