Languages of the world in a hundred years

One hundred years is a too short period of time for serious changes in a language, if we consider its development as a natural process. But could its development be sped up? Has this ever happened in the past and will it happen again in the future? Whether sudden accelerations are possible, and how can they substantiated? What is the correlation between the internal development of language and the development of languages in the world? And where is the line between “pure” natural evolution and the “impure” language policy? And in general – how predictable the development of language is?

One hundred years is a too short period of time for serious changes in a language, if we consider its development as a natural process. But could its development be sped up? Has this ever happened in the past and will it happen again in the future? Whether sudden accelerations are possible, and how can they substantiated? What is the correlation between the internal development of language and the development of languages in the world? And where is the line between “pure” natural evolution and the “impure” language policy? And in general – how predictable the development of language is?

In the first third of the last century such prominent Russian linguists as Jan Niecisław Ignacy Baudouin de Courtenay and Yevgeny Dmitrievich Polivanov wrote on predicting the paths of development of languages. However, the linguistic Prognostics, this is what they call usual activities aimed at predicting the future status of languages and the study of the processes that could lead to this condition the future, has never been considered as respectable activity in the linguistics. Nevertheless, public interest in the future of the language has been, and remains inescapable, as, indeed, to all sorts of other forecasts.

In order to characterize the situation in the linguistic prediction and in the area that it is trying to study (in other words, tries to predict the future development of the world languages), first of all, it is necessary to briefly explain what the development of language means and what questions on its future status are usually asked. Meanwhile, speaking of the “future of the language” really means some very different things, the prospects for the study and prediction of which also vary greatly.

The future of the language and the future of all languages

The first important distinction is already reflected in the title of this section. Speaking about “the future of the language,” people are usually interested in either one of the following things.

Firstly, how a language is changed – each particular language, as it is now expressed, idioethnic language and/or language in general as a specific domain of the human race? This question, in turn, is divided into two sub-questions:

• how will the structure of language change, and will it change at all, in its various levels (phonetics, morphology, vocabulary, syntax, text structure);
• how will its functioning change (what will be a set of options and varieties, in which communicative situations and how they will be used, whether its style changes, and if so, what kind of changes, whether there will be changes in the tools of speech influence and rhetoric; how verbal, that is implemented in the form of language, communication would relate to communications carried out in other ways, primarily visual, etc.).

Secondly, of interest is the issue on the future of the set of currently existing languages in the world [1] – whether their number will change and due to what processes, in particular:

• how will their distribution in the world change (in fact – how will the language map of the world look like in a few years);
• whether sociolinguistic and legal statuses of various languages will change and how, including international legal status;
• what is the ratio of the various languages of the world, whether they compete with each other and if so, how, or whether their functions will be distributed naturally or artificially;
• how will the communication between nations and ethnic groups, which use different languages, be carried out;
• what are the prospects of the artificial languages, etc.

Each of the above lists can be extended (the second one is easier to extend, the first one is somewhat more difficult). The overall structure of the same problems can be represented in a diagram (see Fig. 1).

Based on elementary historical considerations, and, in particular, on the knowledge of which changes in some specific languages and/or in the system the world language, on the whole, were recorded over a century long period of time, one can try to predict the future, and what will happen in a hundred years. Of course, you must take into account ongoing or projected changes in other spheres of life of the modern world, and also factor out the most exotic options. These include, for example, a disaster, after which there will be no one to use the language; narrowing the subject matter to the most elementary topics, changes in the human nature or the emergence of such media which will push communication in natural language into the background or make it unnecessary at all (as A.A. Fet once said, “Oh, if one could speak with no words but with their soul!). The second option in terms of time is problematic, while reflecting on the first one (in the spirit of “thinking about the unthinkable”) is the job of experts of other kind.

A little bit about the “internal” linguistic prognostics

Prediction of structural and functional changes in the language, on the one hand, and of a system, whose elements are various existing languages in the world, on the other hand, represents activity that differs radically in degree of complexity.

The first implies considering trends in each particular language, since there are many languages, and unsynchronized and/or multidirectional grammatical processes can evolve simultaneously within them.

To this we must add the fact that the question of the causes of linguistic change remains largely unanswered, although some of the most obvious causes are identified. These include:

• the effects of language contacts which were studied in the nineteenth century;
• individual language creational activity which sometimes caused a rapid development of literary languages, and occurred in less than one hundred years (in Italian language due to efforts of Dante and F.Petrarca, in English due to John Chaucer, and in Russian due to writings of Nikolai Novikov and Nikolay Karamzin);
• imperative to save efforts in speech and the opposing imperative to preserve its distinctive features and avoid losing sense (this matter was studied by R. Jacobson, and A. Martin in the middle of the XXth century);
• imperative to create isomorphism, i.e. the similarity of knowledge structures and linguistic expressions (first it was noted by Plato, but was seriously studied by J. Hayman, T. Givon, and A. Kibrik only at the end of the XXth century).

However, it remains unclear why rates of change in different languages are different and why some of the possible and quite explainable changes are implemented, while others – not.

Strengthening of the role of writing, or rather, of visual language communication and increase of the space between spoken language and one of its kinds, which will be produced by future electronic gadgets and incorporated into a multimedia polycode communication – these factors are included in forecasts on the functioning of languages that can be made quite surely. Another productive trend is the development of various social dialects with the complexity of the structure of society from the profession standpoint.

“External” linguistic prognostics

Everything is easier with the “external” linguistic prognostics. Sociolinguistic processes that describe the changes that occur in the languages of the world system are not trivial, but in terms of quality there are a few of them and they are easy to generalize into the larger group of languages, which allows presenting their results in a relatively compact form.

It is easier to start the forecast with the “bad news” and more particular, because it is no news whatsoever, with a poor prognosis that was voiced from the end of the XIXth century.

Фото: anthropology-ru.livejournal.com
Only Ket language with about two hundred
speakers left

The number of languages on the planet will be reduced due to the fact that the people, who speak small languages (and there is a majority of such languages in the world), will be with a certain speed (low, for several centuries, until the disastrous fast, remained in the memory of one or two generations) moving to other more viable languages. First, it will lead to a narrowing of the scope of existence of a small language, compress it to the intra-communication, and then to the complete abandonment of its use, sometimes directly connected with death of its last speakers. There were numerous examples, including in Russia, where since the middle of the XIXth century an entire language family (Yenisei) almost entirely disserted (only Ket language with about two hundred speakers left). It is safe to predict that such a situation will occur again in the future, although rumors of the disappearance of some languages (for example, Vod language in the Leningrad Region or two Yukagir ones in Yakutia) have often proved to be exaggerated. Besides, the discovery of new languages and dialects in different regions of the world is in a sense opposed to the theory of reducing the number of languages. However, we should not rely on further development of this reversal tendency.

At present, the disappearance of languages is perceived as the same phenomenon requiring its addressing as decreasing biological diversity. There is a special UNESCO program “Endangered Languages”, whose purpose is to support linguistic communities, governments and experts.

UNESCO Atlas of the World's
Languages in Danger

However, it is hard to say how effective will be these measures to preserve linguistic diversity. This largely depends on the choice of ethnic group, speaking a particular language, and in theory – even the efforts of one man (imagine new mega popular folk-singer, regenerating interest in the disappearing language to its native speakers and forming interest in this language to other people – even maybe interest in the study of this language for foreigners). In addition, awareness of the value of linguistic diversity should lead to fixation of endangered languages, and, perhaps, to attempts of creating a kind of linguistic reservations with a voluntary stay in them. At least one such reservation has long been a reality. We are talking about a private Hawaiian island of Niihau which is privately owned and on which the Hawaiian language is the only means of communication for approximately 250 of its residents.

And what about the situation a hundred years from now at the opposite pole - among the world’s major languages, the number of speakers of which amount to the hundreds of millions of people?

The answer to this question is, of course, largely depends on the demographic, economic, social, political, cultural and ideological factors. For example, it depends on whether the tide of globalization will continue rising, or this process will once again demonstrate its cyclical nature, and starts declining. Even without any kind of disasters it will lead to a decrease in mobility of the population, the weakening of economic interdependence, and control over the Internet (“the wild dream” of a large part of the elites in different countries), etc.

By extrapolating from current trends, it is possible, first of all, to assume that the English language even in a hundred years will retain its status as a major language of international communication. Not only the global role of the major large English-speaking countries will contribute to this situation (among which, given importance of English language, will be India, South Africa and Nigeria), but also the specific advantages of linguistic structure of English, making it simple enough to master at elementary level. Its role as the language of science, culture, diplomacy, global trade and transportation will most likely to be preserved, and all this will help overcome the “antiglobalization” negative attitude to English. At the same time the language itself verbally and in everyday speech can significantly differentiate, but its visual form will retain its unity.

Position of the Chinese language, about the glorious future of which many argue, is unlikely to be as strong as in the case with English, primarily because of the hieroglyphic writing system. It will be very difficult for the Chinese, due to cultural reasons, to abandon this system, as well as the tone system, which is unusual for a large part of the world. However, the prevalence of the Chinese language is likely to grow with the growth of Chinese power (if it continues), as the simplicity of the language at other levels of its structure and great openness of Chinese society contributes to this. The case with the Japanese language and Japanese culture is diametrically opposite, that is why the Japanese language remains strictly local as it was in the second half of the XXth century.

Flickr / Presidio of Monterey: DLIFLC & USAG

There is every reason to predict the growth in popularity and importance of the Spanish language. This process has already begun, as evidenced, in particular, by the college admission statistics. The growing number of Spanish language native speakers, its expansion into the USA, the originality and considerable wealth of its culture, economic growth in many Latin American countries, their demographic strength and, which is also important, the apparent reluctance of the Spanish speakers to communicate in other languages – all this combined contributes to its distribution, as well as Portuguese. The French and Italian languages seemingly carry almost the same competitive advantages (except for demographics), but a smaller number of speakers and the total economic value, even taking into account all the Francophone world – these are the factors make these languages weaker players.

The prospects for the Russian language do not seem very favorable. Its competitive opportunities are weakened by the following factors: demographic disadvantage of the Russian ethnos, the readiness of younger generation to use other languages, current poor Russia’s image in the world, which also plays its negative role with the Russian language. A great and simple structure of the Russian language, which is not perceived by lazy international community, and its complexity from the standpoint of studying at the elementary level – these are the things that can also be considered as negative factors for the Russian language. The structural status of the Arabic language (more precisely, the set of Arabic dialects), most likely will not change, it is quite difficult to predict its future value. The role of German as a language of “intra-European” communication is most likely to weaken, unless special measures are taken, however it is problematic.

English is likely to remain the language of interethnic communication in such biggest multilingual countries as India and Nigeria. Linguistic future of Indonesia and the Philippines are likely to be fraught with rivalries between English or Indonesian and Tagalog, respectively, and the attempts of revival of the Spanish language are perhaps possible in the Philippines. In India, the major local languages are comparable in size and cultural heritage, and therefore the role of “official auxiliary language” is played by English, the similar situation is in South Africa. The status of the major languages of Southeast Asia (Vietnamese, Thai, Burmese) most likely will not change, but in the event of the strengthening of the globalization process the role of English and possibly Chinese will obviously increase. Knowledge of the French language in Vietnam is unlikely to persist in any significant amount.

The fate of dialects will be determined by two counteracting trends: the unifying influence of mass communication, on the one hand, and the development of local identity and the use of dialects as a means of its maintenance, on the other. Judging by the current dynamics in the most developed countries, the second trend, as a result of conscious efforts, will prevail, but rather, opposition tendencies will be overcome and dialects will be able not only to survive, but even to reborn. But here, as in the case with grammar, the forecast is hampered with the development of processes at different speeds – this time, sociolinguistic – in different languages.

The formal and legal status of languages in multinational and multi-ethnic countries could be anything. Moreover, new symbols, explained by social and political specificity and its ideological reflection, can be invented, but it will not affect the actual functioning of languages.

Of course, language policy could affect, but we must realize that this is politics, suggesting an ideological justification, and which is at the same time, plays the “art of the possible” role. Like any politics, it can significantly speed up or slow down the process of language development to the extent that would be consistent with other factors of political development or contradict them. Thus, the struggle with the Russian language in some former Soviet countries (such as in Georgia) turned out to be successful, primarily due to changes in the objective requirements of its study. As for preserving the purity of the Korean language in North Korea, it is obviously due to the closeness of the country. A similar battle for the purity of the French language, which has a long history, with a soft, administrative support, is entirely dependent on the state of public consciousness in the French republic.

1. According to the latest (2009) edition of the authoritative directory “Ethnologue: Languages of the World”, there are about 6.9 thousand languages, but this figure is relative, primarily due to the conventional distinction between the language and the dialect.