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Linguaholic

The future of languages


linguaholic

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I am wondering how "our languages" will develop in time. Can you imagine how our languages will sound like in let's say 1'000 years? Which languages are going to survive and which languages might die out or will be in danger of dying out? Are tonal languages like Chinese gonna be less tonal or maybe even more tonal? (Chinese used to be a NON-tonal language in ancient times). What about the vocabulary and grammar/syntax of languages?

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I think that a thousand years from now that language will be much different than it is right now.  I think society will have a more multilingual and multicultural approach.  I'm sure that a thousand years from now our language will appear very primitive and that a large number of languages will actually be blended forms of what we are speaking now.

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Just think of what most languages looked like 1000 years ago - very different, but still, for the most part, inteligible with a bit of study. Now think of the way culture has evolved in the last 100 years, and the rate at which it has done so. I'm guessing that at this rate, in a lot less time than 1000 years, we'll probably have crossed some sort of "language singularity", where languages of our time and the future one will be completely different and mutually uninteligible. As to how the evolution of language will process, it's anyone's guess - English might be in the forefront as the basis for future language evolution, but who knows what's around the corner in a hundred years time?

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I believe words will shorten over time.

This is already happening because of texting and other activities that rely on abbreviations.

Will this be good for society?  I don't know.  I think that communicating fully helps boost intimacy in relationships because of the effort taken to share and express one's self.

:angel:

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Languages do change and evolve, even for a mere 50 or 100 years, as proven by history time and again. The interesting question to ask ourselves is, how would they evolve with the current circumstances of the nations and cultures that use them? In a now truly globalized world, I could easily see some languages almost disappearing, and being replaced by or "merged" with other languages, thus creating major intelligible linguistic groups which serve for worldwide communication, if that makes sense?

Another thing I believe is that we could start creating languages with the sole purpose of practicality and convenience when interacting with each other, something like a standardized English.

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Im hoping that over the next couple of years, grade schools will turn into bilingual schools where students are required to know an additional language. Language is developing all across the world. People are traveling to places and get lost because they don't know the native language of that country. In the US, it's almost a requirement to know Spanish.

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There is definitely a trend where languages are disappearing, unfortunately. This trend started with the industrial revolution, due to lots of people moving to the big city. When this industrial revolution happened, people with all sorts of cultural backgrounds migrated to the big city to work. As industry became more and more prevalent, eventually the age of globalization began. Although our world is more diversified than ever, with the benefits of diversity there comes a cost. That cost is culture and its languages. People as they assimilate with their new countries often find that their native language is not needed anymore, and therefore they won't pass the language on to their children (although some will). So, in about 1000 years, there will be significantly fewer languages.

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One thing that I hope will happen down the line is a streamlining system that is integrated with the technology that is available to us. I don't know why we don't have multilingual translation systems on our devices. It would make travelling much easier.

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I'm guessing my mother tongue (spanish) will change a lot, I read it was already changing.  Apparently some ''writers'' think that spanish no longer needs the ''h'' in the beginning of some words, like for example ''huevo''.  Yup, some ''writers'', specially people writing articles online, are no longer placing the h in the beginning of the words we all know that should have them.

According to them languages must evolve, and is time for the spanish language to do so... pfff!!!!  I'm sorry, I don't agree with that, for me that's just plain misspelling!  Is writing  LiKe ThIs AlSo PaRt of evolution? LOL, I doubt it.  Gosh, young people writes spanish just horribly.  I think they no longer know how to write properly. Forget the accents... heck, forget even the most basic orthography rules!

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Although some languages are disappearing due to the demise of some cultures there are still many, many languages available.  As long as there are humans and different cultures there will be language.  We need it to communicate with one another.

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  • 1 month later...

Language has been changing constantly over the years. I do believe that the change will continue into the future. With the present globalization I believe that languages may either merge or new ones emerge to facilitate better communication in trade and travel.

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I agree with an above poster that stated words will become shorter, this is evident when texting and even sometimes typing online. I believe that there will be a few 'main languages' (two or three languages spoke by 90%+ of the population). And many 'small languages' which will be used between small groups of people, certain societies, communities etc.

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In 1,000 years [if the world would still be here], considering the fact that the internet already connects almost everyone in the world, languages as we know them may not exist because for the sake of easy communication people will learn the more popular languages and those languages in turn will coalesce into one eventually.

There will be one language spoken throughout the world except in conservative countries like Arabia which will remain pretty much the same so the Koran can still be read in the original language it was written.

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