The Future of Language

Of the 6,000 unique languages on Planet Earth, as many as 5,000 could perish by 2050. Accelerating the decline in the diversity of languages is the increasingly globalized nature of communications.

On the Internet, for example, 85% of all messages are communicated using only 10 different languages.
At the same time, images and other sensory stimuli are replacing words as tools of communication in business and academic settings. Screens filled with images and augmented by sound have become ubiquitous. Text messaging continues to compress language into shorter and shorter bits and has characteristics that make it distinctive from traditional written language. A plethora of texting phrases, such as LOL (laughing out loud) and IDK (I don’t know), become rapidly and seamlessly integrated into the language.
The future of language is at once a simplified plainspeak and a condensed technospeak.
Who should attend: Anyone interested in the evolution of language.
What you’ll learn: (1) Dramatic changes in the diversity of spoken and written languages. (2) Increasing dominance of a handful of world languages. (3) Evidence of the effects of text messaging, tweeting, and “bounded communications” on language. (4) The effects of reading and visual/auditory stimuli on vocabulary development. (5) Emerging tools of communication that are replacing words.
How this new knowledge can be applied: The information can be applied to practical applications of business and global communications, as well as personal development.
Lawrence Baines, author of eight books on education and literacy; chair, Instructional Leadership and Academic Curriculum, University of Oklahoma-Norman, Norman, Oklahoma