linguists have estimated something like 31,000 languages have existed in human history (and that’s the lowest estimate). Currently, there are roughly six thousand languages spoken in the world. We don’t know exactly, because we’re just beginning to classify some languages in remote locations. But using conservative figures, something like 81% of all human languages have become extinct.
What worries linguists, however, is the current rate of language death in the world. Over half the languages spoken today have fewer than 10,000 speakers; that’s about like the population of Wasilla, Alaska. Around 82% of languages have fewer speakers than there are people in Waco, Texas. Linguists estimate that at least half the world’s languages will become extinct in the next one hundred years. That means, on average, a language is dying about every two weeks.
Taken from a page on the University of Houston’s website.
A lot of languages is a result of limited exchange. I think it’s fine if the less practical ones fall out of use (as long as they are documented). And if we someday lose the ability to communicate over vast distances (or get too far away), new languages will develop quickly.
Disclaimer: i’m swiss and rumansch has become a dead language
I think people are over estimating how long 100 years is.
No languages that are currently spoken by more than a couple thousand people are going to go extinct that quickly.
Remember 100 years is in the upper end of a human life span.
You underestimate how tiny the vast majority of languages are and how few speaks them.
I don’t actually, hence why I stipulated more than a few thousand speakers
Once we get good, universal real-time translation, we might start to see a new proliferation of local languages. And of small groups inventing their own cryptolects for privacy, trying to evolve them faster than AI can keep up.
Humans have a natural tendency to develop slang. Even in the internet age new slang and in-group languages/dialects are constantly formed
What might happen, is that, if people try to keep up with it, you’ll end up with older people fluent in dozens of various internet dialects
Spoken, live languages? Very damned few. Archived languages? We might do pretty well.
In my lifetime I’ve seen accents disappearing in America. Doing tech support in the early 90s, I played a game of guessing what state a person was from. Did quite well! I could almost always match their accent. (Midwestern was my kryptonite, very generic.)
We’re seeing regional accents and dialects disappearing very quickly due to the internet, and formerly, TV in general.
For example; I haven’t heard a deep Cajun accent in ages, unless I look for it on YouTube, and even then it’s mostly intelligible. I talked to people 25-30 years ago I could not comprehend, and I’m good at languages!
Another example; Go watch Steel Magnolias from 1989. (Great movie BTW!) That deep, propuh, Mississippi female accent is all but gone except for the oldest, and those women only use it amongst each other.
In any case, English seems to rule the internet, a modern lingua franca, don’t see that changing any time soon.
In any case, English seems to rule the internet, a modern lingua franca
Oh yea. I can’t imagine the alternate timeline where I was stuck in Mainland China and, not only firewall issues, but also the massive language barrier on top of that.
There are definitely still people with deep cajun accents but they likely never leave south Louisiana.
I mean, how many of the languages in 1925 exist today? What about 1825? That’s your answer for the most part, that is to say: most of them save for endangered languages and successful genocides.
Ah! But you’re not accounting for radio, then television and now the internet. Mass communication is squashing languages and dialects and accents flat, while at the same time working for archival purposes.
Language is always a local phenomena. I suspect the golden age of the internet will enshittify rapidly creating increasing islands of local. Even as the population collapses due to climate change/ecological overshoot, I suspect more divergence. A fracturing of language and community.
dedass gonbe sum nu1s2
I think there’ll be one sinorussolatinglish trade language and 5k highly localized dialects of our current languages.
Should work about as well as Esperanto.
More. Francafrique will likely continue linguistically diverging from French. South Africa, Malaysia, and Scotland are diverging from English/American English. Spanish continues separating into parts.
So yeah maybe they won’t have separated enough to be separate languages yet that soon, but the European imperial languages don’t have the empires that kept them together
100 years: A lot of smaller languages will only be available from recordings. Less than a hundred language being still in use.
200 years: Maybe a dozen still being spoken: English, Chinese, Hindu, Spanish, French (they stick to their own language like crazy, at the total expense of communication with anyone around), and a handful of others. Everything else will be archived.
Well, when Fr*nch will endure due to the almost religious fervour of their speakers, than German must too. Both countries origin story and who is considered part of the nation is founded on who speaks the language.
In comparison to the French, the Germans are a rather malleable bunch. At least then you ask something in English you get an answer instead of a silent death stare.
Sure, but my point was rather the disappearance of the language. Second language proficiency is high in Germany, but the attitudes regarding the “preservation” of German are insane. For example, there is a specific category for English words imported into German called Anglicisms. Funnily enough words like “cool” are not considered part of this group purely because they are used for such a long time that they are considered German enough (seems like language changes over time? Funny how this works!). Every teenager knows the moment when some boomer criticises them for using non German words.
12
12
So you’re saying Cantonese, being the top 11 most popular, will survive?
Lets hope…
Yep! For 100 years.
But in 200 years, it’s down to 9 languages. And number one (by a lot) is Simlish. It’s a long story.
It’s a victim of an intentional extermination campaign, isn’t it? So maybe not Cantonese.
Oh btw. I think some variants of Yue-Chinese are already near extinct. Taishanese (台山話 Taishanese, not to be confused with Taiwan) My parents are from Taishan and we were born in Guangzhou, so my parents never spoke Taishanese to us… cuz we lived in Guangzhou. Like… Cantonese had a higher “Prestiege” than Taishanese… I mean Guangzhou is a City, it urban. Taishanese is rural, its a bunch of villages. So yea… they only speak Taishanese to my grandparents and I think my parents sometimes speak Taishanese to each other. Then they turn to me and my brother and they just speak Cantonese. I later noticed that and it felt kinda odd lol. Like a different social circle, like the older people are people I can’t relate to, they have a different tongue. Like when I was younger I didn’t even notice the distinction and sort of mixed some Taishanese sounds into my Cantonese, but then I later realized it was two different languages lol. Apparantly my brain didn’t really distinguish it and I thought they were mutually intelligible.
Anyways, I could underatand Taishanese, but don’t feel comfortable speaking it. I never spoken it, because I just speak Cantonese and my maternal grandmother would understand it anyways. So… yeah… that’s how languages die. They never taught me, there is not much materials. Not really any TV Shows like Hong Kong TV and Movies. So… yep… Taishanese is a dying language. And anyone speaking Taishanese is rural… so… very conservative… and I don’t like conservatives… so… yeah… oopsie, language dead…
Cantonese, however, I’m more warm towards Cantonese compared to Taishanese. HK people are very progressive. So I like it more. HK loves freedom, so… in a way… using Cantonese is defiance against the CCP.
But I think my parents didn’t speak Cantonese to me because on my dad’s side, there are relatives from Hong Kong… so maybe they didn’t want them to think of us as rural peasants? But then again, we did live in Guangzhou, so that was probably already a reason enough in of itself. Some immigrants to western countries don’t even teach their kids their native tongue… so there’s that.
So tell me something, do you also speak English or do you use translation software? Your English to me, an American in a southern state, seems flawless, possibly better than my own. No judgement from me, by the way, just curiosity.
I grew up with it as an immigrant to the US. I arrived in Brooklyn, NY at 8 years old and started public school there. I’m basically a native speaker of Cantonese, Mandarin, and English, no translator tools necessary lmfao. English is actually my primary language, I’m a US Citizen now.
As for Cantonese and Mandarin, I can express my self using basic 2nd-grade level words + some vocabulary I learned while looking up the online dictionaries for some terms. I can recognize most of the basic characters. But if I read a text from someone that has more education than I did, and they use higher level vocab or like colloquel terms, then I’d actually be stuggling to reading Chinese and might have to read very very slowly or have to use Google translate to verify I understand it correctly.
Ah, well then hello fellow American! It’s great that you have retained understanding of your childhood languages. I took German in highschool and probably know about enough now to get myself arrested, or more likely just laughed at and I know none of the Irish Gaelic my family would have spoken when they emigrated in the mid 1800s.
Lol, it takes like just 1-2 generation for the language to be lost. I know alot of US-Born ethnic Chinese that speak very broken and heavily-accented Cantonese, zero Mandarin. These are the 2nd-gens, they still speak their ancestral language at home, but I bet by the 3rd generation, they are not gonna be able to speak it since the 2nd-gen’s primary language is already English so they’ll just be using that at home, since that is the path of least resistance.
Idk if I’ll ever have kids, but if I do, I’ll try to pass on the language, but I highly doubt that kids growing up here would care to learn…
Oh well… 🤷♂️ you can only preserve it for so long.
Overseas Cantonese Speakers Unite!
大家一齊講廣東話！
Oh wait, shit, the 2nd Gens are already abandoning the language…
Oh well… 🤷♂️
Rip, it was fun while it lasted.
There will be one day no one will be able to listen to 海闊天空 and actually understand the lyrics with their ears.
So sad…
None. Everyone will have an AI interpreter implanted at birth that can translate gestures and grunting into language as we desperately try to communicate like our ancestors did.
None will be able to read, write, or speak. ChatGPT will do it for you.
I’d say around 3000 by 2125 and 1000 by 2225.
In the year 2525, if man is still alive, if woman can survive, we may fiii-iiind 🎶
So, it’s not only me that does that…
!remindme 200years
100 years: same amount as today minus a couple of dozen where no children currently speak them. Some people born today will be alive in 2125. (And I’m envious Idon’t get to see the future)
200 years? There is conscious effort to preserve minority languages , so hopefully the extinction slows down.
