Re: Fictional auxlangs as artlangs (was Re: Poll)

--- On Mon, 12/15/08, Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...> wrote:

> From: Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...>
...
> > I don't necessarily see it becoming the *sole*
> langauge, at least
> > not that soon.  I do see where in the next 200-300
> years it will
> > become universally known to almost all humanity, and
> by 500 years it
> > will be the L1 of most humans though I'd expect
> some small pockets
> > where local languages will still be in use.  I can
> envision a time
> > further down the road though were the local languages
> will
> > eventually erode away but 500 years just seems like
> too short of a
> > period.  Meanwhile English will evolve during all of
> this and will
> > probably not be intelligible with the language we are
> using here.
>
> I think that's a good prediction.  Within 100 or 200
> years,
> English will be the universal L2, and while many small
> languages will die out, many others will survive.  If the
> world follows a path of sustainable development in which
> the rights of the people are respected and poverty becomes
> history, I see no reason why the universal L2 English
> should kill off the various L1s.  And then, English will
> continue to diversify, and eventually break up into
> daughter
> languages.
Consider this alternate reality scenario: World supplies of fossil fuels become
exhausted before any practical replacement is found. Global travel and
communication become a thing of the past. The largest region that can be held
together under one government will be measured in days on horseback. The US
will break up into six or eight separate countries, the UK will not be able to
communicate with Canada, Australia, or India, or ..., except by sailing ship,
and in another 500 years English will have fractured into a few dozen or more
mutually unintelligible languages. Southeastern dialects, Spanglish,
Midwestern, West Canadian, East Canadian, Alaskan, British, West Australian,
East Australian, Singaporian, Bengali English, etc., will all become distinct
languages. World wide, regional languages will reassert themselves regionally,
and there never will be a common interlingua until, perhaps, after the end of
the next Dark Ages and the rise of yet another
 New Empire from the crumbling ruins of some existing culture or another. A
thousand years from now, when the Internet is rediscovered, the most common
language of the new Net might well be Warlpiri or maybe Chinook Trade Jargon,
for all we know.

--gary

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