Wave, Current, Cascade 2.0 beta

Disclaimer: if you are a card-carrying member of SPELL, reader discretion is advised. I am not responsible for paradigmatic shift trauma you may suffer for continuing.

Here, Justin Rye offers a delightful little exercise in predictive linguistics that starts with contemporary [North] American English, trends linguistic changes from its origins in first-millennium Anglo-Saxon, and offers a possible rubric for what he proposes in 3000 CE as “Late American.”

Don’t try to make it more than it is… it’s an exercise, not a prophecy. That having been said, Rye comes well-armed with a good sense of structural linguistics.

My question: Did David Mitchell use this for background when writing up the “Sonmi-451″ and “Sloosha’s Crossin” chapters of Cloud Atlas? Keep in mind Mitchell’s own recognition of the limitations of the book publishing market:

I have to make it readable. Of course, I will be asking present day users of English and my translators are asking present day users of their respective languages to be reading this book now with the linguistic apparatus that they have. So I can’t change it that much and I can’t change it probably as much as the language really will change. (in interview with Ramona Koval, 20 Feb. 2005)

But for those who have read Cloud Atlas, it’s worth examining Rye’s payoff example at the end of the exercise – a comparison between American English c. 2000 and “Late American” c. 3000. Translate the Futurese back into contemporary idiom, and it sure bears resemblance to Zach’ry, doesn’t it? And, while Zach’ry’s culture is exclusively oral, Rye’s exercise doesn’t mandate the exclusion, removal or other enforced absence of a parallel inscribed linguistic code.

P.S. Rye gets bonus points for acknowledging sign languages and mythbusting a few of those ugly, persistent “facts” about language. Which I won’t circulate further. If you know what I’m talking about, you’ll spot it on his page.

[via BoingBoing]