Re: The Future Language

>From: Artem Kouzminykh "<ural_liz@...>"
>Subject:      Re: The Future Language
>That's all looks very interesting, but... for science fiction only. Perhaps
>some of these things are possible, but not in relatively close future, not
>in 21-22 centuries anyway. May be in the 4th millenium;-) AFAIK no natlangs
>in world history changed so much in such a short periods of time (1-9
>centuries), as you supposed. No traces of that changes can be found in 20th
>century, IMHO.
It is said we cannot comtemplate the future without thinking of the past
at the same time. But just extrapolating or projecting past rates of
change doesn't always work because we could be at the inflection point
of an accelerated non-linear rate of change.  A reason for an
accelerated rate of language change would be the computer age.

>"mathematisizing of grammar and language"? I.e. "esperantizing" of
>natlang(s)? Then it was heppend with any real natlang, not IALs? I cannot
>imagine this "mathematisizing" happening in natlangs in natural way, this
>can only be designed by linguists-theoretics, but not arise naturally. The
>more and more irregularities - that's that we have in e.g. Romance natlangs
>with time.
I think it might occur from the blending of computer languages (which are
artificial) and natlangs. For example I adapted the the "environment
variables" of Unix to NGL, there's no reason why they couldn't be
adapted to whatever the future world language happens to be. Also I
expect the world language to be democratic and hence subject to reform
by world referenda. So the irregularities can be rationalized if wanted
by the majority. If we simply extrapolate the trend toward irregularity
it will lead to a chaotic and difficult language structure, not
something the majority would want. But we can't really talk freely about
this on this list as it goes to the verboten subject of IALs.

>But more wide use of analythical forms instead of synthetical
>ones is more than possible in nearest future of modern langs (in 21-22
>centuries), IMHO - did you call this process "mathematisizing of grammar and
>language"?
I'm not sure what you mean by analytic/synthetic forms and would
appreciate it if you could clarify it for me, maybe with some examples,
so I could see your idea more clearly.

eco em tok Jerry