All these dialects have had 100's of years to evolve unhindered - great thing about Esperanto is that it has changed over time, but it has changed universally at the same rate. Also our Academy has been much more effective in controlling the instruction of the language, in comparison to the French Academy. I personally think that in the future English will become even more universal, just look at Australian English, unless you go to the outback (I was brought up there) you will find out accents not to distant from that of the American, or British. Also my dads from New Zealand and you would never have guessed it - except for the few Maori words he throws around.

Ceige, you can't use what happened to Latin as a relevant example. The cross communication between communities was so different then with no Radio, TV, Film, National Education and so on.

A more relevant model would be the changes that took place in France between the 19th and 20th centuries.

I believe that at some time in the 1800's (in the pre-modern era) most Frenchmen didn't speak French. There were at least seven different languages used throughout France. Nowadays there are few speakers left of the regional languages.

Wired: How English Is Evolving Into a Language We May Not Even Understand

Certainly the use of English as a first language is becoming more homogenised in Western nations, but the number of speakers of English as a second language is growing quickly. As the number of ESL speakers increasingly outnumbers native English speakers it is likely that international use of English will change dramatically over time.

In 'The Future of English?' David Graddol states,

On the one hand, the use of English as a global lingua franca requires intelligibility and the setting and maintenance of standards. On the other hand, the increasing adoption of English as a second language, where it takes on local forms, is leading to fragmentation and diversity. No longer is it the case, if it ever was, that English unifies all who speak it.

It has some interesting predictions for English as a global language on page 56.Though it is worth noting that this report was written in 1997, before the exponential rise of the World Wide Web.
The British Council: The Future of English?

Currently there is Indian English, Singlish, Chinglish and many other variations of pidgin English or English dialects. If a Bollywood movie company is making a film for India and South East Asia why would they bother with Hollywood English? Similarly if a Chinese company is communicating with Russia will they be using current International English or a new variant? A new, simplified international English may emerge specifically for ESL communication. Native speakers may adjust their language use to match it, or it may emerge as a separate auxilliary language, slowly evolving away from native English and forming an entirely new language. Or as new economic power-houses emerge their version of English may become the new lingua franca.

The future of English may not be as homogenised as it first appears.

Hmmm.

Studies in my part of the English world show that the trend for young males these days is to actually continue diverging from main stream English, strengthening the local dialects. The young ladies however seem to speak a little more like the Television then before. Whatever that means.

I read the comments about the TV and global communication, made me think of how people communicate.. they use text messages which are a bazillion percent more local then international. I'll bet there are loads of new and separate text-dialects emerging and I bet they will effect regional spoken language.

Think I'll write a paper!

Here I can text BK to a friend. Bet I can't anywhere else.

Just a thought.

Oh, and about the Topic of this thread. What's that guy so sore about? I'm gonna get meself a "Big Bad Esperanto" T-shirt and go knock over a few languages. Who wants some?

Miland:

ceigered:New Zealand English can already be incomprehensible to some of us (I mean the virry thuck eccints)..

I tested this theory a few years ago by asking an old friend from NZ to say the name of a well-known delicacy in the Anglophone world. He replied "fish and chips", not "fush and chups".

Watch New Zealand's Next Top Model, if you can survive the general idea of the show. Most NZ'ers and Australians only "notice" any differences between each other's accents AFTER they've been told "I'm from NZ/Australia". But some speak another language. Granted, some I think on the show I cite weren't even native NZers, but some were and I had a VERY hard time understanding them.

(also, I reckon to someone living in England that NZ English would probably sound more normal than to someone living in Australia for the strange reason that we are so used to being homogenous in our language that to hear those little vowel differences in a broad NZ accent it can throw off our entire understanding. I believe for example in some cases the AU "i" is higher than the NZ "i" in broad accents at least - well, my accent might not be a good example anyway since mine floats between the two...).

@ Erinja:

Not really, in fact I do feel more as if English will evolve as a whole due to various unifying factors, but I feel there's more chance of English splitting in the future than us ending up with only 20 languages really spoken. Regarding Alciona's post, there is a CHANCE the language may split. I feel that the most reasonable conclusion is that it will just result in Britain's current case where you have some very strong varieties but ultimately there is understanding, or at least a "neutral" form of the language people use (well, that's no longer really Britain but now more Indonesia ).

(also, it's not like I beat the bloody drum all the time Only really on the net and mostly here, since it's in my nature to be a bit of a devil's advocate, so when I hear things about English that I find strange I'll happily "create" a rebuttal. I should add that I agree with your thing about "not now" - I am not trying to imply "now", but rather the future. I mean 100-500 years in the future. And "bazillion" might be what you interpret what I say as, but I'm pretty sure that for English to split into anything other than 4 or 5 languages, it'd have to be pretty damn traumatic. Like nuclear apocalypse or something insanely big and anarchistic).

@ Sudanglo:
True, but you can't use the example of France either, since not every country has a centralised education system like France did (does? I'm sure it's weakened over time). We're also dealing with different countries. Australians are not Americans, Americans are not Brits, Brits are not Indians, Indians are not South Africans and so forth. And like it or not, there are many of us who don't really like the idea of being homogenous (regardless of whether it's occuring without us knowing). For unification of language, I think we first need unification of identity and culture, which doesn't seem to be the direction things are heading in.

@general conversation:

ULTIMATELY - it's all speculation. The English language may become more homogenous, but at the same time it's generally not the tendency when the culture, politics and societies are becoming less homogenous in various ways. At the same time, internationalisation means that various parts of our culture are becoming more homogenous.

Perhaps we will more likely end up with heavy regional dialects, distinct cultures, but at the same time have a common language and internationalised parts to our cultures that sort of act like the lingua franca of the Mediterranean and trading posts of old.

Perhaps we will end up completely homogenous, although to me that seems more like a b-grade dystopian future movie plot.

Perhaps the language will split up entirely, which sounds likely only really if things start to go down poop's creek internationally speaking.

Maybe Alciona's and Vejktoro's posts are more or less what I really want to say, but I seem to have dug too bigger hole for now and come off looking like a dooms-day preacher who knows nada about the world around him. Once again I stress my words are speculatory, and I'm not seriously arguing that the English language is doomed and that people from other English speaking countries are incomprehensible. It's just that there are visible differences occurring that we should take into account.

@ Vejktoro: I've so badly felt that thing about male English constantly diverging while female English homogenises. Off topic but I think whales do the same thing...

Ceige, watching gameshows on French TV as I do quite often, I am struck by how often the host will pick up on what seems to me a very slight accent used by the contestant.

Anyway, I am doing my bit to keep English on the straight and narrow by forcefully pointing out to cold sales callers of Indian origin that they should go and learn to pronounce the language properly before they try to sell me something over the phone.

It's staggering how often such callers have terrible accents. I remember recently having to ask several times for a repetition and finally getting them to resort to spelling in order to establish the name of the company they represented.

sudanglo:Ceige, watching gameshows on French TV as I do quite often, I am struck by how often the host will pick up on what seems to me a very slight accent used by the contestant.

Sounds like Australia!

It's staggering how often such callers have terrible accents. I remember recently having to ask several times for a repetition and finally getting them to resort to spelling in order to establish the name of the company they represented.

No comments on what should be done there since reforming this language is too daunting to think about before an indonesian test tomorrow, but this reminds me of some BBC comedy show about a call centre in India - I remember one male worker trying to impress a nearby female coworker with his "extensive" knowledge of English placename pronunciation - until he got to the Welsh place names (which the female coworker then outdid him by pronouncing them perfect - except for that they certainly didn't sound like they should in Welsh ).