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，当美国从废墟中发展起来时，还是个四分五裂的国家。美国辞典编纂家诺亚-韦伯斯特认为，统一语言将会使人们更有凝聚力，并获得新的身份，这有助于美国真正的脱离英国而独立。

　　Webster's 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(臭鼬), opossum(负鼠), hickory(山核桃), squash(南瓜)和 chowder(杂烩)。

　　An 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70000个单词的词形变化，他学习了26种语言。

　　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，但速度更快。

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

　　现在在全球范围内共有45亿个网页。在中国，如今有一半的人都是网民，他们中很多人使用中文上网。

　　Still, some linguists predict that within 10 years English will dominate the internet - but in forms very different to what we accept and recognise 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，但形式将和网民今天接受和认可的英语有很大不同。

　　That's 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 don't 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进行交流时都使用英语，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 internet enfranchises people who are not native speakers to use English in significant and meaningful ways," says Naomi Baron, professor of linguistics at American University in Washington DC.

　　“网络让那些非英语国家的人们在重要和意义重大的场合中更自由的使用英语，”位于华盛顿地区的美利坚大学的语言学教授内奥米-巴伦说。

　　Users of Facebook already socialise in a number of different "Englishes" including Indian English, or Hinglish, Spanglish (Spanish English) and Konglish (Korean English). While these variations have long existed within individual cultures, they're now expanding and comingling online.

　　社交网络的用户使不同形式的英语社会化，包括印度英语，西班牙式英语和韩式英语。虽然这些变化一直存在于各国的文化中，但如今网络使它们相互融合。

　　"On the internet, all that matters is that people can communicate - nobody has a right to tell them what the language should be," says Baron. "If you can talk Facebook into putting up pages, you have a language that has political and social standing even if it doesn't have much in the way of linguistic uniqueness."

　　“在互联网上，最重要的是人们可以相互交流——没有人有权利规定该使用何种语言，”巴伦说。“如果你能说服脸谱网建立网页，你的语言就有了政治和社会地位，即使它在语言方面并没有太多的独特性。”

　　Some words are adaptations of traditional English: In Singlish, or Singaporean English, "blur" means "confused" or "slow": "She came into the conversation late and was blur as a result."

　　有些单词与传统英语出入较大：在新加坡英语中，“blur” 意为“困惑的”或“缓慢的”，例句：“聊天的时候她很迟才加入讨论，因此有些困惑。”

　　Others combine English words to make something new. In Konglish, "skinship" means intimate physical contact: handholding, touching, caressing.

　　此外，合成词也可以产生一些新的词汇。在韩式英语中，"skinship"意为身体的亲密接触：握手、抚摸和爱抚。