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Is Chinese going to be the lingua franca? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| dissident Newbie United States Joined 5313 days ago 37 posts - 43 votes | Message 177 of 249 04 November 2010 at 6:31pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I hate to burst your bubble but Chinese aren't the only ones who are good at Math and Science here. Indians and Russians are pretty good at it as well.
I am not learning Mandarin because I need it today - I do not. I am learning it because we are living in a time of change and nobody knows what the world will be like 20 years from now. I need to make sure that I am prepared for all possible scenarios. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| jeeb Groupie Joined 5161 days ago 49 posts - 80 votes  | Message 178 of 249 04 November 2010 at 6:38pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Well, Indian maybe good at math and have good socializsng skill but look at the state of India. LOL That's why many people in here don't study Hindi, Punjabi....LOL OK, if the US won the war in 2012, you would not need Mandarin. If China won, hahahaha Edited by jeeb on 04 November 2010 at 6:39pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| GREGORG4000 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5524 days ago 307 posts - 479 votes Speaks: English*, Finnish Studies: Japanese, Korean, Amharic, French | Message 179 of 249 04 November 2010 at 9:51pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
No offense to you personally, but this is basically saying "here is my political point, now nobody talk politics anymore! I want to have the last word!"
Actually, they're very separable, when we're talking about grammar or the actual learning of languages themselves, for instance. But when we're talking about "lingua francas" I agree, it's a political issue from the start. Edited by GREGORG4000 on 04 November 2010 at 9:52pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| jeeb Groupie Joined 5161 days ago 49 posts - 80 votes | Message 180 of 249 05 November 2010 at 3:00am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Even grammar and lexical fuels with politics. I listened to Stephen Fry's radio show and learnt a bit about English political jargon. Politicians play with words and grammar to fool the public. I still remember some years ago American politicians call French fries "Freedom fies". Like English, "Chinese" grammar and lexical fuels with politics. When Obama becomes the President, Mainland Standard Chinese transliterates his name as "奧巴馬" while Taiwanese standard Chinese calls him "歐巴馬 ". The White House takes Taiwanese 歐巴馬. However, China just ignore the suggestion completely and is still using 奧巴馬 these days. Another example, in Cantonese, there are many vocabularies are of different word order with Mandarin. In Cantonese, important = 緊要 In Mandarin, important = 要緊 In recent years, Cantonese news report in Hong Kong always take Mandarin grammar, 要緊. Another one, the Chinese government give ridiculous reasons for the deaths of many prisoners such as "he died because he played hide-and-seek in the jail". And the public came up with their own grammar to describe this situation - "被自殺". Originally, 自殺 "suicide" shouldn't be in passive form and the public changed it to passive form - was suicided - to mean these victims were killed by the government. Language is inseparable from politics because words can control human's mind. Edited by jeeb on 05 November 2010 at 3:16am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| GREGORG4000 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5524 days ago 307 posts - 479 votes Speaks: English*, Finnish Studies: Japanese, Korean, Amharic, French | Message 181 of 249 05 November 2010 at 4:15am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Yes, political history, phrases made by a government or by people to discuss such matters, that type of thing does turn up in lexicon. However it doesn't need to begin a discussion about it necessarily - I believe there are words in ancient languages which have political history, and the history is acknowledged and studied, but not argued about.
I think the languages, with all their embedded political history intact, can be discussed without turning it into a political discussion per se. Thus, I think that politics should not intrude on language discussions, since this is language forum. However, this seems to be a political discussion concerning language from the start, and in my opinion the forum should include these discussions, as long as they are kept separate from language-studying discussions. Edited by GREGORG4000 on 05 November 2010 at 4:21am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kthorg Bilingual Triglot Groupie United States Joined 5228 days ago 50 posts - 62 votes Speaks: English*, Norwegian*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 182 of 249 06 November 2010 at 6:14pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I have a question, I can't pretend I've read all the posts before this (there's way too many)
I've heard that in the next 10 years there will be a shift in America's population and there will be more Latinos in the US than caucasions, this being said, I wonder if that would have any effect on English as the lingua franca and being possibly replaced to Spanish? I kind of doubt it, because I don't think that whatever the Americans do will necessarily be copied by the rest of the world. I don't really think English as the lingua franca is only tied to the US and the UK Lets not forget, wasn't French big for a long time? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Hoopskidoodle Senior Member United States Joined 5501 days ago 55 posts - 68 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 183 of 249 07 November 2010 at 12:59am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I don't know where you two are getting your numbers. The U.S. Census Bureau predicts that by 2042, non-Hispanic whites will account for less than half of the U.S. population. "Less than half" is still a plurality and a far cry from being outnumbered. Moreover, there are millions upon millions of non-white Americans whose primary language is English. Edited by Hoopskidoodle on 09 November 2010 at 2:22pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| sheetz Senior Member United States Joined 6378 days ago 270 posts - 356 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, French, Mandarin | Message 184 of 249 07 November 2010 at 2:40am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I don't get why people think only white Americans speak English. 99% of children born in the United States speak English natively regardless of where their parents are from. By the time the 3rd generation rolls around the heritage language will be almost completely lost. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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