A sobering thought.

We've pretty much come to assume that English will always be the "language of choice" far into the future. Heck, they speak English on Star Trek, so I've come to expect a rosy future for the language of Shakespeare. But give it a few decades, and it may not be so.

I've heard about the extinction of languages. Hundreds of little regional dialects that are now lost. Usually, ones I've never heard of before. I just never expected English to, well, shuffle of this mortal coil.

Okay, maybe I protest too much. The article says by mid-century, English is likely to be #3, behind Chinese and Indian. But where will it be by the end of the century? Is English (not to mention other European languages) bound for the dustbins and recessed haunts of libraries, beside Latin and Greek?

...Thus, then, did they celebrate the funeral of Hector, tamer of horses.