Re: Future English

----- Original Message -----
From: "Estel Telcontar" <estel_telcontar@...>


> Well, my work on a future English is pretty sporadic and unorganized.
> I've more been thinking of neat future English features, some of which
> may come together to form features of a coherent future English at some
> point.
>
> Many of the changes I think of are more morphological/syntactic.
> For example, one of the features I quite like is a simplification of
> the irregular verb system, so that past participles of (all but a few)
> irregular verbs are formed by adding "-en" to the past tense - for
> example, in regular spelling:
> sing - sang -sangen
> write - wrote - wroten
> hit - hit - hitten
> slide - slid - slidden
>
> and so on, basically forming a new paradigm.  There would still be a
> few really irregular verbs like "be" and "have" and "go".
Vyko, Estel!  Interesting!  It jives with some of the variations I've heard
for brought and bought: "I'd've broughten it if someone told to."  "My
mother's just boughten me a new coat."  So also, "putten"?

> For an example of a syntactic change, I imagine that "used to" becomes
> a single morpheme /just@/ "yusta".  In some cases it appears just as in
> present English,
> "I yusta go shopping every saturday", where it makes the following verb
> infinitive.  However, it can also be inserted before any non-finite
> form to add a past habitual meaning:
> "I might have yusta done that, but I don't anymore"
> "Because of it yusta being illegal, they had to do it at night."
Would spelling stay the same?

[snip]

> I also imagine that "they/them/themself" has become a fully-functional
> 3sg epicene pronoun.  I see that there's been some discussion about
> that on here lately.  (I saw a striking example online recently of it
> being used in a way that I would find ungrammatical - referring back to
> someone identified by name (admittedly a genderless username, but
> still).)  And I imagine that "you guys" has become a 2pl pronoun
> /jugaIz/ "yugaiz".
Or maybe just "guise!"

> There have been one or two sound-change features I've thought of, but
> they don't seem to integrate very well with the other features I've
> thought of, so I don't think I could work them into the same future
> English.  One of them is the loss of intervocalic taps (based on
> North American English, naturally).  Except for the evidentials, most
> of the changes I imagine for my future English are things that I see at
> least
> traces of in casually spoken English.  The spelling I use for most of
> my future English stuff is basically an alternate spelling I've devised
> for my own pronunciation of English.  Clearly I haven't thought too far
> into the future with this, and I haven't thought much about
> technological or cultural change.
Well, that could come later.  Another thing that interests me is whether you
intend to think about class issues eventually: what class status would this
occupy?  You mention "casually spoken" English.  Will class or regional
linguistic differences have evened out?  Will there be a formal or "elite"
future English, say, for written or educated uses?  Will that change, too,
in perhaps other ways?  I was rather impressed by the example given in A
Clockwork Orange where even the scholar's written language had changed, but
not along the lines of the street thugs.

> I remember seeing a website of someone imagining the development of
> future English... let's see if I can find the address... yes, here it
> is:
> http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/futurese.html
Yes, thanks, Estel.  And thanks to Trebor, too.  Also Doug Dee's recent
message.  I'll send these references to my friend. And this I think is my
last post allowed for today.  Good night, all!

yry firrimby!
Sally