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

英语已经在网络上成为全球范围内的通用语言。在此过程中，英语本身也在不断发生着变化。

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年英美战争结束后，当美国从战后的废墟中发展起来时，它还是一个四分五裂的国家。诺亚·韦伯斯特认为，共同的语言会将人们凝聚在一起，并帮助其获得新的身份，这有助于美国真正地脱离英国而独立。

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.

韦伯斯特花了18年时间写成《美国英语词典》。为了研究词典中的7万个单词的词形变化，他又学习了26种语言。

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” from words such as “traveller”. It also documented new words that were uniquely American such as skunk， opossum， hickory， squash and chowder.

《韦氏词典》现在已经是第11版了。它采用我们现在熟悉的美式拼写——“theatre”中的“re”变为“er”，去掉“colour”中的“u”，把一些单词中的两个“l”，如：“traveller”变为一个“l”。词典中也收录了一些美国独有的新词汇，如：skunk（北美臭鼬）、opossum（負鼠）、hickory（山核桃木）、squash（南瓜小果）和chowder（杂烩羹）。

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

互联网为类似的语言演变创造了一个平台，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.

现在在全球范围内共有大概45亿网页，其中有很多是中文网页。在中国，如今有一半的人都是网民。

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.

不过一些语言学家预测，10年内英语将成为互联网的主导语言，但其形式将和网民今天接受和认可的英语有很大不同。

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.

这是因为将英语作为第二语言的人数已经超过以英语为母语的人数。而且非英语国家的人相互进行交流时使用英语越来越多，尤其是在互联网上，人们不太注重语法和拼写，使用者也不用担心口音问题。

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.

互联网在日常生活中的日益普遍意味着语言并非一场零和博弈。相反，它让不同的语言蓬勃发展。