George Boeree | The future

• Autor: George Boeree (“cgboeree”)
• Tema: The future
• Data: 2010-08-05 19:22
• Mesaje: 3155 (presedente, seguente)

I've been thinking about the future of "interlinguistics" lately, and
a number of things occur to me. First, it seems that the only place
where an international language is likely to become an issue is the
European Union. If discussions were to begin on the issue, I believe
I can predict the likelihoods of the various options.

First, the most likely option is the status quo. Most people seem to
prefer sameness over change, no matter how inconvenient the status
quo may be.

The second most likely option is English. I know all the arguments
against English - irregular verbs, a multitude of idioms, and, of
course, a ridiculous spelling system. English grammar is sufficiently
simple that learning idioms and irregular verbs are not that great a
barrier. Spelling is, but don't expect the English-speaking world to
ever address that issue seriously (see my point about "status quo",
above). There is also the issue of "cultural dominance" by the
English-speaking world. But I think that most Europeans have
sufficient cultural self-esteem that they are no longer threatened by
the culture of the English-speaking world.

The third most likely option - and it is a very distant third - is
Interlingua. Esperanto, to anyone other than an esperantist, looks
alien, antiquated, artificial, and just plain ridiculous. Ido,
Novial, and similar languages aren't that much better. Occidental and
LFN look too much like baby-talk pidgins. Interlingua, on the other
hand, for all its faults from a IAL-lovers perspective, looks to a
"naive" European like... European! (Don't get me wrong: My own
favorite is LFN.)

Interlingua is immediately accessible to a speaker of any Romance
language, and almost as accessible to an educated speaker of English.
And educated speakers of other Germanic languages shouldn't have much
trouble with it, either. (I say "educated" not to disparage people,
but rather to note that anyone familiar with international technical,
medical, and scientific words will find them in Interlingua.)
Naturally, speakers of Greek and Slavic and Celtic languages will
find it more challenging, and speakers of Hungarian, Finnish, and
Basque even more so. Even so, most of them have long ago reconciled
themselves to the need to learn other languages for access to broader
literatures.

One more possibility - one most likely to accompany the first
possibility (status quo): Machine translation. It is a huge
challenge, but inevitable. In fact, with a decent mainframe computer
and a few gazillion man-hours of programming, we should be able to do
it between two languages already. Once paradigms are established, it
should become easier and easier to develop effective translation
machines (at least for use in international government and business).
My prediction: 30 years tops. Of course, a translation app in your
iphone is further off.

Just my thoughts. What do you think?

Jorj

No trees were harmed in the creation of this post.  However, many
electrons were terribly inconvenienced.



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