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What Will the World Speak in 2115?

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Re: What Will the World Speak in 2115?

#21

Post by themodelplumber »

qianyilong wrote: post #16

I really don't like how tones are presented as a confounding item like irregular verbs. Tonal languages essentially just take advantage of extra bandwidth that was ignored by most european languages. They are hard for western learners but only because we are unused to treating tonal information as important. In fact because of tones and limited pronunciations available I have found that I feel Chinese is more toleran…

We use tones in English, too. Is it TACO Bell, or Taco BELL? Either one can get you laughed out of the room in refined company, depending on your peer group.

Re: What Will the World Speak in 2115?

#22

Post by uberstuber »

rokhayakebe wrote: post #2

I have a different opinion. I think people will stick to their languages, and some will die naturally. However, one new language will emerge. It will be a set of 500 to 1000 words that anyone can learn and use to communicate world wide. Similarly to a programming language, this one will be limited in words and easy to pick up. This language will act as a framework, giving the essential people would need to have basic…

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_English

Basic English is 850 words

Re: What Will the World Speak in 2115?

#23

Post by dragonwriter »

themodelplumber wrote: post #21
qianyilong wrote: post #16

I really don't like how tones are presented as a confounding item like irregular verbs. Tonal languages essentially just take advantage of extra bandwidth that was ignored by most european languages. They are hard for western learners but only because we are unused to treating tonal information as important. In fact because of tones and limited pronunciations available I have found that I feel Chinese is more toleran…

We use tones in English, too. Is it TACO Bell, or Taco BELL? Either one can get you laughed out of the room in refined company, depending on your peer group.

I'm not sure what you are trying to communicate with the capitalization there, but what it suggests to me is more stress/accent than tones; those aren't the same thing.

Re: What Will the World Speak in 2115?

#24

Post by qianyilong »

cperciva wrote: post #20
qianyilong wrote: post #16

I really don't like how tones are presented as a confounding item like irregular verbs. Tonal languages essentially just take advantage of extra bandwidth that was ignored by most european languages. They are hard for western learners but only because we are unused to treating tonal information as important. In fact because of tones and limited pronunciations available I have found that I feel Chinese is more toleran…

I really don't like how tones are presented as a confounding item like irregular verbs. Tonal languages essentially just take advantage of extra bandwidth that was ignored by most european languages. Most irregular verbs also serve to increase bandwidth though: You can say "I ate" faster than "I eated".

Dang that is true I didn't think of that. good observation.

Re: What Will the World Speak in 2115?

#25

Post by elnate »

natrius wrote: post #13

I don't know how people will communicate in 2115, but I can't imagine a 2115 where every human doesn't know every language without any effort at all. How can a discussion of life that far in the future not mention how computers will shape it?

http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3576#comic

Re: What Will the World Speak in 2115?

#26

Post by guelo »

themodelplumber wrote: post #21
qianyilong wrote: post #16

I really don't like how tones are presented as a confounding item like irregular verbs. Tonal languages essentially just take advantage of extra bandwidth that was ignored by most european languages. They are hard for western learners but only because we are unused to treating tonal information as important. In fact because of tones and limited pronunciations available I have found that I feel Chinese is more toleran…

We use tones in English, too. Is it TACO Bell, or Taco BELL? Either one can get you laughed out of the room in refined company, depending on your peer group.

I've never thought of syllable accents as being equivalent to tones. Maybe you're right but to me the difference in emphasis has more to do with cadence and volume than tone.

Re: What Will the World Speak in 2115?

#27

Post by sbmassey »

rmason wrote: post #17

I think the article asks the wrong question. Surely by 2115 we will have a perfect universal translator fluent in hundreds of languages. Why learn Chinese or Hindi if your smartphone or perhaps your glasses will seamlessly translate back and forth between your native language? The pressure to learn a second language will be lessened greatly.

The thing is, that would require that your smartphone be sufficiently aware of the context of your words that it could correctly map one ambiguous statement in one language to another in another language with a different set of ambiguities.

For example, the German 'ich mag sie' could mean 'I like her' or 'I like them' or 'I like you' in formal settings, while the English 'at least' could be translated to German as 'zumindest', or 'mindestens', or 'wenigstens', with different emotional significance.

I'm not sure you could really do adhoc translation at the language level with any real fluidity: you would probably need your phone to monitor your brain before you spoke to get at the pre-language meaning of what you are saying, if that is even possible.

Re: What Will the World Speak in 2115?

#28

Post by jodrellblank »

rokhayakebe wrote: post #2

I have a different opinion. I think people will stick to their languages, and some will die naturally. However, one new language will emerge. It will be a set of 500 to 1000 words that anyone can learn and use to communicate world wide. Similarly to a programming language, this one will be limited in words and easy to pick up. This language will act as a framework, giving the essential people would need to have basic…

Your hundred year prediction is already more than a hundred years out of date. Welcome to 1880's Bialystok in not-yet-Poland, and the birth of Esperanto.

Here we are in 2015 and the one hundredth annual Esperanto Congress is coming.

The reasons approximately nobody speaks Esperanto now, are the same reasons nobody will speak your universal language in 2115.

Re: What Will the World Speak in 2115?

#29

Post by sho_hn »

themodelplumber wrote: post #19
rmason wrote: post #17

I think the article asks the wrong question. Surely by 2115 we will have a perfect universal translator fluent in hundreds of languages. Why learn Chinese or Hindi if your smartphone or perhaps your glasses will seamlessly translate back and forth between your native language? The pressure to learn a second language will be lessened greatly.

I wonder if there would be even more demand for an e.g. refined English-to-casual English translator, and vice versa. If someone from one of the entrenched higher classes uses a phrase like "acquire the appropriate attire for dressage," one of their new staff might not be educated enough to understand even the own-language equivalent and its nuances. I would think there'd be plenty of demand for something that transc…

I'm not sure about "more demand", but I wouldn't be surprised if multi-language ability were to seen as more distinguishing in a world in which language translation is readily available - i.e. "can do what most rely on a machine for". I don't think "why do they trouble themselves instead of just using machine translation" would happen any time soon, since being able to speak a language yourself still affords the most direct communication path (unless it falls out of fashion to talk face to face).

Especially since this is something where it's not possible for machines to truly just eclipse humans -- if you're fluent, you're fluent. Of course machine translation easily surpasses human speakers on vocab, but you're more or less bounded by what the recipient/listener can understand, anyway.

But demand for translation services will likely dwindle.

That said, one of the best reasons to learn languages is simply the mental exercise, and unless we change the way humans learn and maintain mental performance, that will remain true.

Re: What Will the World Speak in 2115?

#30

Post by sho_hn »

sbmassey wrote: post #27
rmason wrote: post #17

I think the article asks the wrong question. Surely by 2115 we will have a perfect universal translator fluent in hundreds of languages. Why learn Chinese or Hindi if your smartphone or perhaps your glasses will seamlessly translate back and forth between your native language? The pressure to learn a second language will be lessened greatly.

The thing is, that would require that your smartphone be sufficiently aware of the context of your words that it could correctly map one ambiguous statement in one language to another in another language with a different set of ambiguities. For example, the German 'ich mag sie' could mean 'I like her' or 'I like them' or 'I like you' in formal settings, while the English 'at least' could be translated to German as 'z…

Not to detract from your point (which is very true; for machine translation to match human translations they need equal access to and understanding of context), but as a native German speaker, your example seems wrong to me :). "It is pleasing to her" = "es gefällt ihr","It is pleasing to them" = "es gefällt ihnen".

No doubt it's possible to construct examples that support your agument in just about any language, though. I'd recommend East Asian ones, since they're less heavy on the pronouns than Indo-European languages, and you can generally often omit subject or object if it's clear from context, or are even expected to for good style. Korean poetry even relies on intentional ambiguity a lot of the time, forcing the reader to consider the options, for their enjoyment or to challenge them.

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