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

> [mailto:CONLANG@listserv.brown.edu] On Behalf Of Gary Shannon

> 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.
I've mentioned on auxlang that I can only see two things halting the
world domination of English.  One is a breakdown of global society
as in your example.  The other would be if machines translation were
perfected then became reasonably portable and cost effective so that
anyone could carry on realtime conversations with anyone else
regardless of the language used.  I don't see either scenario
happening any time soon.