English is already the global language of science and technology, and at least one non-Anglophone country (Netherlands) is moving toward using it as the main language of instruction at universities. Anyone with a desire to participate in the global economy seems to want to speak it. English is also the dominant language of the web, the medium that seems to be crowding out practically every other means of remote communication. I have even seen threads on Reddit in which non-native speakers have praised English for its versatility, ease of use, and wealth of vocabulary, and even said that they prefer it to their own languages!

I have seen people offer up Mandarin as a possible new lingua franca, given its massive number of speakers and the recent growth of China's economy, but I'm pretty skeptical of that, because native speakers of Chinese are learning English at a rate far greater than that of native Anglophones learning Chinese.

So, as the young people of the developed and developing world learn English in greater numbers and use it in more and more areas of their lives, will other languages dwindle in relevance and use -- first spoken only at home, then spoken only in remote rural areas, or with the elderly who never learned English, and finally not at all?

English is only a refinement of Deutsch.

Any clown can learn English.

P.S: I think Mandarin is the way of the future.

Won't happen.

in b4 Lira.

quote:

Originally posted by Lagrangian P.S: I think Mandarin is the way of the future.

Why? Something like 20% of China's population is currently learning English, and more will be in the future (see article above), while probably 1/500th of the Anglophone population is learning Mandarin, if that.

quote:

Originally posted by Chimney in b4 Lira.

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Short answer: No.
English will remain one of the world's most importance languages, but it will never be the dominant one, nor will it "kill off other languages".

Long and thorough answer: Wait for Lira.

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We native English speakers really are full of ourselves, aren't we

quote:

Originally posted by Intellekshual Short answer: No. English will remain one of the world's most important languages, but it will never be the dominant one, nor will it "kill off other languages". Long and thorough answer: Wait for Lira.

^ This... I've read that because so many more non-native English speakers speak English than native speakers , the language itself will become corrupted, and eventually become some broken form which incorporates words, sounds, intonations, and phrases from other world languages a-la Blade Runner.



Oh, also Mandarin, after China wins the next big war...

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Last edited by Blake on Apr-26-2012 at 16:22

i will contribute to this if i go back to teach tiny zipper heads american.

Hay guise

I find it really unlikely. As you can see in the Pie chart on the right, the world is a good place for the English language: roughly 1 out of 2 people in the world speak an Indo-European language (that's the language stock English belongs to), and these speakers are probably more receptive to English than Mandarin, for example. However, there are too many languages out there with an overwhelming number of speakers.

Here, let's take a look at the most spoken languages in the world:

• More than 100 million speakers: Mandarin, Spanish, English, Hindustani, Arabic, Bengali, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, Punjabi;
  
  
• Between 100 and 50 million speakers: German, Javanese, Wu, Marathi, Telugu, Vietnamese, French, Korean, Tamil, Yue, Turkish, Pashto, Italian;
  
  
• Between 50 and 10 million speakers: Min Nan, Gujarati, Polish, Persian, Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Ukrainian, Malay, Xiang, Malayalam (NOT MALAY!), Kannada, Maithili, Sundanese, Burmese, Oriya, Marwari, Hakka, Thai, Hausa, Tagalog, Romanian, Dutch, Gan, Sindhi, Uzbek, Arzeibaijani, Rajasthani, Lao-Isan, Yoruba, Igbo, (Northern) Berber, Amharic, Oromo, Chhattisgarhi, Assamese, Kurdish, Serbo-Croatian, Sinhalese, Cebuano, Rangpury, Malagasy, Khmer, Sotho-Tswana, Nepali, Rwanda-Rundi, Somali, Madurese, Haryanvi, Mula, the language Meat hates the most, Magahi, Greek, Chittagonian, Deccan, Hungarian, Catalan, Shona, Min Bei, Zulu, Sylheti.

The odds of English displacing one of these languages (or all of them!), unless something external kills off its speakers, are very slim. No matter how integrated the speakers of these languages are with the world economy, English will always be a second language or a foreign language to them. Firstly because you've being very optimistic about education levels throughout the world: I speak English, but I'd be surprised if a fifth of Brazilians (if that) can converse with you in your native language. Also because humans are used to speaking more than one language anyway.

See Tamil up there in the list? One of India's largest shanty towns, Dharavi, is a Tamil enclave in a Hindi-speaking area. No matter how much influence Hindi has over this slum, residents haven't switched to it (just yet) - even though I'm sure bilingualism there isn't rare. If you add English in the mix, that's a third language for them, but hardly a reason to ditch their native language. In a larger scale, Portuguese has always been surrounded by Spanish - since its inception - and it's still going strong with no signs of merging with its most prestigious neighbour, no matter how close they are to one another. Mainly because people resist to ditch their native language unless they are firmly integrated in a larger community. That's why 2nd and 3rd generations of immigrants usually adopt the language of the host country, whereas their cousins living in the motherland still hold to it.

Don't get me wrong, though. There are many endangered languages, that's for sure, and there's an oft-cited prediction that 90% of all languages spoken in 2000 will have disappeared by the end of this century. But these are all moribund languages, teetering on the brink of oblivion, with few thousand spekaers - if that. THESE languages are going to die. Mandarin and Dutch? I very much doubt it

quote:

Originally posted by Blake the language itself will become corrupted, and eventually become some broken form which incorporates words, sounds, intonations, and phrases from other world languages a-la Blade Runner.

That has been the dynamic behind most languages and linguistics since transportation became a thing that people did. I know what you meant by "corruption", but I don't think it's the correct term... language in stasis is meaningless. It's like sound in a vacuum.

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Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office..._fran%C3%A7aise

This is how they try to "combat" the spread of english and other languages here. It is pretty draconian to be honest.

There is also a law that forbids kids from doing their primary and high school education in english if they do not have at least one birth parent that went to english school.

Immigrants are made to do mandatory french classes.

Last edited by zyklon-jay on Apr-26-2012 at 16:31