Future English

My predictions of the future of the English language in America, based on common sound changes and quirks of my own speech.

Within a century

Listed in approximately the order they will happen.

Morphology and Syntax

• The who/whom distinction, generally only present in some formal speech, will finally be lost even there. It is quite common for writers these days to ignore it, and, at this point, more people using whom in a formal register misuse it than use it correctly. I would not be surprised if this completes entirely within a half-century, perhaps as soon as two decades from now.
• The subjunctive, both present and past, will finally be gone, even from formal English. This process is already mostly complete in informal speech and formal speech is not far away. Unlike who/whom, it will generally not be replaced with the indicative. Rather, most structives involving the subjunctive will instead be replaced with other structures:
  • I wish he were here → I wish he was here
  • I recommend that he run → He should run
• Double comparatives, eg. "more stronger", will continue to increase in popularity.
• The "needs washed" construction will become more widespread. Eg. "The car needs washed" instead of "The car needs washing" or "The car needs to be washed".
• Positive anymore will become more widespread. Eg. "I only watch movies anymore", instead of "I only watch movies nowadays".

Phonology

Vowels

• All (or nearly all) native speakers have the father-bother and cot-caught mergers. This is already almost true for the former. A survey done in 2003 showed a 60-40 split favoring the unmerged version. I suspect by now it must be 50-50 or so. In a century it will likely be close to, if not exactly, 100%.
• Most (but probably not all) native speakers have the pin-pen merger.
• All back vowels other than /A/ will merge with schwa before liquids. I personally already do this for all back vowels except /A o/, but the latter is extremely common in Southern American English and elsewhere. To my knowledge, the other mergers (/u U ^/) are not particularly areal and are diffused over the entire country.
• /æ/-tensing will continue to increase in frequence and scope. All American dialects already for non-pre-vocalic /m n/, but currently vary in how they treat other consonants. This will complete first for /N/, and will possibly become dominant for /g/ in a century as well.
• The weak vowel merger will become dominant. It is already common in Western American English and occurs sporadically elsewhere.
• The feel-fell merger will likely become widespread. I estimate it will have roughly the same distribution of speakers pin-pen has today. Presently, it only exists in the deep south, much like pin-pen decades ago.
• The rod-ride merger will possibly become common outside Southern AmE and AAVE. It's common in songs, anyways.
• It will possibly be common to merge Al-owl. I notice I do this, but I don't know how common this is.
• It will possibly be common to merge at-out. I notice I do this in fast speech, but I don't know how common this is.

Consonants

• The whine-wine distinction will finally completely die out. Already extremely rare and restricted to a few parts of the south, and is found mostly if not completely in older speakers. Will probably happen within a couple decades.
• th-fronting will become widespread in Southern American English. It is currently present as a rare but increasingly common feature in a few places in the south, excluding AAVE where it is already common.
• th-stopping among non-AAVE speakers will become rare or nonexistent. This feature is currently becoming less common among the people who used to do it, except in AAVE. Eventually, I suspect it will become associated enough with AAVE specifically for some to even consider non-blacks doing it racist, leading to further decline, and creating a feedback loop.
• It will become common to pronounce aspirated plosives as plosive + /χ ħ/. The former is somewhat common among younger speakers of western AmE, and I've heard the latter occasionally, too.
• It will become common to merge /tr dr/ with /tS dZ/ (the "train-chain merger"). I notice I and others do this in fast speech. Many americans already affricate the pair anyways.
• It will possibly become common to delete /p b/ before /f v/. I notice I do this in "hopefully", where I often say "hoafly". I have seen a few others do this, too, but I don't know how widespread this phenomenon is currently.

Lexicon

• "You" will no longer be an acceptable second-person plural pronoun, grammaticalizing "you guys"/"y'all"/"you all". "You" will only be acceptable to refer to a single person.
• "Got" will be treated as an infinitive verb in formal English (in informal English, this is almost universal). In addition, in informal English, the scope of its use will broaden, possibly making structures like "He gots a house" acceptable for most natives. Read more at this excellent article about bare got by Yale.
• "Yaboi" (derived from your + boy) becomes a common first-person singular pronoun. In recent years this has become a popular pronoun among online personalities, especially streamers. I would not be surprised if the use trickles down. If it becomes widespread enough, native speakers might even use "is", "has", etc. for "I" in confusion with "yaboi", since "yaboi" uses the third person singular conjugation.