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English 500 years in the future?

Wag

Wag

Member
Nov 3, 2017
11,638
I'm watching Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and wonder about the premise of even being able to communicate in the same language with someone who lived so long ago without some sort of frame of reference? You would expect that someone who lived 500yrs in the future would have an easier time than say someone 500yrs in the past because of the technological revolution- but there are no guarantees modern media will last 500yrs in the future let alone to be able to play it back.

https://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/resources/era/shakespeare-old-english/

Take for example Middle-English (about 600yrs ago). Its barely decipherable today. Shakespeare (~400 or so) much more.
I like that webpage because they really discuss the changes in English around that time period.

Wonder what people think about this?
 
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Deleted member 8861

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Oct 26, 2017
10,564
It's going to be wildly different, especially considering the accelerating rate of societal change we're going through.

My favorite thing about this is that NIER and NieR Automata's soundtracks are sung in a language crafted by the composers and singers, who basically sat down and figured out what they thought a mix of French, English and a bunch of other languages could sound like, 1000 years in the future.
 
Rice Eater

Rice Eater

Member
Oct 26, 2017
2,814
This reminds me of a topic that I wanted to make. Which was about how far back in time you could go while still being able to communicate in your language. We know English doesn't quite resemble what it did 500 years ago. But what about Spanish, Mandarin, or Japanese?

But yeah, this is a different topic and one I wish we could know that answer to but the language isn't going to change much in any single life time.
 
OP
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Wag

Wag

Member
Nov 3, 2017
11,638
Rice Eater said:
This reminds me of a topic that I wanted to make. Which was about how far back in time you could go while still being able to communicate in your language. We know English doesn't quite resemble what it did 500 years ago. But what about Spanish, Mandarin, or Japanese?

But yeah, this is a different topic and one I wish we could know that answer to but the language isn't going to change much in any single life time.
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The technological revolution, Internet, world travel, etc, is making the world much smaller than its ever been before. I wouldn't be surprised, even in very rural regions, many languages will become blurred together.
 
FaceHugger

FaceHugger

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
13,949
USA
Slang will probably sound like the street-level goons in a Frank Miller Dark Knight comic. At least I hope so, and within five years.

A more serious answer: I think English will continue to change much as it has been changing these past several decades, as people from different countries move in and out of English-speaking nations and influence the vernacular, and English speakers are exposed to more art and culture imported from abroad; New words added, words in other languages adopted by English speakers becomes more common (has happened a lot in the past decade with Japanese words and the heavy reading of manga by gen Z, and Spanish lingo as more people from countries south of the US in America migrated north, for example), additional meanings given to existing words, etc.
 
Xavillin

Xavillin

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,028
Wag said:
The technological revolution, Internet, world travel, etc, is making the world much smaller than its ever been before. I wouldn't be surprised, even in very rural regions, many languages will become blurred together.
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So Pidgin English? We Hawaiians living in 3020.
 
Septimus Prime

Septimus Prime

EA
Verified
Oct 25, 2017
8,500
I also speak Mandarin, so I could go back a few thousand years and still be able to communicate with Chinese people, no problem.

English, though, is kind of unique because it's an amalgamation of the languages on all the people who invaded the British Isles over the centuries. I think, moving forward, though, that its syntax probably won't change so much that it becomes incomprehensible to us, but I'm sure future people will be using different words to refer to things, and it would take at least a few days to figure out what they're talking about.
 
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Wag

Wag

Member
Nov 3, 2017
11,638
Septimus Prime said:
English, though, is kind of unique because it's an amalgamation of the languages on all the people who invaded the British Isles over the centuries. I think, moving forward, though, that its syntax probably won't change so much that it becomes incomprehensible to us, but I'm sure future people will be using different words to refer to things, and it would take at least a few days to figure out what they're talking about.
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More than a few I'd imagine. As I said, even if current digital media exists 500yrs in the future, how would they even know how to play it back? Standards are changing so fast. Digital technologies are not like older analog recordings made on tapes or platters where you could probably figure out how to play it back without the original machines.
 
nekkid

nekkid

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
21,823
The problem won't be words, it will be context:

7mf73xm6dn621.gif
 
Septimus Prime

Septimus Prime

EA
Verified
Oct 25, 2017
8,500
Wag said:
More than a few I'd imagine. As I said, even if current digital media exists 500yrs in the future, how would they even know how to play it back? Standards are changing so fast. Digital technologies are not like older analog recordings made on tapes or platters where you could probably figure out how to play it back without the original machines.
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Yeah, but this is assuming a several-hundred year jump without any interim. There will continually be new media, and linguistic evolution will happen incrementally. So, like, the media from say 50 years in the future will probably still be around 100 years from now, and the language from then will still be close to what we have now compared to then-modern vernacular. Then, 50 years after that, it'll be like that again, and then again, and so on.
 
IDreamOfHime

IDreamOfHime

Member
Oct 27, 2017
14,427
If you're gonna time travel 500 years in the future, learn Latin 1st. Guaranteed there'll be some show off that speaks it and thus you'll have communication.
 
Amalthea

Amalthea

Member
Dec 22, 2017
5,672
#brv! doo yv no mek my tinx nex 5 bgg lonx, mek my :(!!!

Translation: Brother, do not make me think (hard) about 500 years in the future (1 bgg lonx = 100 years), it makes me feel sad.
 
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