Via RCP, this is an interesting article on the future of languages:
Science fiction often presents us with whole planets that speak a single language, but that fantasy seems more menacing here in real life on this planet we call home—that is, in a world where some worry that English might eradicate every other language. That humans can express themselves in several thousand languages is a delight in countless ways; few would welcome the loss of this variety.
But the existence of so many languages can also create problems: It isn’t an accident that the Bible’s tale of the Tower of Babel presents multilingualism as a divine curse meant to hinder our understanding. One might even ask: If all humans had always spoken a single language, would anyone wish we were instead separated now by thousands of different ones?
…not least because the author admits that, yeah, there are worse options than English. The article takes the position that non-tonal languages with relatively simpler tenses and a stripped-down grammar are the way to go; good news for English-speakers, not so good for Mandarin ones. I figure that we’d probably be better off with maybe a couple of dozen languages, at the end… as long as one of those is recognizably English, of course. That would be optimal for me, and of course my opinion is the only one that matters here*.
Moe Lane
*Cultural chauvinist, remember? – And dang proud of it, too.
“English…the language of Shakespeare, Milton and the Bible.”
–Prof. H. Higgins
Ma Ferguson governor of Texas many years ago, when asked for money for foreign languages at University of Texas: “If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, then it’s good enough for Texas.” Wiki says it’s apocryphal, but I learnt it at UT back in the early ’70s.