The global language : english to be demoted?

[Ebion]

Hello

By the end of this century, can Chinese (Mandarin) seriously challenge English as the global language of science, business and diplomacy?

I think we should not be just considering the power of China or its sphere of influence, but we should pay some attention to features of the Chinese language that make it uninviting and unwieldy for foreign learners and would limit its use worldwide...

Spanish can be another contender though. The problem with Spanish is that it has almost no ground in Asia, except in Philippines to a very limited extent. But it might be good for East Asia to master some Spanish to trade with Latin American countries across the Pacific Ocean...

 

[Sword]

No one can predict with an absolute certainty which language will dominate the future.

 

[AncienMembre]

Quelqun sait si la langue chinoise a des " points communs " avec l'arabe , niveau difficulté ou ce situe t'elle

 

[Ebion]

Quelqun sait si la langue chinoise a des " points communs " avec l'arabe , niveau difficulté ou ce situe t'elle

Le chinois n'a aucun point en commun avec l'arabe, sauf ceux que le hasard peut amener entre deux langues sans lien. Niveau de difficulté, le chinois est très difficile, pour trois raisons : d'abord sa phonétique est dépaysante, en raison des nombreux tons auxquels nous ne sommes pas habitués, et ensuite en raison de leur écriture archaïque totalement inadaptée au monde moderne. Troisièmement, le chinois n'a aucune parenté historique avec les langues européennes, et donc aucun stock de vocabulaire commun... il faut tout réapprendre à partir de zéro.

Sur le plan strictement grammatical par contre, le chinois est facile, dit-on.

 

[etre2en1]

Like films and series, imagine it, the language of the future will be a mixture of the languages of all the countries
In Finland, the main language is a mixture of many languages, even the current writing is only recent

 

[farid_h]

If we talk about global languages, Mandarin and Spanish simply don't qualify. They lack the sheer range to cover the globe. While you can find English-speaking people virtually everywhere in the world, from London to Samoa, good luck with Mandarin or Spanish!

Of course, Mandarin and Spanish are strong languages, but only in their regional turf(s).

 

[Ebion]

If we talk about global languages, Mandarin and Spanish simply don't qualify. They lack the sheer range to cover the globe. While you can find English-speaking people virtually everywhere in the world, from London to Samoa, good luck with Mandarin or Spanish!

Of course, Mandarin and Spanish are strong languages, but only in their regional turf(s).

It's a pity because Spanish is probably easier to pronounce than English for most humans, and its grammar is less weird even if it is somewhat harder than that of English for a beginner.

 

[farid_h]

It's a pity because Spanish is probably easier to pronounce than English for most humans, and its grammar is less weird even if it is somewhat harder than that of English for a beginner.

Well, Spanish is well past its prime, even though it is still making inroads in North America. It's a while ago that the Spanish and the Portoguise have shared the world... Right now, we're still living in the aftermath of their successor, the British Empire, which also crumbled a while ago.

It's kind of funny that the countries that spawned and spread global languages have considerably shrunk, up to becoming nearly irrelevant, yet their cultural heritage persists. There's obviously a huge need within Humanity to standardize on one or at most a couple of common languages, at least for interchange; and those languages could as well be those of ancient global empires. In contrast, artificial global languages like Esperanto never stood a chance.

 

[Ebion]

Well, Spanish is well past its prime, even though it is still making inroads in North America. It's a while ago that the Spanish and the Portoguise have shared the world... Right now, we're still living in the aftermath of their successor, the British Empire, which also crumbled a while ago.

It's kind of funny that the countries that spawned and spread global languages have considerably shrunk, up to becoming nearly irrelevant, yet their cultural heritage persists. There's obviously a huge need within Humanity to standardize on one or at most a couple of common languages, at least for interchange; and those languages could as well be those of ancient global empires. In contrast, artificial global languages like Esperanto never stood a chance.

Well, up to the 18th century, Latin was the common language of the learned in Europe. Erasmus wrote all his literature in Latin.

Maybe German would be more popular now if there had been no world war in the 20th century. Germany even had some settlements in Africa and Oceania...

 

[farid_h]

Well, up to the 18th century, Latin was the common language of the learned in Europe. Erasmus wrote all his literature in Latin.

Maybe German would be more popular now if there had been no world war in the 20th century. Germany even had some settlements in Africa and Oceania...

Latin is an excellent example of a global scale language (global w.r.t. the area covered by the Roman Empire that is). German isn't: that's at most a regional language spoken in parts of Central Europe and in a couple of former colonies. A better example would be French: an in-between of global and regional language, spoken mainly in parts of Africa. But can we say that French is a global language now? Nope, even half of Africa (and a couple of countries in Europe, Quebec etc.) doesn't cut it.

Of course, English won't stay on top of the list of global languages forever (but who knows?), and should a new Empire emerge somewhere, its language will replace English. It has been speculated that this new Empire would be China... however, China doesn't have a tradition of global dominance. They're confined to their area, and even though they do a lot of commerce with other countries, they don't and can't export Mandarin there. Just look at Africa again: many sub-saharan African countries are currently China's home turf, yet they still stick to either French or English.

 

[Hibou57]

Quelqun sait si la langue chinoise a des " points communs " avec l'arabe , niveau difficulté ou ce situe t'elle

Far more difficult than Arabic. That's an ideographic language …

 

[Hibou57]

It's a pity because Spanish is probably easier to pronounce than English for most humans,

Depends on what's your native tong. That said, can you provide some examples ?

and its grammar is less weird even if it is somewhat harder than that of English for a beginner.

I don’t know Spanish, so I can't tell, but at least English is easier than French, and Spanish is often said to be a bit similar to French (I can't evaluate this assertion).

 

[Hibou57]

[…]

It's kind of funny that the countries that spawned and spread global languages have considerably shrunk, up to becoming nearly irrelevant, yet their cultural heritage persists. There's obviously a huge need within Humanity to standardize on one or at most a couple of common languages, at least for interchange; and those languages could as well be those of ancient global empires. In contrast, artificial global languages like Esperanto never stood a chance.

There exist Basic English for that purpose.

 

[Hibou57]

[…]

Of course, English won't stay on top of the list of global languages forever (but who knows?), and should a new Empire emerge somewhere, its language will replace English. It has been speculated that this new Empire would be China... however, China doesn't have a tradition of global dominance. They're confined to their area, and even though they do a lot of commerce with other countries, they don't and can't export Mandarin there. Just look at Africa again: many sub-saharan African countries are currently China's home turf, yet they still stick to either French or English.

I don’t believe it, it's too late.

 

[farid_h]

I don’t believe it, it's too late.

I agree. For the foreseeable future, I see no change either. On the contrary: thanks to the surge of global communications (Internet), English is going stronger than ever before.