The Language Instinct - Pinker

1994

“When we are comprehending sentences, the stream of words is transparent; we see through to the meaning so automatically that we can forget that a movie is in a foreign language and subtitled.” (P.21)

“Here are my predictions for the year 2050.

First, since mental life goes on independently of particular languages, concepts of freedom and equality will be thinkable even if they are nameless.

Second, since there are far more concepts than there are words, and listeners must always charitably fill in what the speaker leaves unsaid, existing words will quickly gain new senses, perhaps even regain their original senses.

Third, since children are not content to reproduce any old input from adults but create a complex grammar that can go beyond it, they would creolize Newspeak into a natural language, possibly in a single generation.” (P.81)

Pinker, Steven. Page 21, Page 78-82, The Language Instinct, 1994, Harper Perennial Publishing, 1995.