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It will be interesting to see what the language space looks like 100-200 years from now. Almost certainly the world will converge onto fewer and fewer language

It will be interesting to see what the language space looks like 100-200 years from now. Almost certainly the world will converge onto fewer and fewer languages, likely just one being commonly used in the end. Sad to lose the edge that language gives to cultural uniqueness, but hard to argue the costs of communication barriers are worth it. Another way it could go is for widely available real time translating tools. The technology is already pretty much there... but this still adds overhead to communication

throwaway894345 3y ago
> Another way it could go is for widely available real time translating tools. The technology is already pretty much there... but this still adds overhead to communication I could see something like Apple Airpods (or any smart headphone equivalent) automatically detecting language and translating in real time. That would be a pretty minimal overhead.
vbezhenar 3y ago
I think the opposite. One thing is that we probably won't lose any languages anymore. There will be plenty of books, texts and videos in the Internet, so everyone who will want to learn his mother language, can do it. Another thing is that even today AI is perfectly able to translate both text and voice. And it's not going to get any worse with time. So even if yesterday you were forced to learn English to keep up with recent Rust developments, today you can use AI to translate articles. Popular websites like stackoverflow are lagging behind, but it's only a matter of time before they'll add universal translator and enable everyone to interact with everyone else with their preferred language.
- fluoridation 3y ago
  >One thing is that we probably won't lose any languages anymore. There will be plenty of books, texts and videos in the Internet, so everyone who will want to learn his mother language, can do it. People don't learn their mother tongues from books, they learn it from their parents. Languages begin to die out not when people can no longer learn them, but when their native speakers cease to find it useful, because a larger culture has assimilated them and they get more out of using the majority language instead. Consider a future when a Spaniard spends most of their day talking in English to people online, and everyone else they talk to also does the same. There's an inflection point at which everyone just decides to speak in English all the time.
- ihateolives 3y ago
  > Another thing is that even today AI is perfectly able to translate both text and voice. Oh no, no, no, no. If I had to guess I'd say your native language is one of world's top 10 and translation works pretty well between those top 10 languages. My native language has less native speakers than there are people living in the borough of Bronx in NYC. Machine/AI translation is laughably bad. And we're in a good position because we've had written word and high literacy for long time now. For languages lacking those there's no hope basically, these languages will be dead in next 100-200 years. Even Irish is struggling despite having state support thrown at it for quite some time now, for unofficial languages that don't have neither prestige nor incentives to be learned there is zero hope left. Zero.
- justsomehnguy 3y ago
  > Another thing is that even today Thanks, this made me laugh. No, there are enough things which can mean multiple things in one language and doesn't have the same pairing in the other.
- fomine3 3y ago
  "perfectly" needs big /S
dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
> It will be interesting to see what the language space looks like 100-200 years from now. Chances are we'll be back to banging rocks together.

throwaway894345 3y ago

> Another way it could go is for widely available real time translating tools. The technology is already pretty much there... but this still adds overhead to communication I could see something like Apple Airpods (or any smart headphone equivalent) automatically detecting language and translating in real time. That would be a pretty minimal overhead.

vbezhenar 3y ago

I think the opposite. One thing is that we probably won't lose any languages anymore. There will be plenty of books, texts and videos in the Internet, so everyone who will want to learn his mother language, can do it. Another thing is that even today AI is perfectly able to translate both text and voice. And it's not going to get any worse with time. So even if yesterday you were forced to learn English to keep up with recent Rust developments, today you can use AI to translate articles. Popular websites like stackoverflow are lagging behind, but it's only a matter of time before they'll add universal translator and enable everyone to interact with everyone else with their preferred language.

fluoridation 3y ago
>One thing is that we probably won't lose any languages anymore. There will be plenty of books, texts and videos in the Internet, so everyone who will want to learn his mother language, can do it. People don't learn their mother tongues from books, they learn it from their parents. Languages begin to die out not when people can no longer learn them, but when their native speakers cease to find it useful, because a larger culture has assimilated them and they get more out of using the majority language instead. Consider a future when a Spaniard spends most of their day talking in English to people online, and everyone else they talk to also does the same. There's an inflection point at which everyone just decides to speak in English all the time.
ihateolives 3y ago
> Another thing is that even today AI is perfectly able to translate both text and voice. Oh no, no, no, no. If I had to guess I'd say your native language is one of world's top 10 and translation works pretty well between those top 10 languages. My native language has less native speakers than there are people living in the borough of Bronx in NYC. Machine/AI translation is laughably bad. And we're in a good position because we've had written word and high literacy for long time now. For languages lacking those there's no hope basically, these languages will be dead in next 100-200 years. Even Irish is struggling despite having state support thrown at it for quite some time now, for unofficial languages that don't have neither prestige nor incentives to be learned there is zero hope left. Zero.
justsomehnguy 3y ago
> Another thing is that even today Thanks, this made me laugh. No, there are enough things which can mean multiple things in one language and doesn't have the same pairing in the other.
fomine3 3y ago
"perfectly" needs big /S

dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago

> It will be interesting to see what the language space looks like 100-200 years from now. Chances are we'll be back to banging rocks together.