Markup View

Author: Shnakepup

Feb 8th 2012 at 1:09:49 PM

To clarify (correct me if I'm wrong here):

EternalEnglish: English, as a language, is shown not to change dramatically. An example might be people using PresentDay idioms 500 years in the future.

This trope: English, as a language, is explicitly stated to be the ''only'' language spoken by a majority of (or all) people. Note that this has nothing to do with the content of the language; for example, 500 years in the future, English may have shifted and changed (like you would expect it to), but all this trope requires is that ''everyone'' speak it (rather than everybody speaking different languages like we do today).

I know I've seen this before, but I can't think of any examples right now. Usually the HandWave explanation is that America essentially takes over the world; Earth will be depicted as having a one-world government, but it will explicity be based on American culture. Since English is the language of America, then (in this example) EverybodySpeaksEnglishInTheFuture

So yeah, the StarTrek and DoctorWho examples wouldn't count, since those are established in the canon as being translated speech.