# Will English split into different languages? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 8, 2006, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-english-split-into-different-languages/343554 "2006-02-08T16:51:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2006, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-english-split-into-different-languages/343554/21 "2006-02-09T16:57:34Z")
> [@Crandolph](#): > > OK, but you put them in the same breath as Norwegian and Danish, which are a whole lot more different (in fact Norwegian has two pretty distinct dialects) than the Serbo-Croat dialects. My understanding is that after becoming independent from Denmark, the Norwegians deliberately made their language more different from Danish. It’s a bit like Scotland becoming independent from England, and adopting an extreme form of Lallans as the national language, just so they were no longer speaking English. National pride, and that sort of thing (which happened in the old Yugoslavia). ---
**Author:** ![Crandolph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7cd45c/32.png) [@Crandolph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crandolph)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2006, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-english-split-into-different-languages/343554/22 "2006-02-09T17:44:34Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > My understanding is that after becoming independent from Denmark, the Norwegians deliberately made their language more different from Danish. [A Brief History of the Norwegian Language](http://library.thinkquest.org/18802/langhist.htm) There were decisions made about to what degree to emphasize differences that already existed. To this day that process is incomplete. ---
**Author:** ![liberty3701](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3d9bf3/32.png) [@liberty3701](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/liberty3701)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2006, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-english-split-into-different-languages/343554/23 "2006-02-09T19:48:23Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#): > > My prediction, based on current trends, is that English will become more predominant and less dialectic (if that’s the word) in the next hundred years. Especially as the trends are self-reinforcing. Actually, some people believe that dialects in American are becoming more dissimilar, the Northern Cities Vowel Shift and the Southern Vowel Shift being some strong evidence of that. I can try to come up with a cite, if you want. This does not, of course, mean that they will split into different languages. Dialects are still strong and show no signs of disappearing. Added to that is varieties such as Indian English, where non-native speakers are having kids who are native speakers, creating very unique dialects. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_loblaw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f19dbf/32.png) [@bob\_loblaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_loblaw)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-english-split-into-different-languages/343554/24 "2006-02-10T11:23:16Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > {…}people in Quebec speak French, not Quebecois; {…} i don’t know much about your other examples, but quebecois, while not nearly a seperate language, is a quite distinct dialect from the french spoken in france. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-english-split-into-different-languages/343554/25 "2006-02-10T13:39:41Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > You mean, like when the 13 North American colonies of the British Empire split off, raised an army, and floated a navy? I did say it was a “trite observation”. Irony is utterly lost on you people. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2006, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-english-split-into-different-languages/343554/26 "2006-02-11T14:58:45Z")
> [@bob\_loblaw](#): > > i don’t know much about your other examples, but quebecois, while not nearly a seperate language, is a quite distinct dialect from the french spoken in france. Right – about as distinct as the dialects spoken in Birmingham, Alabama, and Birmingham, West Midlands. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2006, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-english-split-into-different-languages/343554/27 "2006-02-11T15:53:53Z")
> [@bob\_loblaw](#): > > i don’t know much about your other examples, but quebecois, while not nearly a seperate language, is a quite distinct dialect from the french spoken in france. The difference is that, although Quebec French is still highly distinct from France French - both on an unofficial and official level - both parties still identify themselves as speaking French, as do those who speak other French dialects. Conceivably, at some point in the future, the Québécois could choose to describe Quebec French as being a separate language, should they feel the need to do so, much as other mutually intelligible dialects have done. However, there is of course no political or social will to do any such thing; at most, there is a reinforcement of the features that make Quebec French different from other varieties, much as there is in Canadian English, without any attempt to describe it as a separate language. The same is true of the other dialects you mentioned. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_One](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/45deac/32.png) [@Evil\_One](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_One)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2006, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-english-split-into-different-languages/343554/28 "2006-02-11T16:01:41Z")
It depends on what type of English you are talking about. I don’t think that the type of English spoken in courtrooms or boardrooms will change much. But the English spoken by people who will never see the inside of a corporate boardroom might. The concerted effort to dumb down popular culture continues unabated, with optional spelling and multiple meanings for fewer and fewer words. ---
**Author:** ![yBeayf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/e274bd/32.png) [@yBeayf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yBeayf)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2006, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-english-split-into-different-languages/343554/29 "2006-02-13T00:41:02Z")
> [@](#): > > But the English spoken by people who will never see the inside of a corporate boardroom might. The concerted effort to dumb down popular culture continues unabated, with optional spelling and multiple meanings for fewer and fewer words. My personal belief is that within the next 150 years, American English as she is spoken by the common populace will lose virtually all traces of inflection, and become a totally isolating, uninflected language like Chinese. Slurs and contractions like “don’t” and “gonna” will become words in their own right, used to mark verbs for tense and negation: “I go to the store”, “I dont/aint be busy tonight”, “I gon’ do that tomorrow”, “I done see the doctor yesterday”. “Be” will become an uninflected verb (“I be”, “he be”, “they be”, etc.) Nouns won’t be marked for number anymore (“two girl”, “five beer”, etc.). The only area I could see inflection remaining is in the realm of pronouns; all the previous changes are logical continuations of present trends, but saying “Me go to the store” or “He done throw the ball to I” still sounds mighty unnatural. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2006, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-english-split-into-different-languages/343554/30 "2006-02-15T01:53:59Z")
It seems hard to argue that English will subdivide into multiple languages when the worldwide pattern is one of endagered languages. American English has, in it accretionary hodgepodge multicultural way, absorbed useful words from other languages, and in a more creative way, originated other words as needs have arisen, which may have begun in subpopulations but have spread throughout culture acccording to their utility. But it has steamrolled others out of existence. This only raises a different question than the op posed. Is this widespread use of American English, and the simultaneous loss of many other smaller languages, a good or a bad thing? On the positive it fosters communication between cultures and breaks down barriers, encouraging an exchange of ideas and thus sparking creativity. OTOH it fosters the homogenation of cultures. Some have compared the loss of language diversity to the loss of species diversity: a change that leaves us less prepared to adapt to new concepts as much as a lack of genetic diversity leaves an ecosystem at risk of lackng an adaptive response to dramatic environmental change. Others take an Orwellian perspective that language molds thought - fewer dominant languages will mold thinking into an increasingly narrow range of possibilities. Thoughts? ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-english-split-into-different-languages/343554/31 "2006-02-16T00:40:01Z")
> [@yBeayf](#): > > saying “Me go to the store” or “He done throw the ball to I” still sounds mighty unnatural. It should. Why on earth would the continuation of trends you suggest result in switching the first person objective and subjective pronouns? ---
**Author:** ![yBeayf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/e274bd/32.png) [@yBeayf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yBeayf)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-english-split-into-different-languages/343554/32 "2006-02-16T00:51:21Z")
> [@](#): > > It should. Why on earth would the continuation of trends you suggest result in switching the first person objective and subjective pronouns? It wouldn’t, necessarily. I just was giving two examples of what it might look like if pronouns did in fact become invariable. The first one is somewhat more likely – English-based creoles such as Gullah and Tok Pisin have usually (if not always – someone help me out here?) chosen some variant of “me” as the first person singular pronoun. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-english-split-into-different-languages/343554.md?page=1)