Future of English Language

Hi

 

I think English will be in the future the main language but with some modifications.

 

Why : because grammaticaly speaking, it is an easy language. The main drawback is the pronunciation. I hope it will be easier in the future to speak and understand every kind of pronunciation.

 

See you soon

I think English is now at its peak. In the future, Chinese and other languages will become more widespread, because of the changing economic balance in the world. After all, that's why English became dominant in the first place.

Also, I think English is evolving into separate languages, but it will take a long time. There are many differences between North American English, British English and New Zealand English, including differences in grammar. Our different dialects are an important part of our national identity, so they won't go away. They will continue to diverge.

I like Esperanto, even though I agree it's a little artificial and based too much on European languages. Still, I think it's a great idea, and Ludwig Zamenhof was ahead of his time. I don't think Esperanto will become a world language itself, but I think invented languages are a great idea for international communication. Quick to learn and easy to use. Way better than English! (And in case you're wondering, I'm an English teacher. ;o) )

Ok, I do agree English is pretty agressive, but I must agree with Alex about the artificiality of Esperanto. There are so many beautiful real languages out there, why invent another one who did not naturally develop in this communicative world of ours? Let us choose one that is actually used in everyday life and therefore evolving every second... So much more creative.

1. English
2. Spanish
3. Chinese / Mandrid

Obviously you can tell why these are the top 3 languages. English because of Americas influence on the world, Spanish becuase many countries speak spanish not just spain this includes most of south america, mexico and the carribean. And Chinese just because there are so many chinese people living in china! No european languages like french, dutch, irish ect. are in the top 3 because there is little of that language spoken outisde of that country. Obviously there are exceptions but the top three massly overrule the other smaller language countries like germany, france, russia, ect. The top 3 languages have stayed this way since 1985 or so and will probably not change in the next 5 to 10 years. **Unless you believe in the theory of language merging and someday simliar languaes will become one, Spanish + Portuguese, Gernam + Russian, Chinese + Japanese, Spanish + EnglisH ect.. ****

Esperanto the language of the future? Never!

Languages develop spontaneously, and that is what gives them their special flavour. Imagine what dry and boring communication we'd have without the use of idioms, local expressions; without being able to play around with language and make it into art. This is the boring world of Esperanto.

It's true that English has a dominating effect on other languages, and this has some very, very negative consequences of course. But Esperanto, which is based on European languages with European grammar and European vocabulary, is no more global in its outlook than English. At least in places like India and Africa, English has taken on interesting local forms. Esperanto could theoretically be a language for dry business exchange, and nothing else.

English to become more diverse?
The various forms of English (except perhaps some of the creoles) are very very similar. British and American English are almost 100.00% identical in grammar and vocabulary. Only the accent is different. You can travel around the English-speaking world and be understood using any of its forms. There is more variation within other languages than there is in English.

English will continue to dominate, and I think it's influence will grow. The sad part of this will be that people will be less inclined to learn other languages. It's not what I would hope for, but that seems like the reality.[br][edited by alex_ca on 2005-04-26 07:01:56]

Perhaps the evolution English will face is to become MORE common, not more diverse. I say this because of Broadcast Media. For example, in the Arabic countries, the dialects have been so distinct that people from various countries can not understand each other. However, with the increasing role of Broadcast Arabic, the language is becoming more unified. The continued expansion of English as an international business language will probably strenghthen it's commonality and weaking various dialects. An example is the word for "get in line". I had never heard the Brittish word "queue" several years ago, but now it is becoming commonplace in America.

I think english will save it's position for 20-30 years minimum. But probably it will be other english because every language must be developed, in other case it will die. It's diffcult to say will english be alive forever or not, but i know that owing to progress of communications will grow interchange between people of different countries and english will be deluted by many other languages. May be this process will conduce to appearing of new unified for whole world language.

I dont think that English will evolve into separate languages in the future. The closest it will come to is probably dialects and slang in different parts of the world, such as American/British/Australian English. Still, these are all under ONE language. I doubt that the grammar structure or anything drastic will change as it did with Latin, partly because of the speed of communication nowadays. Back then, the languages evolved because of their seclusion. separate communities developed separate languages because they had pretty much no contact with the others, or at least far far far less than we do today. With telephones, computers, internet, and global politics in play, it seems as if the opposite is more probable. We could be moving now in the direction of combining languages, instead of breaking them apart.