IS ENGLISH DEVELOPING A NEW WAY OF EXPRESSING THE FUTURE TENSE?

IS ENGLISH DEVELOPING A NEW WAY OF EXPRESSING THE FUTURE TENSE? John McWhorter had an article in the Wall Street Journal (January 3/4) in which he predicted what would happen to world languages by 2115. In brief, he predicts that there will “vastly fewer” languages and that languages will often be less complicated. McWhorter argues that languages which are passed on through a process of children learning informally from adults tend to become more complicated because children are better at learning the complexities of a language. He gives the example of the future tense in English, which has been expressed by “will” (“I will buy it.”) Then an idiom develops: “am going to” (“I am going to buy it.”). McWhorter suggests that a new way of expressing the future tense may be developing: the word “gonna”.