Online， English has become a common language for users from around the world. In the process， the language itself is changing.

英語(yǔ)已經(jīng)在網(wǎng)絡(luò)上成為全球范圍內(nèi)的通用語(yǔ)言。在此過程中，英語(yǔ)本身也在不斷發(fā)生著變化。

When America emerged from the ashes of a bruising war with Britain in 1814， the nation was far from united. Noah Webster thought that a common language would bring people together and help create a new identity that would make the country truly independent of the British.

1814年英美戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)結(jié)束后，當(dāng)美國(guó)從戰(zhàn)后的廢墟中發(fā)展起來(lái)時(shí)，還是個(gè)四分五裂的國(guó)家。諾亞·韋伯斯特認(rèn)為，統(tǒng)一語(yǔ)言將會(huì)使人們更有凝聚力，并獲得新的身份，這有助于美國(guó)真正地脫離英國(guó)而獨(dú)立。

The American Dictionary of the English Language took 18 years to complete and Webster learned 26 other languages in order to research the etymology of its 70，000 entries.

韋伯斯特花了18年時(shí)間寫成《美國(guó)英語(yǔ)詞典》，為了研究詞典中的70，000個(gè)單詞的詞形變化，他學(xué)習(xí)了26種語(yǔ)言。

Websters dictionary， now in its 11th edition， adopted the Americanised spellings familiar today—“er” instead of “re” in “theatre”， dropping the “u” from “colour”， and losing the double “l(fā)” from words such as “traveller”. It also documented new words that were uniquely American such as skunk， opossum， hickory， squash and chowder.

《韋氏詞典》現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)是第11版了，它采用我們現(xiàn)在熟悉的美式拼寫——“theatre”中的“re”變?yōu)椤癳r”，去掉“colour”中的“u”，把一些單詞中的兩個(gè)“l(fā)”如“traveller”變?yōu)橐粋€(gè)“l(fā)”。詞典中也收錄了一些美國(guó)獨(dú)有的新詞匯，如skunk（臭鼬），opossum（負(fù)鼠），hickory（山核桃），squash（南瓜）和chowder（雜燴）。

The Internet is creating a similar language evolution， but at a much faster pace.

互聯(lián)網(wǎng)為類似的語(yǔ)言演變創(chuàng)造了一個(gè)平臺(tái)，但速度要快得多。

There are now thought to be some 4.5 billion web pages worldwide. And with half the population of China now online， many of them are written in Chinese.

現(xiàn)在在全球范圍內(nèi)共有大概45億網(wǎng)頁(yè)。在中國(guó)，如今有一半的人都是網(wǎng)民，其中很多人使用中文上網(wǎng)。

Still， some linguists predict that within 10 years English will dominate the Internet—but in forms very different from what we accept and recognize as English today.

不過一些語(yǔ)言學(xué)家預(yù)測(cè)，10年內(nèi)英語(yǔ)將成為互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的主導(dǎo)語(yǔ)言，但形式將和網(wǎng)民今天接受和認(rèn)可的英語(yǔ)有很大不同。

Thats because people who speak English as a second language already outnumber native speakers. And increasingly they use it to communicate with other non-native speakers， particularly on the Internet where less attention is paid to grammar and spelling and users dont have to worry about their accent.

這是因?yàn)閷⒂⒄Z(yǔ)作為第二語(yǔ)言的人數(shù)已經(jīng)超過以英語(yǔ)為母語(yǔ)的人數(shù)。而且非英語(yǔ)國(guó)家的人進(jìn)行交流時(shí)都使用英語(yǔ)，尤其是在互聯(lián)網(wǎng)上，人們不太注重語(yǔ)法和拼寫，使用者也不用擔(dān)心口音問題。

The increasing prevalence of the Internet in everyday life means that language online is not a zero sum game. Instead， it allows multiple languages to flourish.

互聯(lián)網(wǎng)在日常生活中的日益普遍意味著語(yǔ)言并非一場(chǎng)零和博弈。相反，它讓不同的語(yǔ)言蓬勃發(fā)展。