The linguistic future of the Internet 241
find none already written. It has proved to be an exploratory, pro-
grammatic work, in no way definitive. It suggests material for a
thousand theses.^30 But the sheer scale of the present Internet, let
alone its future telecosmic incarnations, has convinced me that we
are on the brink of the biggest language revolution ever. Whereas
in the past we have had speech, then writing, and throughout the
20th century debated the relationship between the two, now we
are faced with a new medium, and one which could be bigger than
either of its predecessors. What I have been calling Netspeak will
become part of a much larger computer-mediated language, which
in the digitally designed enhanced-bandwidth environment of the
future could be the community’s linguistic norm. Whereas, at the
moment, face-to-face communication ranks as primary, in any ac-
count of the linguistic potentialities of humankind, in the future it
may not be so. In a statistical sense, we may one day communicate
with each other far more via computer mediation than in direct
interaction. The effects on what counts as ‘normal’ language acqui-
sition could be similarly profound. The social implications of this
are so mind-boggling that this linguist, for the moment, can only
ruminate ineffectively about them. Perhaps here there are grounds
for real concern.
But with respect to the kinds of neurosis expressed at the begin-
ning of chapter 1, I do not feel concern. I do not see the Internet
being the death of languages, but the reverse (p. 219). I view each of
the Netspeak situations as an area of huge potential enrichment for
individuallanguages.Icannotsayanythingsystematicaboutwhatis
happening to languages other than English, but casual observation
of non-English sites suggests that other languages are evolving in
the computer-mediated setting in analogous ways.^31 The English
experience, as illustrated in earlier chapters, and despite the still
emerging nature of the language in each case, is one of remarkable
(^30) To take just one field: the acquisition of Netspeak. How do people – adults and children
alike – go about acquiring proficiency, or even competence, in the situations I have
described? Longitudinal and comparative studies are conspicuous by their absence. A
comparative perspective (between novice users of IRC and young children using the
31 phone) does however motivate Gillen and Goddard (2000).
Both French and English data are included in Werry (1996).