4 ms·

How English Is Evolving Into a Language We May Not Even Understand

22 points by robg 18y ago

sdurkin 18y ago
As long as English remains the international language of commerce the incentives to keep all dialects mutually intelligible should prevent too much divergence.
MoeDrippins 18y ago
I'm not sure I understand it /now/. http://tinyurl.com/6yb9t4 http://tinyurl.com/6yb9t4 (warning, website is safe for work, but has sound.)
- gojomo 18y ago
  Your tinyurl doesn't shorten the URL any, and even if your target URL was long, News.YC doesn't have a problem with long URLs. What are you trying to hide by using TinyURL?
rory096 18y ago
This article's outlook is way too simplistic; Chinese won't be the only influence on English's future. China still accounts for only a somewhat small fraction of English speakers, so other languages and cultures will have as much, if not more, impact. Also, this time won't be like Latin- there won't be any collapse of global society, so eventually the various dialects will homogenize, both because everyone has to understand them (otherwise what's the point of a lingua franca?) and because people from all over will be interacting so much. The end result probably won't be exactly like modern English, but I don't expect it to be too far removed, as all the changes should more or less balance themselves out.
- poutine 18y ago
  They're also being quite generous when they say that 300M Chinese read and write English. In my experience (Canadian living in China) it's got to be way less than that who are actually capable in some rudimentary way. I wouldn't expect any significant impact on English from China any time soon.
singapore 18y ago
This is a genuinely terrible article with an overblown and under-researched thesis - just a lot of uneducated pontificating. One way you can tell, for example, is his treatment of the Singlish phenomena in the same context as mainland Chinese English when, at even the most casual glance, they are completely different things. (Singlish is a primary day-to-day language for a large number of people - mainland Chinese-English is not. Singlish is often spoken by native/fluent English speakers who have been educated in English from primary school to university; the situation in mainland China is the opposite.)
rglovejoy 18y ago
I'm not buying the article's comparison with Latin. A big reason that Latin forked off into Spanish, Italian, French, etc. is because of the influence of Germanic and Moorish invaders. Also, the vast majority of people living during the Dark Ages were illiterate and had no idea that their Vulgar Latin was evolving into something else. Add to this the fact that most populations were isolated from each other. Today, we have widespread literacy, sound recordings and linguists who are able to identify these trends. Humans are becoming less and less isolated, so there are actually fewer opportunities for English to diverge, not more.
talboito 18y ago
I would think more influence on English will come from India. They have many more native somthing-like-English speakers.
maxklein 18y ago
Well, pidgin english is widespread accross west africa, and I've met several native french speakers from cameroun who can not speak english, but can speak pidgin english. Also, with the advent of cheap flights and phones, pidgin english is normalising accross the entire western coast of africa - from sierra leone down to west cameroun. Previously, the pidgin english used to use many words that could not be understood, but those words are dropping away. So already, there are large areas where english has been changed into a form that is difficult to understand for native english speakers, and the new form of english is spreading faster than standard english.
FleursDuMal 18y ago
I find this idea ridiculistic.
- khafra 18y ago
  Laugh if you like, but I've heard two different people I was only mildly acquainted with--and not in a geek context--accidentally breaking into lolcat, over the last few weeks.
  - LogicHoleFlaw 18y ago
    im in ur subconscious, hacking ur memes [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash]
Hoff 18y ago
Shi Ma? Somebody's been watching Firefly re-runs?
- queensnake 18y ago
  Zhende! (spelling probably wrong). Seriously, the small amount of Chinese I've learned has made me come to take the rules of English with a grain of salt - so much overhead that you don't need in 95% of daily conversation.
  - poutine 18y ago
    Your pinyin is correct: zhen de! (Really! 真的!) Chinese does indeed give you a new view of the superfluous nature of many English words. Chinese is like caveman English: "I want beer. Bring more." type stuff. Fun. Still, English is a more precise language in many ways. And don't get me started on how having an alphabet is totally superior. Gah, stupid characters.
bouncingsoul 18y ago
I've seen this type of story so many times it almost seems like a template: There is a variant of our [primary audience's] native tongue. Its user base is growing. Soon you might be forced to learn this strange culture/young people's bastardization of our language to function in society! It's an interesting topic, for sure, but the consequences are always so overblown. I wonder if this is a common story in other languages.
- gaius 18y ago
  Very common in France and Canada I expect. English has always happily absorbed words from other languages. That's why it's the de facto lingua franca...
- schtog 18y ago
  Yes it is a constant theme in Sweden about how the swedish language is detoriating(it is not in my opinion, just changing).
- Alex3917 18y ago
  "the consequences are always so overblown." Only until some Asian country country replaces Hollywood as the biggest producer of big budget English movies.
  - Herring 18y ago
    yeah it's darwinian. The british aren't too happy about american bastardization of english, but they don't have much of a choice. We're much better at exporting culture.
  - jpeterson 18y ago
    My bet is on Bollywood.
  - biohacker42 18y ago
    I've always been fascinated how Hollywood can produce movies that are globally palpable. Bet everybody else gets their untranslatable peanut butter (cultural quirks that don't cross borders) into the movie jelly. Sure I can make a crack here about America having no culture, but that's not it. Hollywood is good at this. They have their business tight.

22 points by robg 18y ago

As long as English remains the international language of commerce the incentives to keep all dialects mutually intelligible should prevent too much divergence.

MoeDrippins 18y ago

I'm not sure I understand it /now/. http://tinyurl.com/6yb9t4 http://tinyurl.com/6yb9t4 (warning, website is safe for work, but has sound.)

gojomo 18y ago
Your tinyurl doesn't shorten the URL any, and even if your target URL was long, News.YC doesn't have a problem with long URLs. What are you trying to hide by using TinyURL?

rory096 18y ago

This article's outlook is way too simplistic; Chinese won't be the only influence on English's future. China still accounts for only a somewhat small fraction of English speakers, so other languages and cultures will have as much, if not more, impact. Also, this time won't be like Latin- there won't be any collapse of global society, so eventually the various dialects will homogenize, both because everyone has to understand them (otherwise what's the point of a lingua franca?) and because people from all over will be interacting so much. The end result probably won't be exactly like modern English, but I don't expect it to be too far removed, as all the changes should more or less balance themselves out.

poutine 18y ago
They're also being quite generous when they say that 300M Chinese read and write English. In my experience (Canadian living in China) it's got to be way less than that who are actually capable in some rudimentary way. I wouldn't expect any significant impact on English from China any time soon.

singapore 18y ago

This is a genuinely terrible article with an overblown and under-researched thesis - just a lot of uneducated pontificating. One way you can tell, for example, is his treatment of the Singlish phenomena in the same context as mainland Chinese English when, at even the most casual glance, they are completely different things. (Singlish is a primary day-to-day language for a large number of people - mainland Chinese-English is not. Singlish is often spoken by native/fluent English speakers who have been educated in English from primary school to university; the situation in mainland China is the opposite.)

rglovejoy 18y ago

I'm not buying the article's comparison with Latin. A big reason that Latin forked off into Spanish, Italian, French, etc. is because of the influence of Germanic and Moorish invaders. Also, the vast majority of people living during the Dark Ages were illiterate and had no idea that their Vulgar Latin was evolving into something else. Add to this the fact that most populations were isolated from each other. Today, we have widespread literacy, sound recordings and linguists who are able to identify these trends. Humans are becoming less and less isolated, so there are actually fewer opportunities for English to diverge, not more.

talboito 18y ago

I would think more influence on English will come from India. They have many more native somthing-like-English speakers.

maxklein 18y ago

Well, pidgin english is widespread accross west africa, and I've met several native french speakers from cameroun who can not speak english, but can speak pidgin english. Also, with the advent of cheap flights and phones, pidgin english is normalising accross the entire western coast of africa - from sierra leone down to west cameroun. Previously, the pidgin english used to use many words that could not be understood, but those words are dropping away. So already, there are large areas where english has been changed into a form that is difficult to understand for native english speakers, and the new form of english is spreading faster than standard english.

FleursDuMal 18y ago

I find this idea ridiculistic.

khafra 18y ago
Laugh if you like, but I've heard two different people I was only mildly acquainted with--and not in a geek context--accidentally breaking into lolcat, over the last few weeks.
- LogicHoleFlaw 18y ago
  im in ur subconscious, hacking ur memes [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash]

Hoff 18y ago

Shi Ma? Somebody's been watching Firefly re-runs?

queensnake 18y ago
Zhende! (spelling probably wrong). Seriously, the small amount of Chinese I've learned has made me come to take the rules of English with a grain of salt - so much overhead that you don't need in 95% of daily conversation.
- poutine 18y ago
  Your pinyin is correct: zhen de! (Really! 真的!) Chinese does indeed give you a new view of the superfluous nature of many English words. Chinese is like caveman English: "I want beer. Bring more." type stuff. Fun. Still, English is a more precise language in many ways. And don't get me started on how having an alphabet is totally superior. Gah, stupid characters.

bouncingsoul 18y ago

I've seen this type of story so many times it almost seems like a template: There is a variant of our [primary audience's] native tongue. Its user base is growing. Soon you might be forced to learn this strange culture/young people's bastardization of our language to function in society! It's an interesting topic, for sure, but the consequences are always so overblown. I wonder if this is a common story in other languages.

gaius 18y ago
Very common in France and Canada I expect. English has always happily absorbed words from other languages. That's why it's the de facto lingua franca...
schtog 18y ago
Yes it is a constant theme in Sweden about how the swedish language is detoriating(it is not in my opinion, just changing).
Alex3917 18y ago
"the consequences are always so overblown." Only until some Asian country country replaces Hollywood as the biggest producer of big budget English movies.
- Herring 18y ago
  yeah it's darwinian. The british aren't too happy about american bastardization of english, but they don't have much of a choice. We're much better at exporting culture.
- jpeterson 18y ago
  My bet is on Bollywood.
- biohacker42 18y ago
  I've always been fascinated how Hollywood can produce movies that are globally palpable. Bet everybody else gets their untranslatable peanut butter (cultural quirks that don't cross borders) into the movie jelly. Sure I can make a crack here about America having no culture, but that's not it. Hollywood is good at this. They have their business tight.