A World Language?

Tiago   Sun Jan 01, 2006 12:59 am GMT
I am not so sure about in Europe, but in the USA and South America i see a blending of languages...Take Canada for example, it has two official languages...French, and English, this is also the case with Paraguay which speaks both Guarani and Spanish as official languages...(Guarani is an indigenous languages of a people in Central South America). Also Argentina speaks both Spanish and Italian, tho Italian not officially, and in my home country of Brazil the dialogue is mixed of Portuguese, Spanish and African/Indigenous influence. and American English is becoming more Latin based then what it came out of (German)...So my question is, with all this mixing of languages, is the world, or atleast the western hemisphere moving toward one language, or are languages evolving in separate directions and influence is drawing them farther apart from each other???
Brennus   Sun Jan 01, 2006 7:39 am GMT
Tiago,

Only time will tell for sure if there is eventually one world language or close too it. However history provides us with more examples, I think, that make it unlikely instead of likely.

As a result of Alexander the Great's conquests and the Roman conquests, Greek and Latin became widespread throughout southern Europe and the Near East during the first four centuries before Christ. Many people who originally spoke Anatolian languages, Semitic, Iberian, Oscan, Sardish or Celtic now spoke Greek or Latin instead; But eventially Greek and Latin / Romance receded. They lost a lot of ground to invading Slavs and Muslim Arabs in the 7th century. Germanic Saxons in the 6th century, aborted any chances that Latin-based languages may have had to take root in England and the Netherlands.

Today, English occupies much the same position that Latin had in the ancient world; French and Spanish together occupy much the same position that Greek had 2,0000 in the eastern Mediterannean, Persia and Afghanistan. However just as neither Latin nor Greek quite succeeded in becoming the universal language that everyone spoke, I don't think that English or Spanish will ever attain that goal either.

Some kind of an international trade language blending several different languages could emerge; a contemporary Lingua Franca; British historian Arnold Toynbee thought so. He also thought that there would someday be an international sign system based on Chinese characters. However the failure of Esperanto (itself a pluralistic mixture of languages) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to gain popular support once again casts doubt on the likelihood of it ever happening in my opinion.
Brennus   Sun Jan 01, 2006 7:42 am GMT
had 2,000 YEARS AGO in the eastern Mediterannean.
Sander   Sun Jan 01, 2006 10:27 am GMT
English didn't 'come out of' German...
greg   Sun Jan 01, 2006 7:50 pm GMT
Tiago : les deux tendances opposées sont probablement à l'œuvre simultanément... Pronostic difficile !
Tiago   Sun Jan 01, 2006 9:56 pm GMT
Sander...where did i come from, and if you say indo European german came from that, it did not come from modern german, but a more early form og german that produced both english and modern german, it certainly did not come from latin. Although there are many influence from it.
Sander   Sun Jan 01, 2006 10:17 pm GMT
No, it's much easier.

English and German came from Proto (west) germanic. No language has ever evolved from German.
Sander   Sun Jan 01, 2006 10:18 pm GMT
--adding-- apart from pidgins and creoles.
Guest   Mon Jan 02, 2006 1:14 am GMT
<No, it's much easier.

English and German came from Proto (west) germanic. No language has ever evolved from German.
Sander Sun Jan 01, 2006 10:18 pm GMT
--adding-- apart from pidgins and creoles. >

Sander how about 'Afrikaans'? What would you say about Afrikaans?

1) Evolved from Dutch
2) Form of pidgin/dialect
3) ?
Sander   Mon Jan 02, 2006 11:16 am GMT
Afrikaans evolved from Dutch, in such a way that it became a new language.
Easterner   Tue Jan 03, 2006 8:17 pm GMT
Brennus: >>Only time will tell for sure if there is eventually one world language or close too it. However history provides us with more examples, I think, that make it unlikely instead of likely.<<

Based on what I know, I am much of the same opinion. It is more typical for people to speak one dominant (or international) language as a lingua franca than create a spontaneous mix of languages. Actually, there have been only a few languages that have reached the status of a "world language", that is, they have served as a vehicle of inter-cultural communication: Ancient Greek, Latin, French, English and Arabic (and maybe Aramaic, used as a language of diplomacy by the Babylonian and Persian Empires). One could also add Spanish or Portuguese, but in my opinion, they have not been used so globally as the ones above, meaning that on the whole there are relatively less non-native speakers who use them (although Spanish is becoming increasingly global, from what I can see, especially in North America, and the same goes for Portuguese in certain regions).

Sander: >>Afrikaans evolved from Dutch, in such a way that it became a new language.<<

To me, Afrikaans is an evidence that language evolution is not just something that happened in the distant past only. It could also happen in more recent times, given that a group of speakers is sufficiently isolated from their parent community (in this case, the Boers from the Dutch motherland). Although Afrikaans is still rather close to Dutch, I would definitely consider it a separate language (actually, I saw a Dutch-Afrikaans dictionary during my stay in The Netherlands).
Sander   Tue Jan 03, 2006 8:22 pm GMT
Eastener,

=>(actually, I saw a Dutch-Afrikaans dictionary during my stay in The Netherlands). <=

Vocabulary wise it's still very Dutchlike, but in grammar ... it's almost analytic!
andre in south africa   Tue Jan 03, 2006 8:50 pm GMT
>To me, Afrikaans is an evidence that language evolution is not just something that happened in the distant past only. It could also happen in more recent times, given that a group of speakers is sufficiently isolated from their parent community (in this case, the Boers from the Dutch motherland). Although Afrikaans is still rather close to Dutch, I would definitely consider it a separate language (actually, I saw a Dutch-Afrikaans dictionary during my stay in The Netherlands). <

You're right, Easterner. Just one correction. Afrikaans did not develop amongst the Boers (who spoke a dialect of Dutch, and only adopted Afrikaans in the 20th century), but by the Cape Dutch/Afrikaners.
Easterner   Thu Jan 05, 2006 9:15 am GMT
andre in south africa:

>>Just one correction. Afrikaans did not develop amongst the Boers (who spoke a dialect of Dutch, and only adopted Afrikaans in the 20th century), but by the Cape Dutch/Afrikaners.<<

Thanks for the info, I didn't know this, having automatically associated Afrikaans with the Boers. This explains why originally the official languages of South Africa were Dutch and English, and only later was Dutch changed to Afrikaans.
andre in south africa   Thu Jan 05, 2006 2:40 pm GMT
Yes, many people confuse the two groups. The Boers and the Cape Afrikaners were both descendants of the original Dutch and other European settlers. During the 18th century, many moved to what later became the Eastern Cape. They were farmers and spoke a dialect of Dutch. When the British came, they heard the Dutch speakers refer to themselves as "boere" (farmers), and it stuck as official name. The Boers in 1838 left the Eastern Cape (the Voortrekkers) to escape British rule, and eventually settled in the northern and central part of the current South Africa, founding the two Boer republics, the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (South African Republic) and the Orange Free State. They continued to speak a dialect of Dutch, which was significantly different from Cape Dutch, which by the time was already evolving into Afrikaans. The movement to recognise Afrikaans as a language, started in the Cape. After 1910, when SA became a union, the word Boer fell into disuse (except in historical context) and all Dutch/Afrikaans speaking South Africans became known as Afrikaners. In 1925 Afrikaans replaced Dutch as official language of the Union (actually, it was recognised alongside Dutch, but Dutch quickly fell into disuse and in 1961, when SA became a republic, Dutch was dropped completely. The word Boer today (except in historical context) has a strongly negative political association, used as insult for whites by black people on the one hand, and on the other hand because white extremists have adopted the name (sometimes also calling themselves Boere-Afrikaners).