Here’s another side of accelerating change — human languages are disappearing with alarming rapidity, going extinct at a rate “that exceeds that of birds, mammals, fish and plants.” It’s interesting that while technology and mass culture are killing languages, technology is also making it possible for people who speak two different languages to communicate with each other even without having to learn the other language.

Maybe this will reduce the extinction pressure and enable some languages to survive? Of course, even languages that don’t survive in the carbon substrate (human beings) may have a bright future in the silicon substrate (computers.)

UPDATE FROM STEPHEN:

I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand any loss of knowledge or culture is a very bad thing. On the other hand, language difference has been the greatest barrier to communication throughout the history of the world.

Comparing the cultural evolution represented by language extinction to the tragedy of species extinction seems a bit of a stretch.

The language barrier has allowed all kinds of atrocities. Imagine how different United States history would have been had there been no language barrier between native people and Europeans. Perhaps the West would not have been won or lost. It could have been shared.

But, as Phil suggested, maybe in the near future we can have the best of both worlds – a rich tableau of language, AND no language barrier. With superintelligence or computer enhanced intelligence perhaps we could know many languages. If you encountered a person who spoke a rare language you could quickly learn and use that language to show respect.

Obviously for an endangered language to be part of this future it has to survive. Rare languages are often spoken by bilingual people who use a more dominant language outside the home. The multicultural impulse to save those languages is not likely to perpetuate a language barrier. The barrier is already down.