Language is a unique talent of human beings, an important part of human civilization, and the main carrier of human civilization at the same time. However, 90% of the approximately 7,000 existing languages in the world are on the verge of extinction, due to the dwindling number of speakers of these languages. So does this mean that human society will eventually have a situation where a single language dominates the world? Saussure (1857-1913), a famous Swiss linguist and founder of modern linguistics and semiotics, once wrote in his book: "Time Change everything, and language cannot resist this universal truth." In fact, if the first characteristic of language is its rapid emergence, then its second characteristic is undoubtedly continuous development and change. Just as the genes of an organism mutate from generation to generation, languages also change their faces over time. For example, a language can be derived from many "sub-languages". The various language families included in the Indo-European language family are evidence of this. Most linguists believe that all these language families are derived from the same language, "Proto-Indo-European".
According to the description of the Indo-European language tree, the Proto-Indo-European language has derived many important language families, such as Celtic languages, Romance languages (French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, etc.), Germanic languages (German, English, Danish, Swedish, etc.), Baltic, Slavic (Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, etc.), Persian, Hindi, and Greek.
Proto-Indo-European languages appeared between 8,000 and 9,500 years ago, and the exact origin is still controversial. However, it is generally believed that Proto-Indo-European is deeply rooted and flourishing, with as many as 430 languages derived from it, ranging from Brest, France to Calcutta, India, with more than 2.5 billion users!
How can a language have so many branches? When a language spreads over a wide variety of geographic areas (for example, Proto-Indo-European spread through agricultural exchanges or military conquests), different ethnic groups cannot Maintaining constant contact, their respective dialects inevitably diverged over time and parted ways. The reason is very simple. All languages have a common development trend, that is, with the development and progress of human beings from generation to generation, the economic, social and cultural environment in different historical periods will also develop and change. Keep pace with the times and keep changing. Just look at the difference between English or French today and English or French in the late 19th century. Another factor that causes language changes is the mixing of multiple languages, that is, groups of people who speak different languages generate a new language due to long-term contact and communication. This is the case with those mixed languages known as "Creole Whispers". The language is spoken by the inhabitants of the French overseas department of Guadeloupe (the Lesser Antilles in the eastern Caribbean), the Cape Verde Islands, and Haiti. The mixed languages they speak are a mixture of the languages spoken by the former French, British and Spanish colonists and the native languages of the locals. These mixed languages gradually evolved into the native languages of the inhabitants of these areas.
According to the statistics of the American Summer Institute of Linguistics, the number of languages used in the world's continents and their proportions in the global language are: 2,269 in Asia, accounting for 32.7%; 2,092 in Africa, accounting for 30.3%; 1,310 in Oceania, 19%; 1002 species in America, accounting for 14.5%; 239 species in Europe, accounting for 3.5%. There are 6912 languages in the world. The most frequently used native languages are: Chinese, Spanish, English, Arabic, Hindi, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, Japanese, German, French, etc. The global number of languages has been declining since ancient times, with about 14,000 languages spoken in the 16th century, and has been on a downward trend since then, with only about 6,900 remaining in 2006. According to UNESCO's definition, an "endangered language" is a language that young children no longer learn in school; a "dying language" is a language that is still spoken only by older people. To preserve these languages, linguists are trying to save their vocabulary and grammar and encourage people to learn them.
If languages are constantly changing to suit economic, social and cultural development, they too will disappear quickly. The demise of Latin is the most obvious example. After the Roman Empire was defeated by the Germanic peoples in the 6th century AD, Latin gradually declined, and finally gave birth to the Romance language family. The scope of this language extinction was unprecedented. Experts believe that between now and 2100, 50% to 90% of the languages currently used in the world will disappear!
Why is there such a tragic phenomenon? The data from the American Summer Institute of Linguistics is quite convincing. Of the world's 6,900 languages, 95% are spoken by only 6% of the world's total population. What's worse is that there are not enough speakers of about 1,900 languages! The direct result of this situation is that in order to maintain economic and social ties with the neighboring large-speaking ethnic groups, the ethnic groups who use these languages have to gradually accept the latter languages. Therefore, the extinction of a large number of small languages and the rise of the dominance of a few large languages have become inevitable. These major languages include English, Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, Hindi Urdu, etc. The 2.5 billion native speakers of these 5 languages represent 40% of the global population! This percentage is estimated not to change throughout the 21st century.
Nonetheless, the continued dominance of the aforementioned major languages in the years to come is not only due to their extremely large number of speakers, but foreign language learning as a second language is also an important factor. Certain so-called "widespread languages" are used as foreign languages by an increasing number of foreigners across borders. Of course, English is the first language here, and it is said that about 500 million people around the world speak it as a second language. There are about 350 million native English speakers. But English will not be the "big one" in the future, because another language, Chinese, is expanding on a massive scale. It is especially sought after in Asian countries.
But will these widely spoken languages one day replace all other languages? The odds are slim. First, there are more than 100,000 speakers of 1,300 languages, which keeps them from dying out. Second, these large languages themselves have the potential to be the mother of future variants. Like "British English", "American English", "Australian English" in English, the differences between them are becoming more and more pronounced, and may eventually lead to inability to communicate properly. Just like the changes in Proto-Indo-European, there is no guarantee that these large languages will not one day spawn multiple new languages, thereby ensuring the diversity of the world's languages.
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