Future of English (was Re: Degrees of volition in active languages (was Re: Chevraqis: asketch)

In a message dated 2000/08/13 05:55:01 PM, hsteoh@QUICKFUR.YI.ORG wrote:

>English apparently also used to be highly inflected, but today
>there are only traces left (such as in who, whom, whose). And even who,
>whom, and whose are starting to collapse into just "who" in colloquial
>English.
>
>My theory is that widespread acceptance of a language usually causes it to
>"degrade" or "simplify", losing a lot of old constructs in the process.
>But I've yet to come up with a plausible explanation for languages
>becoming *more* complex as they evolve.
    Be interestin' to see ideas regardin' possible evolution(s) in the
English language.
    What do others on this list think?

    Z