[haku]

Originally Posted by spyretto

Shouldn't that isolation and single influence work to their advantage instead? I mean, in my layman's book, If you compare Latin to Spanish and French - which were apparently subjected to so many influences over the course of history - the diversion from Latin seems so much greater...that, and also the fact that some Romanian guy I know was so cocky about the language being "the true romance language preserved directly from Latin" when I pointed out the similarities to him.

Well, let's be clear that this is mainly my opinion and nothing more, i know that many people would consider Romanian closer to Latin than Italian.

But first of all, regarding the "the true romance language preserved directly from Latin" statement (it's the "Balkan pride" effect i'm guessing, lol), this is simply not true. Like Argos pointed out, Sardinian is the most conservative spoken Romance language, there is no contest here.

Now, regarding whether Romanian is closer to Latin than Italian. It is true that Romanian exhibits some very conservative features, it has kept 3 genders (neuter was lost in other languages) and a declension system (totally lost in other languages) and the word morphology is generally closer to latin words (in other languages, words have often been simplified, shortened, altered).
However, Romanian also exhibits this (quote from Wikipedia):

Romanian (together with other related minor languages, like Aromanian) in fact has a number of grammatical features which are unique within Romance, but are shared with other non-Romance languages of the Balkans, such as Albanian, Bulgarian, Greek, and Serbian. These features include, for example, the structure of the vestigial case system, the placement of articles as suffixes of the nouns (cer = "sky", cerul= "the sky"), and several more. This phenomenon, called the Balkan linguistic union, may be due to contacts between those languages in post-Roman times.

Like i said, Romanian was heavily influenced by other Balkan languages (none of them being Romance), Romanian acquired many new grammatical features specific to that particular region, and in my opinion, those transformations push Romanian further away from the Latin tree than the simple process of simplification that Italian went through.

Originally Posted by spyretto

To answer the question about the dominance of English, nowadays everybody learns how to speak English early, so it shouldn't even be considered as a foreign language anymore. it's the international language for basic communication and young people learn it alongside their native one. Not sure how the native English speakers must feel about the fact but I can say for myself that I feel very disadvantaged for not being able to learn another foreign language...or two.

There are of course negative consequences because English has became subject to overt simplification as a result of the above. It has lost a lot of its former eloquence and power as a literally tool from the Shakespearean times onwards. And of course, Americans are party to blame for that as well.

I think it's entirely possible that International English and English spoken by natives will evolve in different paths.

It's already happening, English spoken in England, for example, is following its own path with specific evolutions in pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary, a totally normal phenomenon for a local language spoken by a group of people close geographically.

International English on the other hand (or Globish) is evolving differently. In mainland Europe where Globish is used as a lingua franca, non-natives are bringing back English to a more 'continental' pronunciation for example, the difference between long and short wowels is lost (speak is pronounced 'spik' with a continental Latin-like i-sound), complex diphthongs are essentially phased out, the 3rd person 's' ending at the present tense is often not used, irregular 'strong' verbs can become regular 'weak' verbs, etc.
Basically, non-natives are making International English evolve toward a more simple sound system, with only half a dozen vowels like in Romance or Slavic languages. The next step will be of course to actually write that spoken Globish to reflect that more simple pronunciation, something that will eventually happen (the irrational spelling of English is the main complaint of non-native speakers), just like with Vulgar Latin. And at that point Globish will be separate from British or American English.