Comment by matroosberg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by matroosberg | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

What evidence do you have to support your claim?

I think it is much more likely that we will have a small number of lingua francas (right now English, Spanish and Mandarin are the top three spoken languages and serve as the lingua franca in various locations) but a plethora of local languages will remain.

Many African countries, but also Latin America, the US and Canada are examples of that. South Africa is a stark example with 11 official languages. Many South Africans grow up bilingual. English is the lingua franca there, but neither Xhosa, Zulu, nor Afrikaans will die out any time soon.

Language forms reality and vice versa. It always adapts to the needs of the speakers. Just look at English used be lawyers vs engineers. Geography is not the only factor for diverging languages. Social differences are also a factor, e.g, sociolects are specific to a socioeconomic class.

So unless human societies become a lot more homogenous, I don't see a single language emerging.

"What evidence do you have to support your claim?"

A) The evidence is in the article. It's heading towards a small number very quickly.

B) Everyone is learning to speak English. Everyone in W. Europe under 30 speaks English fairly well. It's happening in M/E and Asia as well.

Once immigrants to W. Europe who speak English + some foreign language can get services in English - there's no point in learning the local language.

There are only 12 million Swedes. 10% of them barely speak Swedish - and the number is growing rapidly.

Once young people speak English fluently and services are in English - so much work will be in English ... Swedish loses all real utility. And utility is an important thing.

'Long term' I think a diaspora of languages is important, but people make short term decisions: 'what is important in my life'?

I fear in 20 years, in Sweden, young people will equate 'Swedish' with 'old, out of touch, nationalists and racists' - which is an unfair characterization but the perception is already developing: young urbanites speak English fluently, rural, less developed communities, less so.

Ad A) It's merely a list of extinct languages, an incomplete at that since we cannot possibly know all languages that were spoken 3000 years ago. So it does not even give you a rate at which languages go extinct. But, yes, as we see more mobility (geographically and socially), languages consolidate, but a consolidation to one single language seems extremely unlikely, as I explained before.

Just because Swedish might die (which I doubt, but that's beside the point), does not mean that all languages but one will die.

Ad B) While English is probably gaining importance (speculating, I don't have a source), it is number 2 in total speakers after Mandarin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_num.... Even Everyone in W. Europe under 30 speaking English is an overestimation. If you look in less well educated groups, you will find more people not speaking English. Even Sweden shows ~5% of "Younger" not speaking English in http://languageknowledge.eu/countries/sweden. Austria even shows only 52.35% speaking English natively or learned: http://languageknowledge.eu/countries/austria

"I fear in 20 years, in Sweden, young people will equate 'Swedish' with 'old, out of touch, nationalists and racists'".

interesting angle. I doubt that Swedish will ever lose its utility, but dividing the society along language lines and typecasting native speakers as racists sounds like a natural development of current trend.

Language is more than just a way to exchange facts. If you want to say "I love you" to somebody, or reach an agreement to end apartheid, you better do it in the language that is closest to the emotions, which is the language learnt within the first few years.

"If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart." (Nelson Mandela)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com