A Look At English's Past And Future

We’ve all seen those Egyptian hieroglyphics in tombs and temples. Those hieroglyphics represented a number of ideas and sounds and concepts. But is English heading towards this kind of future?

Y’know, emojis…

We already use emojis in most of our regular use (I don’t really use them because I don’t have a phone, but I’ve seen enough of them to understand what most of them mean). Either we use them independently, or combined with our sentences.

Example: “Keep you dog of my lawn! 🏠 🐕🤬🔪🔪☠️⚰️!”

Example: “Bless Canada. 🇨🇦😇”.

Example: “I am very sick. 🤢🤢🤮🤧⚰️”.

Example: “please don’t hurt my dog! 🥺 🐕 🚮🔪☠️⚰️”.

If this language were to be a real language, all it needs is a new conlang!

Each emoji would express an idea and/or a sound. Now, most emojis are used mostly for describing adjectives:

“😀 Happy”, “🥰 In love”, “😂 tears of joy”, “🥺 pleading”. “🤥is a lier”, “😡 very mad”, “😵 is dizzy”, “🥶 very cold”, “🥵 very hot”, “😭 very sad”.

But there is also nouns:

“🏠 house”, “💩 faeces”, “🐕 dog”, “🐈 cat”, “🐉 dragon, mythical”, “💵 money”,

And verbs:

“✍🏼 to write”, “🗣 to speak”, “👀 to see”, “💋 to kiss”, “🙏🏼 to pray”.

Because we’re already so used to emojis, it won’t be hard to write entire sentences with them. Linguistics have studied languages, and learned that they evolve over time. In fact, 500 years from now, English could sound very, very different. And tracing down the evolution of language is interesting.

For example: 500 years ago; initial k– and g– ceased to be pronounced before n (as in knight, gnaw) as did initial w– before r (as in write) and medial –t– in such words as thistle and listen. final –b and –g ceased to be pronounced after nasal consonants (lamb, hang).

Now if there’s one thing we all know, and that’s that English makes no sense when you spell. If we spelled words phonetically instead of the old way, words will look very different.

“Scale / skeɪl” “word / wəːd” “ nasal /neɪz(ə)l” “language / laŋɡwɪdʒ” “money / mʌni”

And sentences sound very different. Bellow is an example of old-english.

Bob: “Wes hāl, Hu eart þú?” (“Hello, How are you?”)

Bill: “Iċ þancie þē” (the reply to ‘how are you?’)

Bob: “Hū hāttest þū?” (“What’s your name?”)

Bill: “Iċ hātte Bill” (“My name is Bill”)

Bob: “Wes hāl” (“Goodbye”)

Yes, that is real English, it’s just that over the years native speakers change definitions, and morphology. At first glance, it seems like a foreign language from a distant island, but that’s the language your ancestors spoke (if you are English).

Who knows? Maybe in the future we’ll spell words phonetically, instead of middle english-like. And because humans tend to be lazy, we will most likely use emojis more often, instead of having to type all those keys. It’s quick and easier way to do things.

And we already shorten words, so as time progresses, words will become more compact, and smaller.

Y’know, who’s, aren’t, doesn’t, won’t, can’t, isn’t, ain’t, shan’t, mustn’t, I’ll, we’ll

Maybe 500 years from now, we would have talked like the ‘old’ day people.

A language of emojis could theoretically exist. But, learning them would take a long time, and learning how each one relates to each other would take even longer. But because images and faces are hard-wired into our brain it would make sense for an advanced society. Thought and action would be simplified, and talking entire sentences could just be one emoji. Language doesn’t change all at once, but steadily over time. Like a mother teaching her child how to spell a word, but the mother uses memory. So the word ‘wolf’ might be spelt ‘wolfe’, which explains surnames.

Emojis would eliminate the cumbersome use of spelling entire words. And if people continue to use emojis, it will help shape the future of the English language.