Like the title, this article talks about the future of language, but more specifically it focuses on the future of language through economics. It shares statistics showing each language and the number of native speakers. To know surprise, Chinese leads with 1.39 billion speakers. Yet, the most vastly spoken language is English. English is abundant in 101 countries around the world, almost double of the next leading language Hindu, which is spoken in a respectable 60 countries. English is the most universal language, but researchers have noticed that Hindu and Chinese are two rapidly emerging economies. So, it wouldn't be unwise to learn either of these languages to give yourself a helpful advantage in your career. For example, if you have a business meeting with foreigners who speak Chinese and know Mandarin, you are likely to be successful in your endeavors.
The amount of Americans learning a language other than English has decreased by 100,000 between 2009-2013. Many believe that taking a course in Economics is more beneficial than learning a second language; but what language will dominate the future? English only ranks third in for amount of people with it as a native language. Here are a few ways to think about what language will dominate in the near future.
To some extent, Americans have an advantage over much of the world's population: The country's two most widely spoken languages - English and Spanish - are among the most widely spoken worldwide. So, are Americans still willing to take language classes?
Top universities in China are beginning to drop the English requirement test. This shows that English in losing its dominance internationally and Chinese may indeed be the language of the future.
Columbia University linguist predicts 600 languages will remain in 2115 This will be due to the movement of people and parents not teaching their children 'native' languages used to particular parts of the world Dr John McWhorter says languages will also likely become more simple Translating tools will not be enough to preserve linguistic diversity Sci-fi visions of the future may focus on soaring skylines and flying cars, but the world in 100 years may not only look different, but sound different too.
English has been the dominant global language for a century, but is it the language of the future? Many assume that Mandarin could grow to become the world's dominant global language with the China's economic rise.
The king and queen of Spain flew to the former colony of Puerto Rico to help launch on Tuesday what is considered the world's most important event involving the Spanish language. The royal couple joined more than 200 writers, academics and experts who traveled to the U.S. territory to...
Researchers at the University of Washington and University of Connecticut examined thousands of 30-second snippets of verbal exchanges between parents and babies. They measured parents' use of a regular speaking voice versus an exaggerated, animated baby talk style, and whether speech occurred one-on-one between parent and child or in group settings.
"What our analysis shows is that the prevalence of baby talk in one-on-one conversations with children is linked to better language development, both concurrent and future," said Patricia Kuhl, co-author and co-director of UW's Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences.
The more parents exaggerated vowels -- for example "How are youuuuu?" -- and raised the pitch of their voices, the more the 1-year olds babbled, which is a forerunner of word production. Baby talk was most effective when a parent spoke with a child individually, without other adults or children around.
"The fact that the infant's babbling itself plays a role in future language development shows how important the interchange between parent and child is," Kuhl said.
"This shows that our brain has a complex sensitivity to our own speech that helps us distinguish between our vocalizations and those of others, and makes sure that what we say is actually what we meant to say," Flinker says....
While the study doesn't specifically address why humans need to track their own speech so closely, Flinker theorizes that, among other things, tracking our own speech is important for language development, monitoring what we say and adjusting to various noise environments.
"In cultures with left-to-right orthography (e.g., English-speaking cultures) time appears to flow rightward, but in cultures with right-to-left orthography (e.g., Arabic-speaking cultures) time flows leftward."
Participants who read regular text tended to press the left button for past-oriented phrases and the right button for future-oriented phrases, but participants who read mirrored text did the opposite.
"We can't talk about any complex situation-like crime-without using metaphors," says Lera Boroditsky, assistant professor of psychology.... In one study, 71 percent of the participants called for more enforcement when they read: "Crime is a beast ravaging the city of Addison." That number dropped to 54 percent among participants who read an alternative framing: "Crime is a virus ravaging the city of Addison."
"Neural processing that goes into deciphering simple two-word phrases is different from what happens when decoding complete sentences and other more complex linguistic expressions."
"Positive evidence presented in a weak way can make listeners suspicious of a predicted outcome, a finding that can have serious implications for professional persuaders like marketers and politicians."
"The current, long-standing theory suggests that children learn their first words through a series of associations; they associate words they hear with multiple possible referents in their immediate environment....A small set of psychologists and linguists, including members of the Penn team, have long argued that the sheer number of statistical comparisons necessary to learn words this way is simply beyond the capabilities of human memory.... rich interactions with children-and patience-are more important than abstract picture books and drilling."
"The Assyrian Dictionary is not simply a word list. By detailing the history and range of uses of each word, this unique dictionary is in essence a cultural encyclopedia of Mesopotamian history, society, literature, law and religion and is an indispensable research tool for any scholar anywhere who seeks to explore the written record of Mesopotamian civilization"
"Children whose parents talked about sets of four to 10 objects that the child could see were more likely to understand the cardinal principle. Using smaller numbers in conversations and referring to objects the children couldn't see (such as "I'll be there in two minutes.") did not have the same results."
"An area of the brain called the Visual Word Form Area, or VWFA, is activated whenever it sees something that looks like a word-and is so adept at packaging visual input for the brain's language centers that activation happens within a few tens of milliseconds. ... Instead of being "luminance-defined," words can be "motion-defined," distinguishable from their background not by color or contrast, but by their apparent direction of movement. Against a field of dots moving one way, words made up of dots moving in the other direction will "pop out" to most viewers, even if the word and background dots are the same shade."