Technologies such as brain-computer interfaces, (AI), predictive texting and autocomplete are already transforming language as we know it. But how significant will that change be? And exactly what will those changes be? We sat down with Philip Seargeant, author of the book (Bloomsbury, 2024 ), to chat about what language is, why scientists spent years trying to create a special language for nuclear waste, and whether we'll ever live in a silent world devoid of spoken language.