Language is a medium of communication between two or more parties. So long as they understand each other, all is good. whether they used klingon or Martian, it don’t matter.
What i do know is that, if, hypothetically, internet throws a poll for people all over the world to choose language they will use for communication, every one, myself included, will hold their conner, defending how real and original the language that they are familiar with (and most definitely biased towards) is.
if you put it on a vote on the other hand, something different happens. In fact, it’s been happening all along, silently and quietly at the back of our heads. From the first day surfing through the internet to buying your first own smartphone/laptop and choosing the default language for these devices, I know on my part I was driven by convenience. As the majority of media outlets use English. From the shows i watched to the role‐models i looked up on while growing up, they all circled around this fascinating slang that made them even more interesting. The internet’s influence towards english made it easy (at least for me) to catch up real quick.
I will say this tho, hearing hakuna matata on the lion king was awesooome
One of the things that really excites me about the internet is its impact on the development of language. We’re still at the very beginning of its impact, considering the timescale on which language has traditionally evolved, but I suspect that in time the advent of the internet will be considered a major inflection point in the history of language, maybe the single greatest inflection point in the history of language itself. All of a sudden, billions of people who otherwise would never have had the means to converse directly, are now able to converse directly with billions of other people all over the globe, in near real-time. I can’t really imagine how that doesn’t have a seismic impact on how human language evolves. I would love to jump forward in time a few centuries just to see how the things that are happening right now shake out in the long term.
Swahili speaker (native) here, fluent in English.
Language is a medium of communication between two or more parties. So long as they understand each other, all is good. whether they used klingon or Martian, it don’t matter.
What i do know is that, if, hypothetically, internet throws a poll for people all over the world to choose language they will use for communication, every one, myself included, will hold their conner, defending how real and original the language that they are familiar with (and most definitely biased towards) is.
if you put it on a vote on the other hand, something different happens. In fact, it’s been happening all along, silently and quietly at the back of our heads. From the first day surfing through the internet to buying your first own smartphone/laptop and choosing the default language for these devices, I know on my part I was driven by convenience. As the majority of media outlets use English. From the shows i watched to the role‐models i looked up on while growing up, they all circled around this fascinating slang that made them even more interesting. The internet’s influence towards english made it easy (at least for me) to catch up real quick.
I will say this tho, hearing hakuna matata on the lion king was awesooome
One of the things that really excites me about the internet is its impact on the development of language. We’re still at the very beginning of its impact, considering the timescale on which language has traditionally evolved, but I suspect that in time the advent of the internet will be considered a major inflection point in the history of language, maybe the single greatest inflection point in the history of language itself. All of a sudden, billions of people who otherwise would never have had the means to converse directly, are now able to converse directly with billions of other people all over the globe, in near real-time. I can’t really imagine how that doesn’t have a seismic impact on how human language evolves. I would love to jump forward in time a few centuries just to see how the things that are happening right now shake out in the long term.