alexiscartwheel | English of the future

I was reading this month's issue of Wired, and it got me thinking about linguistics. (What else, right?)

First off, an essay by Michaeal Erard entitled "Anyone Here Speak Chinglish?" Or, at least, that's what they call it in the print version. I digress. Erard wonders if those funny Chinglish phrases we all love to laugh at aren't really bad English at all. Maybe the Chinese are just speaking a whole new form of English. There's a familiar historical precedent for such a change: the Romance languages. Yesterday's Latin is today's French. I think it's pretty much certain that as English spreads, many of the new Englishes that result will be perfectly legimate languages that are mostly incomprehensible to Americans.

I'm less convinced, however, that American English will start sounding like Chinese English, or any other English. Any movement like that would be very gradual, especially since the average American doesn't have much contact with foreign speakers of English. And Geography always has an effect on language. The moment we all started speaking one global Pan-English (not that you can ever quantify that), it will immediately start to break down again into local dialects. I'm also not convinced that the poorly translated signs are all proof that those particulare mistakes are correct in Chinese English. I think it's more likely the had a bad run in with the Google translator.

But still... interesting stuff. And we thought it was difficult to understand Brits and Australians.