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> our general emergent behavior means that new words, phrases, and dialects would naturally emerge Of course- this, plus geographic separation, is the reason w

> our general emergent behavior means that new words, phrases, and dialects would naturally emerge Of course- this, plus geographic separation, is the reason we have so many languages today. But technology and mass media bring to bear forces against language fragmentation that were never seen before historically. Find me a great programmer, anywhere in the world, who can't carry on a fairly competent (not deep obvs) conversation in English. One would necessarily have to read docs in English, or use programming language keywords in English, or even interact with a global community of other programmers in English. If you extend that into every other industry and school, it's feasible for the entire population of the world to be native-level in 1 global language, and for that competence to be maintained for hundreds or thousands of years. Like the Marain language in Iain M. Banks' Culture series.

gumby 6y ago
Mass communications can enforce linguistic convergence in a language community (this was an explicit goal in France, for example, though it was largely the culmination of centuries of explicit linguistic imperialism/engineering). But it tends not so much to meld languages together as to make partitions. Even a century ago, it was said, you could walk from Paris to Rome and along the way every village spoke fluidly with the surrounding ones in essentially the same language...yet by the time you got to Rome you were speaking Italian! These days, though the border regions tend to have a lot of bilinguals, the languages are distinct and people a few miles on either side of the border may not Have a common tongue at all. As for language keywords: do you need to speak Italian to play music or do you simply know what “da capo a la fine” means?
gwbas1c 6y ago
> Find me a great programmer, anywhere in the world, who can't carry on a fairly competent (not deep obvs) conversation in English I worked with one. They were a Windows driver developer. We were desperate, because there aren't a lot of Windows driver developers anymore.

gumby 6y ago

Mass communications can enforce linguistic convergence in a language community (this was an explicit goal in France, for example, though it was largely the culmination of centuries of explicit linguistic imperialism/engineering). But it tends not so much to meld languages together as to make partitions. Even a century ago, it was said, you could walk from Paris to Rome and along the way every village spoke fluidly with the surrounding ones in essentially the same language...yet by the time you got to Rome you were speaking Italian! These days, though the border regions tend to have a lot of bilinguals, the languages are distinct and people a few miles on either side of the border may not Have a common tongue at all. As for language keywords: do you need to speak Italian to play music or do you simply know what “da capo a la fine” means?

gwbas1c 6y ago

> Find me a great programmer, anywhere in the world, who can't carry on a fairly competent (not deep obvs) conversation in English I worked with one. They were a Windows driver developer. We were desperate, because there aren't a lot of Windows driver developers anymore.