Alternative future world

I've just used my Future-Telling-Globe-Machine to see how the world will look a couple of centuries from now: political nations form large groups of "continental geo-entities", of which the European Union was the model and percursor.
Language wise, the somewhat foggy picture arises:

In North America the working languages of their Confederation are English and Spanish (with an auxiliary but not official role for French).

In South America, Spanish and Portuguese.

In Africa doubts arise; the Globe could not tell which of the two future scenarios will prevail: French, English, Portuguese and Arabic as official languages of the African Union; or Swahili, successfully adopted by the Pan-Africanist-Faction of 2093 (date provided by the Globe-Machine).

As for Asia, the Globe could not provide for a clear answer at all; it seems the variables are still too many, even for a machine of such sophistication.

What is your opinion?...

I've run the Future-Telling-Globe-Machine on "Europe".

The Globe gives a 73% probability of English being declared the official, vehicular language of Unified Europe (apparently it includes Russia, Armenia and Kazakhstan, among others), in the year 2033; 26% probability on Esperanto; and 1% "other" (the Globe doens't specify).

The Globe-Machine always ends with this sentence across the Tele-Screen: "Remember: these are just probable future outcomes. The future remains open."

How about that?...

Hello Brennus,

1) - I don´t quite follow that line of reasoning. How do you explain that northern european english also settled tropical lands, like Australia, or Spanish mediterraneans settled the cold, high-altitude Andes or cold Patagonia? Or that the northern Germans or Dutch didn't really settle anything of consequence outside Europe as neither did other mediterraneans such as the Italians or Greeks? Surely one must find reasons in particular historical circumstances and not genetic/climatic variables.

2) - Portuguese becoming the dominant language in the Southern Hemisfere?? I can't say I wouldn't like that to happen, but that sounds really, rally far fetched (an impossibillity even), why do you say that?

Portuguese might be the most spoken language in the Southern Hemisphere but the idea of it being the dominant language there is rather odd as the Southern Hemisphere is not and is unlikely to become a meaningful cultural or economic entity. This is simply because compared with the Northern Hemisphere the Southern Hemisphere has little land surface and what land there is is widely divided by the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans. Most of South America is in the Southern Hemisphere, but its natural links are with Central America and Mexico to the north, to Europe because of its colonial history and to North America for economic reasons and not to Southern Africa. Similarly Southern Africa's natural links are with the majority of Africa in the Northern Hemisphere and to Europe. Australia and New Zealand's are to Europe, North America and Asia.

Lastly, Portuguese is important in the Southern Hemisphere because of the size and population of Brazil. Without intending to offend, Angola, Mosambiek and East Timor are of little importance due to their smaller populations turbulent histories and underdevelopment. Hopefully the situations in those three unfortunate countries will improve, but I cannot see them becoming very significant on a world scale. Angola and Mozambique naturally look towards South Africa and East Timor towards Australia.

« It was the cold climates of Canada and the U.S. in the first place that prevented the Spanish and Portuguese from settling and exploring them, making it almost inevitable that the French and English would do it instead. »

I've never heard that one before. It gets very cold in Madrid during the winter (by European standards, which isn't very cold by Canadian standards anyway).

Since the climate reasoning involved spanish, french and english then the references should surely be madrid lisbon paris and london. Of all these, madrid winter is slightly warmer than Paris, and slightly colder than london.

But anyway i think its obvious that the main factor behind Spanish pattern of expansion in America is clearly the availability of gold and silver, which is what they were looking for, rather than nice plots for a second home

« It was the cold climates of Canada and the U.S. in the first place that prevented the Spanish and Portuguese from settling and exploring them, making it almost inevitable that the French and English would do it instead. »

In the case of the Portuguese, it was not the cold weather that prevented them from exploring the lands. It also snows in the north of Portugal.The fact is that there was not enough people to colonise so many lands. In 1500 there only was one million and two hundred thousand Portuguese, many already in the colonies.

Let's return to my original question. I was asking what any of you think about linking languages helping geo-political entities arise from today's continents. What should be the unifying language of Europe? Of Africa? South, North America, Asia-Oceania (Asiania)?

Will each of these regions develop their own language or adopt a common linking language (like English); if so, will it be English? If not English, what then?

For all practical purposes (and influence) Chinese is spoken only in China. It is very big, but just in one place. It's like a very large company that enjoys a monopoly in just one country/market. It cannot expand outside China so it's more or less useless.

But a language like English is like a smaller company, with less money power but present in lots of markets and with many, many assets (native-speakers, second-language speakers).

Therefore the English "company" is able to be much more successfull than the Chinese "company".

In an alternative future world, I can picture the English language being more Latin than what it is now. Simply because Latin is and will be highly regarded more and more in academic circles. In the somewhat distant future, English may likely shed some, or much of its Anglo-Saxon/Germanic words.

creo que sí porque el mundo ya no existirá cien años más adelante...

"It was the cold climates of Canada and the U.S. in the first place that prevented the Spanish and Portuguese from settling and exploring them"


No, the Spanish explorers reached to Southwestern coast of Canada, which is quite northern, but they were not very interested in North America because there was no Gold. For example, The Spaniards despite being the first settlers in South America, gave Brazil to their cousins the Portuguese, because there was no gold, and hence it was useless. Even Argentina, whose shouthern part has quite a cold climate was explored by the Spaniards because they assumed it had tons of Silver .

"In an alternative future world, I can picture the English language being more Latin than what it is now. Simply because Latin is and will be highly regarded more and more in academic circles. In the somewhat distant future, English may likely shed some, or much of its Anglo-Saxon/Germanic words"

I agree, I think that English will become a Germanic/Romance androgenic language.

Everybody will speak Chinese in the future.

the world's most powerful regions will be the North American Union, followed by the European Union and then China maybe mixed with Japan.