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Will all languages eventually merge with English
As the presence of English continues to grow and influence other languages, will they all end up being English hybrids like:
Spanglish, Franglish, Germlish, Italish, Russlish, Arablish, Hindlish, Chinlish ???
I doubt it. The influence of the US, and the West in general, is starting to decline at a rapid pace now. In a few decades, Chinese should be dominant. I doubt there'll be enough time for a merger with English to take place. Maybe a merger between Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, etc. might be in the cards, though?
No. It will never happen. English is not as dominant as people like to claim. On the internet it may seem so, but remember the internet is not the mainstream. I think in the end things will stagnate, reach equilibrium. Kind of like how they are now.
<< The influence of the US, and the West in general, is starting to decline at a rapid pace now. >>
It's debatable, but I certainly don't see it as rapid. << Chinese should be dominant. >> That depends of MANY variable factors. Besides, I may be wrong, but IMO I don't see a complex, non-alphabet language becoming mainstream internationally. The US won't disappear and may come out of its present slump. << I think in the end things will stagnate, reach equilibrium. Kind of like how they are now. >> There is little sign of English stagnating. Take China for example. Many or most students there are learning English. Anyway, I think this thread is more of a joke.
<<It's debatable, but I certainly don't see it as rapid.>>
Compared to the rise of the West, which took perhaps 1000 years (from 1000 to 2000), I think the decline will be fast. By 2100, the White European population (in Europe and elsewhere) will be an insignificant fraction of the world's total. Maybe some foreign power not hung up on political correctness will even have exterminated the Europeans by then.
According to David Graddol, a British expert in languages, the equilibrium idea is strong.
He says that in the near future there will be 5 big languages with the same status and their influence area: English (North America, UK, Australia), Spanish (Latin America, USA, Spain), Chinese (Asia), Arabic (Arabic World) and Hindi-Urdu (India, Nepal and Pakistan). Other languages will decline a little but they will be also important: French, German, Italian, Japanese, etc. We will have a multilingual world without the dominance of one language.
English and French are the only 2 global languages so Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, and Spanish will be half less important than these 2.
So much of the baseless predicitons of David Graddol. He even said that English will decline.
French in Quebec will merge with English. Young people in Montreal already speak a mixture of English and French.
Spanish in Hispanic America will merge with English. Young people in Hispanic America speak Spanglish.
No; this has nothing to do with English's place in the world, it's simply a fact that languages change. There will never actually be a single world language because, even if you could get everyone to use the same language, it would eventually split into dialects and other languages.
Yeah, and then again, there are languages more complex than English, why would they merge with English? Maybe they'd absorb it instead.
"it would eventually split into dialects and other languages."
The world is too developed for that to happen. Education locks language into place, and prevents dialectical divergence. This is the last manifestation of the worlds major languages that we'll see. |