For decades, English has dominated the world’s languages.
Around the turn of the millennium, about a quarter of the world’s population could
communicate in English to some degree.
But with changing world demographics and globalization, the languages we all use are sure to change
in form and popularity.
So we wanted to know, what is the future of language?
Well, there are certainly competing ideas about what will become the most widely spoken
language.
But one thing is pretty widely agreed upon: that the total number of languages worldwide
will drop considerably.
Today, there are about 7,000 languages spoken around the globe.
This number is thought to drop by about 90%, although new hybrid languages are expected
to spring up, maintaining culture and diversity.
Even today, nearly two-thirds of the world natively speaks only one of 12 languages.
Most language predictions are based on population growth, with China and India taking the lead.
The UN suggests that by 2050, both Chinese and Hindi will be spoken by some 1.3 billion
people each.
Another, somewhat questionable prediction, has been that French will become the most
spoken language within the same time period.
Although today French is natively spoken by roughly 220 million, that number is expected
to increase to roughly 750 million, and the study suggests it will eclipse both Chinese
and English.
A major reason for this assumption is that a number of African nations speak French,
and Africa’s current economic growth is a strong predictor of a rapid population growth.
Still, many have criticized this view, saying that French-speaking nations in Africa don’t
actually represent the total number of French speakers.
But while population growth is a good measure of native language rates, it may actually
be English as a second language that dominates the world.
For example, although Chinese is spoken by more people, English is spoken in three times
as many countries.
Furthermore, Chinese is considered more complicated to learn than English, and is not used nearly
as often in scientific communication.
It is also important to note that English has the considerable advantage of already
being the predominant language for print, education, media, and most importantly, the
internet.
Many estimates also predict that Spanish and Arabic will see a huge influx of both native
and secondary speakers, with Spanish already the second most spoken language in the United
States.
The future of language is easy to see: most languages will die out, and existing languages
in countries with rapid population growth will naturally see the greatest rise.
But the most likely scenario is that the world will continue to globalize through the English
language, largely through non-native speakers.
The world has over 7,000 languages.
To learn more about the most common languages spoken, watch our video.
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