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Russian is past, Chinese is future? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Mr. Speaker Diglot Newbie United States Joined 7116 days ago 28 posts - 32 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Mandarin | Message 9 of 150 07 June 2005 at 8:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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Why choose? Right now I'm activly pursuing Russian, next I'll go for Mandarin. It's not like I have some timer that tells me when I have to stop learning languages. What the media hype about China doesn't emphazise is that, at the rate it's going, China won't be a superpower for about another 30 years (Newsweek) Sure, that's not long from a macro economic view point, but it's certainly enough time to learn Chinese.
As for Russia, they're still the largest country in the world and Russian is still one of the most populous languages in the world. No amount of Chinese success is going to change that. (Okay, maybe not no amount, but you know what mean) Russia's economy is the rise as well. It may not be as steep of a rise as China's but it is steady. The thing with the Chinese economy is that the political leaders are able to pass far sighted measures and not have to worry about re-election. In India for example (the second fastest growing economy) the politicians need to worry about re-election so they need to pass short-sighted bills. In China there's no such concern. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7382 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes  12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 10 of 150 08 June 2005 at 12:25am | IP Logged | ||
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Mr Speaker, these are two difficult languages and learning both to a high order, although possible, will take you many years.You did not give any rating in your profile - just that you Read Speak and Understand Russian. How many words of Russian do you already know?
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| Magnum Bilingual Triglot Retired Moderator Pro Member United States Joined 7123 days ago 359 posts - 353 votes Speaks: English*, Serbian*, French Studies: German Personal Language Map | Message 11 of 150 08 June 2005 at 5:11am | IP Logged | ||
I disagree, I don't think Russian is the langugae of the past and Chinese is the language of the future. If you know Russian, you can read Dostoevsky and Tolstoy in their mother tongues, you can read about a rich history. But just because Russia has so much to offer in the past does not mean it will stop contributing in the future. Russia is still the only military superpower that can stand up against the USA and win (mutual destruction). China might have the largest population and army, but what good is an army when it can not shoot down airplanes? Didn't Iraq have the 4th largest army in the world before the first USA invasion? It did not do them very much good. And Russia has very smart scientists and excellent universities. They have a large submarine program, an aircraft carrier (how many countries have them), and the MIG fighterjet is a Russian creation. Russian is very much respected in other slavic countries. I know in my country of Serbia, there are as many people who know Russian as English. And I believe Russian is easier to learn than Mandarin. Mandarin is a system based on tones. You won't change the meaning of a word in Russian if you make a mistake with the tone. Right now Russia is suffering from economic problems of changing systems from communism to a more free market place. Once this rough period of transition is over, I believe Russia will become an economic superpower again. Also, what caused Russia to fail? The USSR devoted too much of their economic growth to military development during the cold war. Russia had to keep control of their satalite nations. I believe China is in a simular fork in the road. If China invests money in their army, airplanes, and military, it will not be the country where capitalism will take control. China declares Tiwan is their province and China wants to take it. The only thing standing between China and Tiwan is a USA aircraft carrier that has been stationed there the past 5 or 6 years. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| caroline Newbie United Kingdom Joined 7117 days ago 12 posts - 13 votes Speaks: English* | Message 12 of 150 08 June 2005 at 5:29am | IP Logged | ||
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I would say that for any language to become a 'top' world language it has
to be able to be properly learned (writing, reading, listening, speaking) by non-native speakers. Unless pinyin (which uses the Roman alphabet) supercedes the use of characters, the spread of Chinese is always going to be hampered. Even second generation Chinese immigrants can very easily be in a situation where they are completely orally fluent, but illiterate in Chinese. However, this means that any non-native speaker who manages to master Chinese will have a very rare and valuable skill. I always think that Arabic is much overlooked in importance when it comes to assessing the 'most important' world languages. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Giordano Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 7180 days ago 213 posts - 218 votes 3 sounds Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Cantonese, Greek | Message 13 of 150 24 June 2005 at 6:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think that Chinese already is a very important language, and will continue to rise. I disagree that a language's rise depends on learnability, as Russian is very hard, and so is English to most of the World's population, yet many (educated) Chinese speak it well enough.
China's economic growth is simply amazing. Last year, the Chinese economy grew something like 9.25% (according to what I've read). That's already huge, and it's spread over the vast rural areas as well as the cities. In a megalopolis like Shanghai, growth is many times that. As it was so eloquently put in a newsmagazine I was recently reading (forgive me for paraphrasing),
Every year, more US jobs (and Canadian jobs) are contracted to China and India. When an American files his taxes, his accounting firm has them processed in India. When I call the tech support line for my Internet, digital cable, satellite, cell phone, etc... supplier, the other end of the line is very likely in Asia. For many years, Chinese immigrant women (like Madame Lee) filled clothing factories in the schemata (clothing/textile) districts of New York and Montreal. They saved money to send back to their families, mostly in or just outside of Hong Kong. Then, maybe twenty or thirty years ago, the relatives they'd left behind started doing exactly what those thousands of little Chinese ladies like Mme Lee did here- sewing. Now, they have progressed even further. While Laijung Lee is still sitting in the factory at Maison Mode on Saint Lawrence Street, here in Montreal, many of her nieces and nephews are working as Import/Export agents; liaisons between US/Canadian companies and the Chinese factories producing their goods. The building on Saint Lawrence that once housed dozens of factories now holds only one- Maison Mode. The rest of the full block-sized building is occupied by the software giant, Ubisoft. Maison Mode is working on their first ever line of imports this season. At the same time, there are almost no more factories in Hong Kong, only agents. The factories are now in Shenzen, Shanghai, and Northern China. Ironically, the exporters have to outsource! Meanwhile, Hong Kong is now full of service industries and big business. So, the exact same transformation took place in both Montreal and Hong Kong. The difference is, in Montreal, it's taken fifty years and still isn't over. In Hong Kong it was over five years ago and took only twenty. Meanwhile, the same changes taking place in China are taking place throughout Asia, South America, and to a lesser extent, Eastern Europe. It is said that, in the 21st century, the main economic powers will be China and the EU, India, Brazil, and Russia, and, perhaps, the Middle East. I suspect that Russian will continue to serve as lingua franca between slavic countires, and, presumably, the entire former Soviet Union. What's clear, however, is that tomorrow's World is multi-polar, and multi-lingual. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| braveb Senior Member United States languageprograms.blo Joined 7203 days ago 264 posts - 263 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, French | Message 14 of 150 24 June 2005 at 7:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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I don't see how Russia can be an important "superpower" if its population will be around 70-80 million in 30 years.
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| KingM Triglot Senior Member michaelwallaceauthor Joined 7197 days ago 275 posts - 300 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Russian | Message 15 of 150 26 June 2005 at 5:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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Without quibbling about the rise of China, I see little chance that Chinese will replace English as the dominant world language any time soon.
It's not just the United States that you're talking about, but three fairly significant second tier powers in the UK, Canada, and Australia, together with numerous smaller nations where English is either dominant or an important second language. Consider this list: Nigeria, Singapore, India, Ireland, South Africa, New Zealand. English is important in all these nations and they stretch from one side of the globe to the other. Couple that with the fact that most educated Europeans these days are expected to speak English, or that when a Japanese and a German scientist exchange notes it will probably be in English and there is nothing that Chinese can do to rival that. The decline of not just the United States, but of the other English speaking nations would have to be deep and long-term for this situation to change. No, if anything, English is likely to become more important, at least for the next 50 years. To be honest, I'm not sure if I see Chinese rising to the level of French or Spanish as an international language, anymore than Japanese did during Japan's zenith in the 80s. It's too different from the major trading languages, and too geographically confined. I think the three most important international languages will continue to be English, Spanish, and Arabic for the foreseeable future. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| KingM Triglot Senior Member michaelwallaceauthor Joined 7197 days ago 275 posts - 300 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Russian | Message 16 of 150 26 June 2005 at 5:09pm | IP Logged | ||
...and perhaps...something else. Somewhere else might still have some economic weight in the 21st century. Seriously, if I had to put odds on it, I'd say there's a 50/50 chance that China will have surpassed the U.S. by the end of the century and maybe a 30% chance that India will do so. For any of the others to eclipse the United States would take both a spectacular rise on their part and a catastropic collapse of the United States. It could happen, but I wouldn't put any money on it. It wouldn't surprise me if China became the world's largest economy in roughly 20-30 years only to be surpassed again by the United States by the end of the century. Projections have the U.S. holding at least a half a billion people by the year 2100 while China's population might be falling if they follow current demographic trends. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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