Once we get good, universal real-time translation, we might start to see a new proliferation of local languages. And of small groups inventing their own cryptolects for privacy, trying to evolve them faster than AI can keep up.
Spoken, live languages? Very damned few. Archived languages? We might do pretty well.
In my lifetime I’ve seen accents disappearing in America. Doing tech support in the early 90s, I played a game of guessing what state a person was from. Did quite well! I could almost always match their accent. (Midwestern was my kryptonite, very generic.)
We’re seeing regional accents and dialects disappearing very quickly due to the internet, and formerly, TV in general.
For example; I haven’t heard a deep Cajun accent in ages, unless I look for it on YouTube, and even then it’s mostly intelligible. I talked to people 25-30 years ago I could not comprehend, and I’m good at languages!
Another example; Go watch Steel Magnolias from 1989. (Great movie BTW!) That deep, propuh, Mississippi female accent is all but gone except for the oldest, and those women only use it amongst each other.
In any case, English seems to rule the internet, a modern lingua franca, don’t see that changing any time soon.
There are definitely still people with deep cajun accents but they likely never leave south Louisiana.
In any case, English seems to rule the internet, a modern lingua franca
Oh yea. I can’t imagine the alternate timeline where I was stuck in Mainland China and, not only firewall issues, but also the massive language barrier on top of that.
I think people are over estimating how long 100 years is.
No languages that are currently spoken by more than a couple thousand people are going to go extinct that quickly.
Remember 100 years is in the upper end of a human life span.
You underestimate how tiny the vast majority of languages are and how few speaks them.
I don’t actually, hence why I stipulated more than a few thousand speakers
I mean, how many of the languages in 1925 exist today? What about 1825? That’s your answer for the most part, that is to say: most of them save for endangered languages and successful genocides.
Ah! But you’re not accounting for radio, then television and now the internet. Mass communication is squashing languages and dialects and accents flat, while at the same time working for archival purposes.
dedass gonbe sum nu1s2
12
12
So you’re saying Cantonese, being the top 11 most popular, will survive?
Lets hope…
Yep! For 100 years.
But in 200 years, it’s down to 9 languages. And number one (by a lot) is Simlish. It’s a long story.
I think there’ll be one sinorussolatinglish trade language and 5k highly localized dialects of our current languages.
Should work about as well as Esperanto.
Language is always a local phenomena. I suspect the golden age of the internet will enshittify rapidly creating increasing islands of local. Even as the population collapses due to climate change/ecological overshoot, I suspect more divergence. A fracturing of language and community.
100 years: A lot of smaller languages will only be available from recordings. Less than a hundred language being still in use.
200 years: Maybe a dozen still being spoken: English, Chinese, Hindu, Spanish, French (they stick to their own language like crazy, at the total expense of communication with anyone around), and a handful of others. Everything else will be archived.
Well, when Fr*nch will endure due to the almost religious fervour of their speakers, than German must too. Both countries origin story and who is considered part of the nation is founded on who speaks the language.
In comparison to the French, the Germans are a rather malleable bunch. At least then you ask something in English you get an answer instead of a silent death stare.
Sure, but my point was rather the disappearance of the language. Second language proficiency is high in Germany, but the attitudes regarding the “preservation” of German are insane. For example, there is a specific category for English words imported into German called Anglicisms. Funnily enough words like “cool” are not considered part of this group purely because they are used for such a long time that they are considered German enough (seems like language changes over time? Funny how this works!). Every teenager knows the moment when some boomer criticises them for using non German words.
linguists have estimated something like 31,000 languages have existed in human history (and that’s the lowest estimate). Currently, there are roughly six thousand languages spoken in the world. We don’t know exactly, because we’re just beginning to classify some languages in remote locations. But using conservative figures, something like 81% of all human languages have become extinct.
What worries linguists, however, is the current rate of language death in the world. Over half the languages spoken today have fewer than 10,000 speakers; that’s about like the population of Wasilla, Alaska. Around 82% of languages have fewer speakers than there are people in Waco, Texas. Linguists estimate that at least half the world’s languages will become extinct in the next one hundred years. That means, on average, a language is dying about every two weeks.
Taken from a page on the University of Houston’s website.
100 years: same amount as today minus a couple of dozen where no children currently speak them. Some people born today will be alive in 2125. (And I’m envious Idon’t get to see the future)
200 years? There is conscious effort to preserve minority languages , so hopefully the extinction slows down.
None. Everyone will have an AI interpreter implanted at birth that can translate gestures and grunting into language as we desperately try to communicate like our ancestors did.
None will be able to read, write, or speak. ChatGPT will do it for you.
100 years: The EU has made English the default language across most of the union. Small nations went first as inter Union migration obliterated the ability for these countries to teach their local languages fast enough. Far right groups tried to preserve their languages, but they’ve largely been demoted to secondary status in their own communities to English, like Irish Gaelic. The last internal holdout is French, Spanish, and Portuguese as there is enough external demand of the language. French language law mirrors Quebec law, Spain and Portugal aren’t harsh about it.
I don’t see that much shift in the Americas except the possible loss of French. Mexico may become more English speaking as more Americans move to Mexico for lower cost of living, especially with retired populations that won’t learn Spanish. Spanish in the Americas may standardize as cross-border media becomes bigger.
I expect Africa to be in a three way struggle between English, French, and Arabic as the lingua franca.
I expect languages to standardize in Asia, but I expect that India and Pakistan will choose non-English languages.
More. Francafrique will likely continue linguistically diverging from French. South Africa, Malaysia, and Scotland are diverging from English/American English. Spanish continues separating into parts.
So yeah maybe they won’t have separated enough to be separate languages yet that soon, but the European imperial languages don’t have the empires that kept them together
A lot of languages is a result of limited exchange. I think it’s fine if the less practical ones fall out of use (as long as they are documented). And if we someday lose the ability to communicate over vast distances (or get too far away), new languages will develop quickly.
Disclaimer: i’m swiss and rumansch has become a dead language
