Re: Future English

On 7 Feb 2005, at 12.06 am, Pascal A. Kramm wrote:

> On Sat, 5 Feb 2005 22:01:31 +0100, Philip Newton
> <philip.newton@...>
> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 5 Feb 2005 12:55:38 -0500, Pascal A. Kramm <pkramm@...>
>> wrote:
>>> 5   Wets HaShem khamit tafn tsa shei ti sheitsi ent ti tsafi min fia
>>> peilten.
>>
>> I find it interesting that the word "HaShem" appears not to have
>> changed at all in this future English... what caused this?
>
> "HaShem" is a historical proper name, thus it remained unchanged (just
> like
> "Shinar").
> Historical proper names (like e.g. "Caesar") normally don't change.
Sure they do. Like e.g. Caesar. Pronounced /kaisar/ in the time of the
romans, hence the German word _Kaiser_. Now it's pronounced \SEE-zer\.
In French it's even spelt _César_, I believe (no doubt /se'zaR/). And
'Julius' has changed too. Various historical figures whose names ended
in particular Latin endings were even changed like regular vocabulary
borrowed from Latin to English. Not even mentioning the people who
weren't Latin whose names were latinised and then anglicised, no doubt
leaving them totally incomprehensible to the person concerned.

Historical figures, in fact, are *much* more likely to be changed than
present figures. John Howard (Aussie PM) is 'John Howard' even if the
native name for John in the language discussing him is _Jean_ and the
language has no <w>.

> Other than that, any comments?
It looks very Germanised. I don't expect English to develop in that
manner, unless the Germans take over the world. It also has absolutely
no change to the grammar, but the changes in grammar will be the most
interesting aspect. How will the clitics develop? Will we see some
reanalysed into case markers? Will they become verbal prefixes? I
propose, distant enough in the future, that:

  s~z~@z will be reanalysed as, ironically, a singular subject marker
(from 'is', 'has')
   if retained, the plural would be s@~z@~@
  the distinction between him ('im) and them ('em) will finally
collapse, perhaps taking with it the entire pronominal gender system (a
regular plural is easily created with the current s~z~@z, as in
'youse').
  the derivative of 'us' or 'to us' will develop into a 1sg dative,
perhaps eventually objective---with 'me' replacing 'I' in the
subjective.
  perhaps a distinction between active and stative verbs deriving from
the simple present and the present progressive.

But I mean to be radical and I'm looking far into the future, so we'll
all be dead before my predictions can come true---so I can always live
safe in the knowledge that I'm not wrong yet :)

--
Tristan.