Re: THEORY: language replacement [was Re: Time machine]

In a message dated 07/12/2002 04.32.42 PM, Thomas Wier writes:

> [ . . . ] what reason is there to think --
>barring the very unlikely reemergence of actual 19th-century
>style colonialism on the part of anglophone powers -- that
>English will become the sole language of the world? I think
>there is none.
    Higher intensification of _Coke-Colanialisation_?
    Ever-increasing virus-like spread and mutation of Global Pop Culture (&
subcultures)?
    A more globalistic, transnationalistic CyberCapitalism (possibly like the
EU but world-wide and more Americanized)?
    Hypermodernism (a.k.a. "post-Postmodernism"... very much an EuroAmerican
"product[ion]" of English-dominated technoculture)?

    IMHO we have no previous precedents to really compare what the trajectory
(and sheer velocity) of what the future - near or far - may or may not hold
in terms of an One World Standard English.
    I fear and expect the worst - and hope and fight for the best.
"Fight linguistic extinction..."  Viva Gwerra Lingwaplex Mega-Rezist!

Hanuman Zhang
---------------------______________

    "Those at the top of the social order are apt to preach benevolence and
righteousness to those at the bottom. Yet those at the top have typically
stolen their position from others. They are the greatest thieves, because
they have stolen the greatest amount of land and other property. So words
about benevolence and righteousness are usually the fruit of robbery." -
Chuang Tzu/Zhuangzi

"O wise humanity, terribly wise humanity! Of thee I sing. How inscrutable is
the civilization where men toil and work and worry their hair gray to get a
living and forget to play!" - Lin Yutang, _The Importance of Living_