According to researchers, English as it is spoken today will have disappeared in 100 years and could be replaced by a global language called 'Panglish' (the article doesn't explain the name further).
"New words will form and meanings will change with the most dramatic changes being made by people learning English as a second language. The global form of English is already becoming a loose grouping of local dialects and English-based common languages used by non-native speakers to communicate. By 2020 there may be two billion people speaking English, of whom only 300 million will be native speakers. At that point English, Spanish, Hindi, Urdu and Arabic will have an equal number of native speakers."
4 comments:
Post-colonial theory has long talked about how language has been appropriated by the edges and how this is being fed-back into the "pure language" of the Imperial power.
English in particular is often differentiated by big E "English" vs. small e "english". Rushdi spoke about this saying "The Empire Writes Back to the Centre"
Quite an interesting theory, I can see that happening.
Panglish might be related to Pangea (all the land). I'am a professional translator listed on the internet at Language123, Due to the amount of requests on the internet for text translation and such, it is possible to start noticing how the language changes from region to region, this is why professional text localization is even needed for labels, movies, books, marketing, etc when going from an English speaking county to another.
This is really interesting to hear. I think it would be interesting to create a kind of pidgin language to replace English. If you'd like, take a look at the proposal for a language called Neo Patwa (patwa.pbwiki.com). I tried to create a world creole based essentially on that idea, that there should be a sort of "Panglish." I think that if native speakers of a variety of languages could make proposals, we could create something that would be easily spoken by anybody.
My proposal for a new global language has every ethnicity involved, leaving out no one. It also does not mix languages nor does it cause racial friction. By saying things like "replace English", one implies something. Please read:
http://www.snubis.com/?p=313
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