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

英語已經在網絡上成為全球范圍內的通用語言。在此過程中，英語本身也在不斷發(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)爭結束后，當美國從戰(zhàn)后的廢墟中發(fā)展起來時，它還是一個四分五裂的國家。諾亞·韋伯斯特認為，共同的語言會將人們凝聚在一起，并幫助其獲得新的身份，這有助于美國真正地脫離英國而獨立。

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年時間寫成《美國英語詞典》。為了研究詞典中的7萬個單詞的詞形變化，他又學習了26種語言。

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“l(fā)”，如：“traveller”變?yōu)橐粋€“l(fā)”。詞典中也收錄了一些美國獨有的新詞匯，如：skunk（北美臭鼬）、opossum（負鼠）、hickory（山核桃木）、squash（南瓜小果）和chowder（雜燴羹）。

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

互聯(lián)網為類似的語言演變創(chuàng)造了一個平臺，但速度要快得多。

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

現(xiàn)在在全球范圍內有大概45億網頁，其中有很多是中文網頁。在中國，如今有一半的人都是網民。

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.

不過一些語言學家預測，10年內英語將成為互聯(lián)網的主導語言，但其形式將和網民今天接受和認可的英語有很大不同。

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.

這是因為將英語作為第二語言的人數(shù)已經超過以英語為母語的人數(shù)。而且非英語國家的人相互進行交流時使用英語越來越多，尤其是在互聯(lián)網上，人們不太注重語法和拼寫，使用者也不用擔心口音問題。

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)網在日常生活中的日益普遍意味著語言并非一場零和博弈。相反，它讓不同的語言蓬勃發(fā)展。