Not in the next couple of hundred years.
Europe is a great example of how people have multiple languages and just work together. I can't imagine France, Germany, or Italy at the very least giving up their languages.
this post was submitted on 12 May 2025
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Right. I'm looking more towards "big picture" changes, similar to progressing through the different civilization types from the Kardashev scale.
That hypothetical universal language will have to start small scale, in a community such as the EU, and spread from there. Or am I misunderstanding what you're saying?
It doesn't need to be a completely new language. It just needs to be a language that most people overall speak rather than, say, most people in a particular region.
Yeah and that still has to start small scale. People in the EU are perfectly fine switching to English where needed but they still speak their own languages otherwise. There's no need for an EU-wide language so a universal language is unlikely to start here at least.
After humans have started colonising other places in space, that's where I could see them lose their traditional languages.
Chinese, English and Spanish are the top 3 languages spoken globally. and only ten languages make up the bulk of the world population's first language. Both Chinese and English are already widely spoken as a second or third language. I could easily see either becoming a defacto 1st/2nd language globally.
Thanks. This is the kind of discussion I was hoping for.
No worries buddy! This is interesting shit to think about!
I don't really think so, nor do i believe it would be desirable.
Esperanto ekzistas!
Yes. However, a reduction in languages is usually linked with major authoritian episodes. For example, the rise of Latin associated with the dominance of the Romans. Or English, French, and Spanish with colonial dominance.
Any future reduction in language diversity will likely, unfortunately, be linked with such a period. Wouldn't want to live through it, but it's probable it'll occur at some point, if you give us a long enough timescale.
As a French Canadian with Catalan friends, fuck no.
Language is part of our culture. You can't translate anything slightly complex perfectly because vocabulary doesn't align between language. And that's without going into idioms.
People will always make concerted efforts to preserve their heritage, so looking languages takes a cultural genocide like in Ireland. Since we consider this to be morally bankrupt, I don't see it happening anytime soon.
You wouldn’t want a single language as that would make propaganda easy to distribute.
No. We'll all just speak into our translator voice box when we need to, and play our fun language games with our neighbors otherwise. I don't think a universal language buys us anything.