one world lingua??? (was Re: Genders (was Re: Ladan and woman'sspeak_)

Jonathan Chang wrote:
> IMHO I think an Afrikaans Pidgin
> has a better chance of spreading in Africa than Swahili
Perhaps, but Swahili has been crowding out other languages thru-out
Eastern Africa.

>     But I think there will not be one single language
> chosen/developed/evolved that will be a global lingua franca.
I'm talking very distant future, like 10-15 centuries from now.  in the
less-distant future, I could see the world containing a dozen or so
languages, mostly languages spoken over large regions, like English,
Arabic, Spanish [probably a Portuguese-influenced Spanish], etc., as
well as languages with large numbers of speakers, e.g., Mandarin.

At any rate, it's undeniable that there'll be fewer languages in the
future than now, assuming that civilization doesn't collapse.

>     BUT at the same time it is also one of the languages with the most
> mutational varieties, i.e. ranging from BBC Standard English to Hindilish to
> Tok Pisin).
Certainly there would continue to be regional dialects, but I suspect
that, in an advanced world with easy communication and travel, with
people from all over mingling, a single language with minimal variation
would eventually win out.  Whatever language is the lingua franca (by
that point, English may very well lose that position) would probably be
the winner.  Of course, it would be greatly influenced by the other
languages.

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