Re: World English (was: Fictional auxlangs as artlangs)

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From: "Paul Kershaw" <ptkershaw@...>
Sent: Monday, December 22, 2008 10:08 PM
To: <CONLANG@...>
Subject: Re: World English (was: Fictional auxlangs as artlangs)

> No - I suspect the world will remain multilingual, tho the number of
> languages will probably decline.
>
> -- Ray
>
> I agree. This conversation also largely appears to assume that English is
> a single, coherent language that will continue to be so, despite the
> continued existence and formation of dialects. My wife has genuine trouble
> understanding people from south of the Mason-Dixon line, for instance,
> while I have difficult understanding my black (Detroiter) neighbors. I've
> even seen British programming (on BBC America, for instance) subtitled for
> Americans even though the people on the show are speaking English.
>
> Before English can systematic destroy all the other languages of the
> world, it has to become a Borgian monolith itself. :D
>
> -- Paul

Due to the pluricentric nature of English I suppose you could
hypothetically, have a situation where the world remains multilingual but
all the languages are ultimately of anglic origin. However, I consider that
very unlikely.

Of course it's all moot since as we all know, 2500 years from now the main
language spoken on Earth, if not across the entire inner solar system, will
be descended from Fakauvea (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fakauvea), for
very obvious reasons any grade school history student in the 46th century
will be able to tell you.

P.

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