Possibly ignorant question

[T'Boggan]

The evolution of language and meaning is constant. If we could hear people on the streets of England 300 years ago we would recognise much of the language but not the use and context. 300 years in the future after the 3rd world war and the downfall of our 21st century society, English, as any other language would suffer from degredation and change of 'Usage' in the written and spoken form. English may have to have been reconstituted from the written word alone. The Writing we see on the Federations ships may look like theyre ancient english counterparts but be pronounced differently. Phonetic;
" yo asses Eentireprissy an an fife yar mzzen ti ixamin string noo wilts sik aht noo lif an noo peeoples. ti bildy gan weer nir mon hast gan hifoor!" ?

 

[Tenacity]

English ... is relatively easy to learn

No it isn't, but it would depend on what you meant by "relatively."

 

[Gul Sengosts]

English is probably one of the worst languages you could pick to be a universal one. But it's probably wasn't ever PICKED. It just became the defacto one.

I disagree. I think English is an imperfect but still fairly reasonable "choice".

You could argue, why not Mandarin or even Arabic or whatever, but since Indo-European languages are the most widespread language family worldwide, it makes some sense that the world language is a member of that family just by demographics. Among those, I believe English is a pretty reasonable "choice" because it's a Germanic-Romance hybrid that mostly got rid of the complicated systems of gender and inflection that are typical for the family.

Untypically for the family, in English only individuals with an actual sex are referred to with "he" or "she", everything else is "it", done. It's a pain in the arse to learn the gender of every single word in German or Italian or whatever, in English this problem just doesn't exist. Makes it much easier to learn.

Inflection, another complicated issue in other languages of the family, is almost eliminated in English. Some irregular verbs aside, you sometimes add an S or a D on a pretty predictable basis and that's it. Again, much easier to learn than the usual chaos in other Indo-European languages.

Tenses are fairly complex in English, and it can be quite difficult to get it right even for speakers of closely related languages like German. However, while it may be a challenge to get the subtleties right, a basic understanding of simplified English can be easily achieved. You can use only simple present, past and future with words like "after", "before" and "while" and everyone understands what you're trying to say.

The biggest problem I see with English is orthography. The relation between spelling and pronunciation is highly irregular in English, you have to learn both for any word because there's no reliable connection. That's a great advantage of Spanish: if you know how it's spelt you know how it's pronounced and vice versa. But then again, Spanish has those stupid genders and a lot of complicated inflection.

But in the end, this is all theoretical, because a world language isn't chosen, it emerges. Some languages vanish, others become dominant, that's how it's always been. Repressive governments/dictatorships may force the use of a certain language, but unless we'll have a world dictatorship, I think English will grow as the dominant language of the Earth, whether one likes it or not.

Is English the perfect world language? Certainly not. Is it "one of the worst"? I'm sure it's not either.

 

[J.T.B.]

Yeah, it’s much easier than, say, Latin.

ROMANES EUNT DOMUS!

Domus? Nominative?!

No it isn't, but it would depend on what you meant by "relatively."

As I said, relative to languages that are tonal, languages which have noun declension and languages with more complex verb forms (the Spanish subjunctive, anyone?). As I said, English has many simplified characteristics typical of languages which have adapted to significant numbers of adult learners, mainly due to the various intrusions of the British isles.

 

[at Quark's]

That’s a lot of languages, but it’s also DA FUTUR(!), in which they’ll probably be a lot smarter than us anyway.

There are several countries today where being able to speak four or more languages with a reasonable to high degree of fluency is considered nothing out of the ordinary. So it's quite doable, even without cybernetic enhancements (the 'hundreds' you mention would of course be another story).

It's hard to say how this would compare to learning alien languages (bound to be more different than anything found on earth) though.

English ...is relatively easy to learn. It's not tonal, which can be very hard to pick up if you didn't grow up with it, it doesn't have declension and the verb constructions are pretty simple.

I think it depends. If you are a 6 y.o., and starting out from a language that is a close relative (let's say Dutch or Danish), it probably is much easier than if you are a 55-year-old Japanese trying to learn it.

When I had to learn German and English in high school, most of my classmates preferred English, because it was "simpler", but there were also some that preferred learning German over learning English, it having a lot of clear-cut grammar rules suited them better than a language with a certain 'vagueness' in that respect (not trying to be offensive here). So it's probably also a matter of personal disposition.

 

[Leviathan]

Per TNG "Code of Honor," French has become obscure by the 24th century.

Kor

By the year 3001 it's a dead language:

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[Nyotarules]

It's English! Probably each country still retains it's own language but for work in space or any other contacts it's gotta be English!
JB

Its Frenglish, otherwise the French will refuse to join Starfleet and Frexit from UE government

 

[johnnybear]

Probably but Kirk hears the Melkot message in English in Spectre of The Gun because he says as such while everyone else hears it in their own native language!
JB

 

[Shawnster]

The evolution of language and meaning is constant. If we could hear people on the streets of England 300 years ago we would recognise much of the language but not the use and context. 300 years in the future after the 3rd world war and the downfall of our 21st century society,

How much drift has there been in English (or any other language) since the invention of both the printing press and recorded audio?

 

[T'Boggan]

For example. the word "Fast" used to mean fixed, firm, secure, strong Gradually it changed in use to mostly mean Quick as opposed to slow, while still retaining partial use of the word ie to stand 'Fast' or to abstain from eating hold pledge not to consume , then to break ones 'Fast' Extrapolate 300 forward and its anybodies guess!

Since the spread of the written word and literacy in general the trend has been towards Homogenization. This has been quite recent in historical terms.120 years or so.There is also evidence that from the start of public radio broadcasts,and eventually television, originally presented by people with received pronunciation, that this has affected regional accents, local etymology and how people perceive language.

Over the centuries the influence of other cultures have of course contributed to the evolution of spoken English. More so since the 1950's in Britain. It goes on.