YOUR language in the next 1000 years

[Lur]

I don't think these small European languages are going to disappear at this point.

Which ones? I bet at least a few will; say, North Frisian and Silesian, or Leonese. But I'm even more certain that small indigenous languages of Asia, Africa and South America will.

But something like Leonese is perfectly known and easy to reintroduce to a population that speaks the closest possible language. Really at this point the problem is that the right opposes any attempt to make it official.

Europe doesn't have that much of a language diversity and it's relatively well prepared in that regard, even if there are a few ones over there that are being or were very hard to keep.

On the other hand, the damage in other places in the world has been mindblowingly massive. We might discuss the status of Welsh all day long but meanwhile in America, Australia or Africa...

[linguoboy]

But something like Leonese is perfectly known and easy to reintroduce to a population that speaks the closest possible language. Really at this point the problem is that the right opposes any attempt to make it official.

I guess that means it's not so "easy" to do after all...

[mōdgethanc]

Strange pair of countries to bracket together: the US' growth rate [real GDP] is 2.2%; Japan's is 0.2%.

2.2% is still much lower than China's and within the typical range for a developed country. Japan is anemic. So it's really a question of which one China will end up becoming (or maybe even slipping in recession, but I doubt it).

Why the huge difference? Well, once reason is that the population growth rate of the USA is about 75-80% of the global average; Japan's growth rate is negative. China has historically been extremely open to immigration and successful at assimilating both immigrants and conquered peoples. I think in the near term its trajectory is pretty assured.

In the near term, yes. I'm talking about the long term. It's inevitable that at some point, China's growth will level off, and with that goes the main thing legitimizing the CPC's rule as well as buying soft power abroad. Meanwhile the USA is also famously open to immigration and has a head start of half a century or more, so I wouldn't assume that Chinese will necessarily overtake English in the future.

[Llawygath]

Which was ... what? It went extinct?

Exactly. There had been some agreement that everyone would speak only English, and this caused all the minority languages to die. Such things as French, for some reason, were spared, but Welsh was reduced to a decoration language - something you threw in bits of just for show, but would never use seriously. The decoration language bit seems to be happening already to the Celtic languages. Ever seen all the 'translate this for my tattoo' threads?

but you won't be alive then, will you?

No. None of us will in 3013. Do you consider this thread to be pointless?

[md0]

There are two significant tendencies in Standard Modern Greek:
*disuse of the genitive case
*denasalisation of voiced stops (eg εντελώς -> traditionally pronounced [eⁿde'los], but [ede'los] is getting more common in the last 15 years).

Though those will probably become universal sooner than 1000years in the future.

[mōdgethanc]

Exactly. There had been some agreement that everyone would speak only English, and this caused all the minority languages to die. Such things as French, for some reason, were spared, but Welsh was reduced to a decoration language - something you threw in bits of just for show, but would never use seriously. The decoration language bit seems to be happening already to the Celtic languages. Ever seen all the 'translate this for my tattoo' threads?

Okay. I highly doubt anything like that will ever happen, though.

No. None of us will in 3013. Do you consider this thread to be pointless?

It's idle banter at best, so yes.

[JackFrost]

Such things as French, for some reason, were spared

In Canada? Yes and no. Any francophone outside Quebec and New Brunswick doesn't really have much access to stuff in French.

Welsh was reduced to a decoration language - something you threw in bits of just for show, but would never use seriously.

Welsh is still the strongest of all Celtic languages. It's even the predominant language of northern Wales after all.

The decoration language bit seems to be happening already to the Celtic languages. Ever seen all the 'translate this for my tattoo' threads?

Only heard of that happening to Irish and Scottish Gaelic. For other Celtic languages, it's very unusual.

[mōdgethanc]

Welsh was reduced to a decoration language - something you threw in bits of just for show, but would never use seriously.

Maybe that will happen to Welsh someday. Maybe it will happen to English. It happened to Latin. I highly doubt it will be within your lifetime, though.

In Canada? Yes and no. Any francophone outside Quebec and New Brunswick doesn't really have much access to stuff in French.

Just so we're clear, she's talking about a fictional scenario from a book she read.

Welsh is still the strongest of all Celtic languages. It's even the predominant language of northern Wales after all.

I'm sure Gaelic is the dominant language in much of the Scottish Highlands too, so it can't be too badly threatened, even if it does have only about 50,000 native speakers.

[linguoboy]

Welsh is still the strongest of all Celtic languages. It's even the predominant language of northern Wales after all.

I'm sure Gaelic is the dominant language in much of the Scottish Highlands too, so it can't be too badly threatened, even if it does have only about 50,000 native speakers.

I'm sure you're wrong. Scottish Gaelic isn't even the predominant language anywhere except the Outer Hebrides. The Highland parish with the highest percentage of speakers, Lochalsh, is still more than 75% English-speaking. [See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_gaelic#Current_distribution_in_Scotland.]

[mōdgethanc]

Scottish Gaelic isn't even the predominant language anywhere except the Outer Hebrides.

Which are not part of the Highlands? News to me.

[Yasna]

Scottish Gaelic isn't even the predominant language anywhere except the Outer Hebrides.

Which are not part of the Highlands? News to me.

It is, but that doesn't help your point. You said it's the dominant language in "much of the Highlands". Stop twisting your words.

[linguoboy]

Scottish Gaelic isn't even the predominant language anywhere except the Outer Hebrides.

Which are not part of the Highlands? News to me.

It depends for what purpose. "Highlands and Islands" is the name of an electoral region and appears in the names of government bodies such as Highlands and Islands Enterprise and the Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service. So it can be ambiguous when you say "Highlands" whether you're including the Western Isles as well.

In any case, the Highlands and Islands Region is over 39,000 sq. km. in area with a population of over 360,000 in 2001. By contrast, the Western Isles are 3,070 sq. km. and have only 27,700. So by what possible logic does "predominant in the Outer Hebrides" equate to "dominant in the Highlands"?

Stop twisting your words.

Some people never do learn the lesson that you're better off just saying, "Oops, my bad" and moving on.

[mōdgethanc]

In any case, the Highlands and Islands Region is over 39,000 sq. km. in area with a population of over 360,000 in 2001. By contrast, the Western Isles are 3,070 sq. km. and have only 27,700. So by what possible logic does "predominant in the Outer Hebrides" equate to "dominant in the Highlands"?

I'm sure Gaelic is the dominant language in much a small part of the Scottish Highlands too, so it can't be too badly threatened, even if it does have only about 50,000 native speakers.

Oops, my bad.

[linguoboy]

Some people never do learn the lesson that you're better off just saying, "Oops, my bad" and moving on.

Oops, my bad.

Good to see you aren't one of them!

Yeah, I'm afraid that Gaelic is fucked at this point. It may last for another couple of generations as a fetish object, but I can't see it continuing much longer as an actual community language.

The Celtic languages which do survive will do so at the cost of being shorn of much of their distinctiveness. Native idiom (including fundamental semantic distinctions) will continue to lose ground to calques from English. That's just inevitable when the entire speaking population consists of functional bilinguals.

[Lur]

That's why I'm against that kind of bilingualism.

But outside of Unilang, people get mad at me if I dare to say such a thing. Sometimes even the bilinguals themselves.

But what is to be, then, of languages reduced to blingualism? They can't aspire to their own prestige? Are they to remain indefinitely as an useless add on language, with little media in them, in their most minimum historical areas, and never ever extend past these areas or have monolingual speakers ever? But this kind of idea is seen as an attack on the prestige majority language, missing the point entirely because it isn't about the majority language.


This reminds me of a video I saw the other day. Some right wing party at our parliament was critizising "impositions" of Basque or Catalan or whatever. Then a different dude came up to talk, and started talking in Basque until ten seconds later he was cut off because nobody understood. He then proceded to point out in Castilian that according to the Constitution, the imposed language is Castilian and the previous party were being a bunch of hypocrites.

And sometimes, why does the majority language have even to be official in the bilingual area? Does it even need protection or what?

[Marah]

So what you're suggesting is that they just grow up learning Gaelic?
Having English as a mother tongue gives a big leg up nowadays. The same goes for any language, having two mother tongues is a big advantage. I don't think it's fair to take them their advantage just to preserve a language. Sure, we're all language nerds here, but why should the average Joe care?

[Car]

If even those of us living outside of English-speaking countries have to learn English, is it really realistic to have monolingual Gaelic speakers? Is it desirable?

[Lur]

I didn't grow up to become a native speaker of English and I ended up just fine.

They could know English, as long as English lasts. Probably very well, like in some Scandinavian places. But the enforced bilingualism just rubs me the wrong way. The thought of entire societies kissing the asses of English/Castilian/French/Mandarin/whatever speakers because these happen to have "prestige".

[linguoboy]

But what is to be, then, of languages reduced to bilingualism? They can't aspire to their own prestige? Are they to remain indefinitely as an useless add on language, with little media in them, in their most minimum historical areas, and never ever extend past these areas or have monolingual speakers ever?

I don't think that's the only option. But prestige is closely linked with economic opportunity. That's how these languages lost prestige in the first place: fluency in them offered their speakers less opportunity than fluency in the dominant language of a more vigorous economic community, and people gotta make a living. Catalan is in something of a unique position among minority languages of Europe, being the historically predominant language of an economically advanced region.

[Michael]

I've stopped getting sentimental about language rise and decline. We're just a bunch of animals who will go extinct at some point in time anyways. All languages are the same in the end: Just a bunch of horrendous cacophony particular to homo sapiens. Our nationalism and flag-waving is artificial. Tectonic plates don't and won't give a shit about our borders, no matter how much, for example, countries like Greece and Albania fight over a mere few square kilometers of useless, craggy land, because borders are NOT set in stone. (Yeah, totally random, I know.)

Oh my. What have I become?