Real-time language translation is coming

Interesting. But for the upcoming Italian, if it doesn’t somehow also get in the arm movement and hand gestures as well, how can you truly communicate? ;-)

Star Fleet have had that since the ‘60s.

Wow, thanks for posting, Mardee. This sounds fantastic.

Star Fleet have had that since the ‘60s.

Believe me, Cambourne, I was thinking about the crew and their translation devices. An implant would be even better!

...if it doesn’t somehow also get in the arm movement and hand
gestures as well, how can you truly communicate?

LOLOLOLOL, Cyn!!!!

I prefer the Babel fish from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

The Babel fish is small, yellow, leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier, but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centres of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel fish.

but really, I think we stand a good chance of some languages dying out because everyone learns English.

In reality, people will need (and correspondingly learn) English less because it won't be necessary as a lingua franca. Eventually all these apps / devices will be able to interpret between a much wider range of language pairs. Linguae franchi will still be necessary for some of the more exotic pairs (and for now that could be something like Greek to Finnish, but eventually all the European languages will be well taken care of).

I also don't think English threatens other languages to the degree that people think. It might leave its trace but it's unlikely to take over all together. People are invested in their own languages in an emotional way so to suggest that English will take over in all walks of life seems unrealistic. You only have to look at the example of 17th-century German. Many people in that era learnt French for reasons of fashion and power, and many French words entered the language, but there was a backlash and eventually German moved on from that. Nowadays English occupies the place of French in that again, people are learning English for reasons of fashion and power. It does leave its mark in terms of Anglicisms and new vocabulary, and certain parts of society are using English copiously (eg. education, business), but I don't think German is endangered per se. Parents still tuck their kids in at night with German lullabies. Politicians still curse each other in German. For me, it's not going anywhere.

Lavandula

This sounds interesting and useful for many, but I fear it will further contribute to many Americans’ belief/assumption that the world should speak English. If this is developed and perfected, it will be another reason for teens to skip those tedious high school classes in foreign languages and travelers to skip learning even the pleasantries in the language of the countries they visit.