# What will English be like 100 years from now?

We’ve searched our crystal ball… and here’s what may happen in the 22nd century!

Language constantly varies and evolves to fit the needs of its community—think about how different Shakespeare’s English sounds compared to English today!

It’s clear how much [English has changed over time](https://blog.duolingo.com/history-of-english-language/)… but what will English be like a century from now? There’s no way to know for certain what pronunciations, words, and grammar 22nd-century English speakers will be using, but we may be able to make a few predictions based on today’s trends and behaviors. 👀

Here are 5 changes we might see in English in 100 years!

## 🔮 Prediction 1: To _whom_ it may concern: _Whom_ is out the door!

_Whom_ dates back to a time when English had [noun cases](https://blog.duolingo.com/what-are-noun-cases/)—nouns changed form depending on where they occurred in a sentence. We still do this in English with [pronouns](https://blog.duolingo.com/what-are-pronouns/), for example—we use _he_ and _she_ differently from _him_ and _her,_ but we stopped doing this with most nouns centuries ago. _Whom_ was one of the (many!) versions of _who_, but people have been replacing _whom_ with _who_ for at least 700 years.

With more and more people ditching _whom_ for its multitasking cousin _who,_ we predict _whom_ will completely disappear in the 2100s—going the way of ol’ _hwone_ (the accusative form of _who_ in Old English).

## 🔮 Prediction 2: You might need a _drink_ for this one

You can think of English verbs having 3 basic forms: present ( _go_), past simple ( _went_), and past participle ( _gone_). But verb conjugations don’t always stay the same over time, and one verb that is in the middle of a big change is _drink_: I _drink_ today, yesterday I _drank_, and everyday this with I have …? Drink? Drank? Drunk?

Historically, that third form was _drunk_, and there was no hesitation or question about it. But the past participle _drunk_ is used less today than in previous decades, and instead, people are using the regular past tense form _drank_: Sentences like _No, I’ve never **drank** at that bar before_ might sound completely normal to you!

This sort of change is pretty typical for English verbs—the past tense of _bake_ used to be _boke_, the past tense of _dive_ used to be _dived_( _dove_ is currently taking its place!)—and we predict that _have drunk_ won’t make it another century.

## 🔮 Prediction 3: Movin’ ahead

The verb ending _-ing_ (as in, _I am talk **ing** on the phone while walk **ing** to the store_) has had quite the evolution: It started as the Old English ending _-ende_, it acquired a _-g_ because it was so similar to a totally different ending _-ing_, and its pronunciation has been similarly mixed up. For a long time, it was pronounced with both an “n” and a “g,” then with a combined “ng” made in the back of the throat, and now that “g” sound may be on its way out again. You’re readin’ that right!

Since the _-ng_ sound is being used less, we expect it to be goin’ completely out of style in the 22nd century.

## 🔮 Prediction 4: Dialects diversify

The difference between [what counts as a _dialect_](https://blog.duolingo.com/dialect-vs-accent-definition/) versus _a language_ is more about prestige, politics, and power than linguistics—a _language_ is really a group of _dialects_ that are mostly understandable to the speakers. And once 2 dialects become so different that speakers of one can no longer understand speakers of the other, we might start thinking of them as separate languages!

In the next century, we predict we’ll see even more exciting changes among English dialects. [New ones are evolving](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/26/us/miami-dialect-english-spanish.html?ref=blog.duolingo), especially in places where [English comes into contact](https://blog.duolingo.com/language-evolution-in-history/) with other languages, and dialects that have existed for centuries might grow increasingly more distinct. If you’re already watching _The Great British Bake Off_ with subtitles, then you won’t be surprised when “British” and “USian” become recognized as their own languages in a hundred years!

## 🔮 Prediction 5: \#RIP

That criss-cross number sign # has been a button on telephones for decades, and it was born with the name _pound sign_. But social media has ushered in a new era for this little guy, renaming him _the hashtag_. Its ubiquitous use on social media continues with no end in sight, even if its heyday of [being spoken aloud](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kwq_GraOC9E&ref=blog.duolingo) is behind us, and it’s doing far more on TikTok videos than on our phones. (What’s it even there for, anyway? Occasional interactions with automated customer service?) We predict that next century’s English speakers will stick with _hashtag_ as the name for the tic-tac-toe symbol. #languagepredictions

## The English of the future 🤖

While it’s impossible to _really_ know what English (or any language!) will be like in the 2100s, the kinds of [language variation](https://blog.duolingo.com/why-do-languages-change/) that we see today give us a glimpse of what changes may be just around the corner. After all, change is part of life… and language!