It's unlikely that we'll see a world that speaks one language any time soon. Protecting each individual countries' cultures is a huge barrier, but an important one to ensure our world is as beautifully diverse as it's always been.
According to the Engco Forecasting Model explained above, the 5 most spoken languages in 2050 will be Mandarin, Spanish, English, Hindi and Arabic. The key drivers behind the continued rise in popularity of these languages include population growth, economic predictions and national language policy.
1. English (1,452 million speakers) According to Ethnologue, English is the most-spoken language in the world including native and non-native speakers. Like Latin or Greek at the time, English has become the world's common language.
Imagine losing the languages of the world to a dominant global one. According to Dan Fitzgerald, a Washington, D.C.-based French instructor, the costs to humanity would be huge. "Much of the culture that goes along with each of those languages would also disappear," he explains.
Of course, the world is constantly changing, and a new study has proclaimed that there will soon be a new global language on the world scene. Dr. Jeffrey Gill, a Flinders University academic, believes Chinese is set to rise shortly as a prominent global language spoken frequently outside of China and Asia.
The number of Chinese speakers online is estimated at 888.4 million, which has risen an astounding 2600% over the same time period. The Chinese language is catching up quickly and is set to overtake English in the near future.
Language extinction
Many of the languages spoken today are in constant extinction. Linguistic predictions say that of 6,000 languages that are globally spoken today, around 600 of them after 100 years will have simplified versions or will not exist at all.
Therefore, while growing up without hearing poses many difficulties in life, growing up without language is significantly worse. Language is so central to being human that lacking it can mean a lifetime of social deprivation and isolation.
When it comes to natural language, speaking the same language would reduce our creative scope and innovativeness, and it would press us all into the same mould. Knowing different languages allows us to give expression to different cultural identities and it keeps us in touch with our heritage.
Language is a vital part of human connection. Although all species have their ways of communicating, humans are the only ones that have mastered cognitive language communication. Language allows us to share our ideas, thoughts, and feelings with others.
FRENCH – MOST BEAUTIFUL SPOKEN LANGUAGE
With its unpronounceable “r”, its nasal vowel sounds “en”, “in”, “un” and melodious intonation, it sounds extremely musical to the non-native ear. And let's not forget the strong cultural context which lends French the status of the most beautiful spoken language in the world.
Across multiple sources, Mandarin Chinese is the number one language listed as the most challenging to learn. The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center puts Mandarin in Category IV, which is the list of the most difficult languages to learn for English speakers.
Types of Language Change
Language is always changing. We've seen that language changes across space and across social group. Language also varies across time. Generation by generation, pronunciations evolve, new words are borrowed or invented, the meaning of old words drifts, and morphology develops or decays.
Language is always changing, evolving, and adapting to the needs of its users. This isn't a bad thing; if English hadn't changed since, say, 1950, we wouldn't have words to refer to modems, fax machines, or cable TV. As long as the needs of language users continue to change, so will the language.
Why shouldn't we “speak in any language” and “not move our arms so much”? Ans: People of the world speak in different languages. They indulge in unnecessary debates and disputes. Most of these arguments lead to destructive wars.
Earth actually does not have the same name in every language. Like most words and names, Earth has its own unique name in each of the many different languages around the globe.
There has only been one successful instance of a complete language revival, the Hebrew language, creating a new generation of native speakers without any pre-existing native speakers as a model. Languages targeted for language revitalization include those whose use and prominence is severely limited.
Tanema. Tanema, which is also called Tetau, Tetawo or Tanima, is a language that used to be spoken in a village in Emua, in the province of Temotu and the island of Vanikolo, all found in the Solomon Islands.
Language of thought theories rely on the belief that mental representation has linguistic structure. Thoughts are "sentences in the head", meaning they take place within a mental language.
Every 40 days a language dies. This “catastrophic” loss is being amplified by the climate crisis, according to linguists. If nothing is done, conservative estimates suggest that half of all the 7,000 languages currently spoken will be extinct by the end of the century.
English will most likely not become the dominant world language as more people speak more than one language, a language expert reports. The world faces a future of people speaking more than one language, with English no longer seen as likely to become dominant, a British language expert says in a new analysis.
Linguists point to how the loss of languages is worsened by climate change. As temperatures rise, so does the rate at which crucial elements of indigenous culture become extinct across the world. It is calculated that, at the current rate, around 90% of all languages will disappear in the next 100 years.