Languages can evolve rapidly and unpredictably though, based on factors which can't necessarily be predicted or controlled. What would people ten thousand years in the future make of the word "radioactive" if modern technology and scientific thought had been lost for millennia due to plague or a global energy crisis, for instance? Bear in mind how much of our current store of knowledge and culture is tied up in a relatively fragile, energy hungry digital infrastructure and a constant supply of fossil fuels. In a few centuries much of what we consider modern history might be a mostly blank page to those who come after us.