What language will the world use in 2115?

In the era of strong globalization today, knowing many foreign languages ​​is a prerequisite for each person to be able to integrate, develop and catch up with the development of the times. The world exists about 7000 languages, of which Chinese, Spanish and English are the most used languages. So have you ever thought that 100 years later, 1 in 3 languages ​​will be used by everyone in the world?

>>>50 years, 220 languages ​​were "wiped out" in India

At that time, people will travel around the world easily and conveniently than ever. The linguist, philosopher and music linguist at Columbia University, United States, had a rather insightful and interesting study of the change of language in history. Thereby, he somewhat painted the prospect of the world language in 2115.

Hope international Esperanto began in the 1880s

In 1880, a missionary from Baravia, in southern Germany, created a new language called Volapük, hoping to be applied to everyone in the world. Volapük is a blend of English, French and German words. However, Volapük is difficult to use, difficult to pronounce and complicated grammatical structure like Latin. A few years later, Volapük quickly sank into oblivion and yielded attention to another language that was invented next to Esperanto . Overcoming the drawback of Volapük, Esperanto can be easier to learn and learners only take about a day to understand the basic rules of use.

However, by the time Esperanto began to be introduced, English had quickly become the language of international communication. 2000 years ago, ancient English was used by the Iron Age tribes in Denmark. However, 1000 years later, English was overwhelmed by French right on the island of fog. At that time, no one thought that English would become as popular as today, with more than 2 billion users, equivalent to a third of the world population.

The painting reproduces the legend of the Tower of Babel, the event that leads to the division of many human languages

A biblical legend tells that in ancient times, after the Great Flood, people gathered together in Babylon city. They speak the same language and at that time, began to build the tower of Babel so big that "its summit could reach heaven". However, Jehovah stopped this intention by messing with the human voice, making it impossible for this person to hear the voice of the other person and the intention to build the tower also shattered. From there, people spread out everywhere and each region spoke thousands of different languages.

Some sci-fi movies and novels often set up a planet in which the entire population speaks a common language. Therefore, some people worry that maybe, English will gradually quench other languages, become a "language of the Earth" and humanity will lose thousands of languages ​​associated with history, culture of each country. However, this fear is still too early. In fact, changing the language of an entire country is not easy, since it has been used naturally by every resident in the first place.

Although English is widely used today, most use it as a language to communicate outside, while dialects are still used in parallel in its own orbit. But the question here is one more century, that is, in the 2115s, what is the language that people use on the planet? There are two hypotheses set out to describe the linguistic landscape after 100 years. First, there are only a few languages ​​left. Second, the language will change in a simpler way than it is today, especially the way of saying it will be completely different from the way we write them.

Does Chinese become an international language?

An English lesson for students in Gansu, China.Some argue that Chinese will become an international language in the future.However, its complexity makes this difficult to realize.(Artwork)

Some people say that it is not English, but Mandarin (Chinese) really becomes the language of the world. The idea here is that this nation's huge population plus its growing economy. However, it does not seem easy because English has built a solid foundation. Current English is deeply ingrained and has become a model for many different areas, so the transition to the new language requires a small effort. We already have QWERTY "international keyboard" or standard AC current for this reason.

In addition, Chinese is extremely difficult to learn if not exposed to childhood and if you really want to master the hieroglyphic writing system is not a simple thing. In fact, not only Chinese but also Greek, Latin, Aramaic, Arabic, Russian . are considered by most learners as extremely challenging languages. That plus the foundation that English has built, Chinese is hard to achieve close enough to replace the role of an international language. History has proven that many powerful forces have occupied and ruled a territory, but still cannot change the language there. The Mongols and Manchus have ruled China itself, but Chinese is still intact.

Complex languages ​​will gradually be forgotten if not passed down to the next generation

Artwork

Some guess that by 2115, the number of languages ​​in the world will remain 600 instead of 6000 as it is today (about 1000 of them are thought to be disappearing). Some languages ​​of small groups will fall into a predicament. Typically, in the past, most of the languages ​​of Native Americans or Australians were assimilated in English. At the same time, the rapid urbanization process today also contributes to speeding up this process. And the people who migrate to big cities and big places all have to use a common language there.

On the other hand, today's thinking often says that language must be used to write, with strong rules, structures, to be properly followed, to create a language. And those who can only speak but cannot write, cannot be called "know" and use a language. Typically, Yiddish (a German attempt of Jewish people in Central and Eastern Europe) is said to be a dead language, as many people are still using it to communicate in Israel and the US but do not write. .

In an environment with a large language, more popular than the original language of each person, they tend to use large languages ​​more often and their own language will be deemed obsolete. Since then, it is possible that private language has not been used to communicate with their children. For example, if an adult from country A moves to live in country B, they will start using the language of country B. Then, if they don't use A language to tell their children, their children will can not inherit the A language anymore. Of course, until adulthood, language B is the native language of the children.

However, it is children who are very important generations that help maintain the vitality of a certain language. Whether it is English with irregular verbs, many exceptions, it's Chinese with full of hieroglyphs and 4 different sounds, or even H'Mong with 8 different sounds , children can learn easily. But the fact that many communities live is less and less focused on communicating language to children fully.

Wave optimization of the original language

Artwork

Instead of maintaining a difficult, outdated language and being able to stand on the brink of destruction, many communities, including schools and adults, have modified a new version of the language in a way that simplifies Vocabulary and grammatical structure. In the past, many languages ​​have been maintained in this way. History has recorded strong waves that contribute significantly to the change of language according to simplified trends. The first is the development of technology that facilitates people to cross the ocean, perform invasion, and settle new lands.

Typically, when the Vikings invaded Britain in the 8th century, they began to integrate into society. At that time, education was limited to the aristocracy, so ordinary parents gradually "broke" ancient English when they taught their children. These kids will grow up with the new English version. In Old English, there are 3 varieties, 5 ways and extremely complex grammar system, equivalent to the current German language. But after the Vikings appeared, it evolved into modern English - one of the few languages ​​in Europe that no longer grafted into senseless objects. Similarly, Chinese, Persian, Indonesian and many other languages ​​have entered a similar cycle to simplify the original language.

In the later period, the second wave brought black slaves from Africa to Europe once again impacted the language transformation process here. At that time, adult blacks needed to learn a new language quickly and more simply than the Vikings. They only need a few hundred words and some simple grammatical structures. And from the initial fundamentals, they began to expand into a new language that could be permanent in Europe: Creole language appeared - a form of accretion.

In fact, Creole forms were created around the world in the "Western mining era ". At that time, Haitians created Haitian Creole from French, African soldiers created Sudanese Creole; New Guinea people create Creole German. The Australian Aboriginal people also created Creole English and spread to the surrounding areas, to New Guinea with the Tok Pisin name - today the government is the national language.

World language map.(Source Bab.la)

Next, the migration wave of modern people has once again boosted the use of the 3rd modernization of language. Immigrant children in cities around the world begin to speak the languages ​​that blend the original dialect with the version of the dialect spoken by their parents. In other words, the generations of children will once again transform the native language into their language. In this way, Kiezdeutsch - a German dialect translates into "Kebob Norsk " when coming to Norway. As another example, Singaporeans had "Singlish - Singaporean", . The world witnessed the release of "slightly modified" versions of old languages.

This modification is not a degradation of language. Most new "optimized" languages ​​fully ensure the rules of the original language and once a person uses old English to hear new English, they will realize that it has been modified but still ensure balance. However, the modification in the direction is less cumbersome, does not contain too many irregular verbs, 8 sounds and of course there is no seed division of the object.

And this may be the future trend of the world language. The problem here is that all modified languages ​​still need to be recorded, fully retained by modern tools for transmission to posterity. Don't let people regret it until 2115 about a world that once had 6000 languages ​​but only 600. And that's just a prediction, but now, people are using a language besides the language. Their mother tongue for international communication.

After all, it seems that people often recount the story of Babel Tower as a curse to humans rather than blessing. The future promises to continue the transformation of language towards optimizing a language in many different ways. Meanwhile, new versions can still be exchanged easily. The future may not be a rigid English for the whole world, but a soft English coming from many lands that are intertwined.