Video Fix: What is the future of language?

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english-languageEveryone knows that the English language has been dominating the world for decades now. At the beginning of the millennium, indeed, about a quarter of the human population was able to communicate in English to a certain degree. However, mainly because of globalisation, the language we all use is unquestionably going to change in terms of form and popularity. So, nowadays the question is: what is the future of language, and particularly of the English one? Moreover, which are the languages that the world will speak in 2115? If you want to try and answer some important questions concerning the future of our languages, you can check this week’s video: you will learn a lot more about real numbers and predictions.

For instance, today we can count about 7,000 languages spoken around the globe – and yet, two-thirds of the world only speaks one of twelve languages (Chinese, Hindi-Urdu, English, Arabic, Spanish, Bengali, Russian, Portuguese, German, Japanese, French and Italian). Of course, most language predictions are still based on population growth, with China and India obviously taking “advantage” of the situation. On the other hand, some different and quite interesting theories are making inroads – like the one saying that French will become the most spoken language within the next decades, eclipsing both English and Chinese. Many estimates also predict that Spanish and Arabic will officially become the second most spoken languages in the world, with Spanish being already the second most spoken language in the United States.

But most of all, watching the video you will understand how, even considering all these predictions and new theories, it seems that English has a great chance to survive as the predominant language in our world – especially remaining the most used one in education, media and, almost more important, the internet. That’s the reason why the most reliable future scenario remains the one in which the world will continue to globalise through the English language, and largely through non-native speakers.

Sources:

– The content of the video has been created by TestTube News – a YouTube channel committed to answering questions about life, society, politics and anything else happening in the news.

 

Written by Eva Barros Campelli

Communication Trainee at TermCoord

Trained Journalist at the London School of Journalism