Re: Information on future English language development?

Simon Richard Clarkstone wrote:

> Joe wrote:
>
>> ...  One thing I will say, though, is that
>> English will change more in the next fifty years than it has in the last
>> two hundred.  In my opinion.
>
> I only agree with you partly there.  Due to increased global
> communications, English could also be said to be changing less, as a
> better connected language community makes change of language more
> difficult: a new word will be very unlikely to spread fast enough to
> last long.  There is also a less convincing argument that since the
> whole of humanity has been discovered, then we cannot meet up with new
> peoples who give us new words; we have taken all of everyone's words
> that we want.
> However, the increased number of new types of things will lead to many
> new names being needed for them, or adaptations of old words, or
> borrowings.
>
The global communication argument, IMO, doesn't work.  Instead, there
will develop standards, which will split from the vernacular, as it
always has, really.