tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5453 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin
| Message 9 of 30 15 March 2010 at 7:59pm | IP Logged |
Namibia will emerge as the most important economy in Africa, its German speaking minority will multiply, and
German become the lingua franca of Africa south of Sahara. Iceland's banking sector will recover tenfold, will fund
compulsory Icelandic studies across Europe, and the EU will after some time adopt Icelandic as its sole official
language.
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ManicGenius Senior Member United States Joined 5481 days ago 288 posts - 420 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, French, Japanese
| Message 10 of 30 15 March 2010 at 9:27pm | IP Logged |
tractor wrote:
Namibia will emerge as the most important economy in Africa. |
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I counter your argument and say that Nigeria will have depleted the bank accounts of most gullible internet users by 2020.
Subsequently Nigeria's economy becomes 100% relied on internet scams, and as such Nigerian's learn English and Mandarin due to the economic vitality of the languages and their renown for generally holding the worlds wealth.
Giving ya a vote on that because I ingorantly left out Africa in predictions.
Edited by ManicGenius on 15 March 2010 at 9:27pm
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Paskwc Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5677 days ago 450 posts - 624 votes Speaks: Hindi, Urdu*, Arabic (Levantine), French, English Studies: Persian, Spanish
| Message 11 of 30 15 March 2010 at 9:55pm | IP Logged |
My actual prediction: The languages of the future won't be so much languages with
economic or demographic credentials, but languages that have those things and and a
culture of inclusiveness. Ultimately, language learners around the world will ask
themselves if they are welcome in the different cultural and social spheres of different
languages. If society X has deep-seated prejudices against people from societies A, B,
and C, societies A, B, and C won't warm to learning X's language. As such, I expect
English to remain dominant. Of all the world's second-tier languages, I expect Spanish to
have the most influence beyond its current domain.
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MäcØSŸ Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5809 days ago 259 posts - 392 votes Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2 Studies: German
| Message 12 of 30 15 March 2010 at 10:12pm | IP Logged |
I predict that we will reach the singularity and
that in few years we will have improved our minds with genetic engineering so that we’ll be able to communicate
by sharing thoughts directly, without the use of language.
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Faim de Siècle Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5807 days ago 36 posts - 39 votes Speaks: English*, French
| Message 13 of 30 15 March 2010 at 11:19pm | IP Logged |
It is unlikely that Mandarin will ever replace English.
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elvisrules Tetraglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5469 days ago 286 posts - 390 votes Speaks: French, English*, Dutch, Flemish Studies: Lowland Scots, Japanese, German
| Message 14 of 30 15 March 2010 at 11:25pm | IP Logged |
ManicGenius wrote:
I counter your argument and say that Nigeria will have depleted the bank accounts of most gullible internet users by 2020.
Subsequently Nigeria's economy becomes 100% relied on internet scams, and as such Nigerian's learn English and Mandarin due to the economic vitality of the languages and their renown for generally holding the worlds wealth.
Giving ya a vote on that because I ingorantly left out Africa in predictions. |
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On the one hand, I find this quite funny, lol. On the other hand, as a 1/4 Nigerian, I am deeply offended.
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Deshwi Triglot Newbie Canada Joined 5600 days ago 31 posts - 38 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Arabic (Written), Turkish, Hindi, Persian
| Message 15 of 30 16 March 2010 at 12:18am | IP Logged |
Isn't the world ending in 2012? I kid. Actually I think bilingualism/ trilingualism will become more commonplace in the future, as the world gets smaller.
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ManicGenius Senior Member United States Joined 5481 days ago 288 posts - 420 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, French, Japanese
| Message 16 of 30 16 March 2010 at 12:24am | IP Logged |
elvisrules wrote:
On the one hand, I find this quite funny, lol. On the other hand, as a
1/4 Nigerian, I am deeply offended. |
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No offense intended. A great many "Nigerian" 419 scams occur pretty much anywhere on the
planet. There was a list somewhere listing it by place.
The sad part is that it actually has become a true criminal industry and fools a lot of
people into sending random strangers money in blind faith.
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