Controversial opinon: linguistic evolution is slowing down considerably.
1. Ever wondered why English spelling is so stupid? It's because it's based on an older version of language, but we never decided to update the spelling, so we just roll with it. How is that supposed to change in the future if it hasn't changed so far?
2. At first, text used to be a representation of spoken language. Nowadays communication is mostly via text, so it's more like "speech is acoustic representation of written language" and written language, as per example of Modern English, is not likely to naturally evolve once it's rules have been set, at least not as likely as spoken language, which can strongly vary from generation to generation.
3. Smaller languages, which potentially could be a source of new words and grammar, are quickly dying out due to popularity of English. Icelandic didn't evolve much through last thousand of years because its speakers had little contact with speakers of other languages. English will do the same by simply eliminating other languages.
I don't think we're there yet, but at some point in the future English will reach its "final form" and from there on, only minor changes here and there will happen. Just like the entire world has almost collectively decided to use arabic numerals, or the metric system, and we don't expect any revolutionary changes there anymore.
> Controversial opinon: linguistic evolution is slowing down considerably.
Borg hivemind convergence is a bog-standard HN opinion. Although still controversial enough to elicit replies. ;)
> Smaller languages, which potentially could be a source of new words and grammar, are quickly dying out due to popularity of English. Icelandic didn't evolve much through last thousand of years because its speakers had little contact with speakers of other languages. English will do the same by simply eliminating other languages.
Mainland Scandinavian languages have plenty of foreign borrowed words from decades ago, long before most people had a reason to know English (or Latin or French or). Today though English in particular should have penetrated Iceland as much as mainland Scandinavia, but Icelandic (according to Icelanders) has plenty of neologisms instead of loanwoards (apparently eschewing lame polysyllabic words like “helicopter”).
Other Scandinavian languages (language communities) could have chosen the same route as they become more influenced by English than even somewhat mutually intelligible neighboring language communities. But they don’t. Proving that language communities can choose to take different routes even in an American Western World Order.
> Controversial opinon: linguistic evolution is slowing down considerably.
(Brit here) Multicultural London English [0] and others like it suggest that language continues to evolve rapidly. I can't even do an MLE accent in the way that I could yorkshire, scouse, etc.
> written language, as per example of Modern English, is not likely to naturally evolve once it's rules have been set
Look at the rapid emergence of txt speak, emojis, etc, creating written forms that again rapidly evolve and may be unintelligible to an older generation
> English will do the same by simply eliminating other languages.
Look at the variety of English used in India. This continues to evolve independently of, say, British English and US English.
I find Indian English fascinating as a tangent to my learning Hindi. From grammatical/auxiliary word 'errors' or quirks that you can relate to Hindi (and probably other Indic languages, I'm just not familiar) to vocabulary or usage that's not incorrect at all, it's just extremely quaint sounding or rare in British English, but for whatever reason so much more common in IE.
(I can't think of a good example for the latter at the moment, for the former I mean things like 'I myself have noticed this' or 'it's common in Indian English only'.)
It also provides one of my favourite words/concepts (which isn't quite an example of the second point as I meant it): timepass. Something you do to pass the time, or a (not exactly positive, nor negative) review of something that served that purpose.
I always wondered if the, common in IT, phrases like 'do the needful' and 'do the necessary' that you hear from Indian English speakers evolved from Hindi phrases.
Interestingly India got "do the needful" from Britain, but then it dropped out of use there, while India kept it.
There are things like that idea though. I hear "different different" from Indian coworkers pretty regularly, which is apparently a direct translation of a common Hindi expression.
I'm not familiar with that one but I believe it - there's a lot of repetition for emphasis like that, and for example 'same same' or 'slowly slowly' (धीरे-धीरे) leaks into Indian English for sure.
(And to be honest, my own if I'm talking to people I attempt to speak Hindi (or Hinglish) with - once you're aware of it it seems pretty natural and effective, all of these things do, which is what I find so fascinating really. I've grown up speaking BrE completely without it, but then you hear it and it makes sense. Even head movements other than nodding-yes and shaking-no: couldn't reproduce them, but somehow they immediately make sense, and are so much more expressive than I know how to be with words, certainly to be so succinct anyway.)
1. Ever wondered why English spelling is so stupid? It's because it's based on an older version of language, but we never decided to update the spelling, so we just roll with it. How is that supposed to change in the future if it hasn't changed so far?
2. At first, text used to be a representation of spoken language. Nowadays communication is mostly via text, so it's more like "speech is acoustic representation of written language" and written language, as per example of Modern English, is not likely to naturally evolve once it's rules have been set, at least not as likely as spoken language, which can strongly vary from generation to generation.
3. Smaller languages, which potentially could be a source of new words and grammar, are quickly dying out due to popularity of English. Icelandic didn't evolve much through last thousand of years because its speakers had little contact with speakers of other languages. English will do the same by simply eliminating other languages.
I don't think we're there yet, but at some point in the future English will reach its "final form" and from there on, only minor changes here and there will happen. Just like the entire world has almost collectively decided to use arabic numerals, or the metric system, and we don't expect any revolutionary changes there anymore.