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Chinese will rule the World Wide Web | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Giovanni Newbie Spain Joined 4906 days ago 3 posts - 5 votes Studies: English | Message 1 of 121 12 July 2011 at 12:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I found this interesting artitle, I i thought i would share with you.
http://tinyurl.com/3cjkpu9 I wish i studied Chinese at university now, as a question rises to my head, now that Chinese will overtake English as the most used language in the W.w.w. Will? and if so when? will Chinese overtake English as the most popular language in the world? My answer is YES and in 20 years What do you think? 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| zhanglong Senior Member United States Joined 4930 days ago 322 posts - 427 votes  Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 2 of 121 12 July 2011 at 12:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Chinese, like Hindi, may be spoken by an incredible number of people in the world, but because of its (perceived) difficulty, most other nations would probably continue to use English as its second language. There are so many books, movies, films, magazines, and music in English from several different countries, that English will be hard to overtake in the international arena.
Also, most of the world's reference materials are written in English as a first language or translated into English first, before any other language. Non-Chinese will find that Chinese lacks almost any relationship to their own languages, unlike English that has begged, borrowed, and stolen vocabulary and grammar from almost everybody. Europeans, in particular, may learn Chinese as a third language, but won't soon give up English as their lingua franca. ;) 12 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Rikyu-san Diglot Senior Member Denmark Joined 5529 days ago 213 posts - 413 votes Speaks: Danish*, English Studies: German, French | Message 3 of 121 12 July 2011 at 5:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
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We have had this discussion before - whether English or Mandarin will remain or become the world's primary lingua franca (primary, if we allow for several to co-exist).
All languages are a means of communication, and we choose the languages that are convenient or necessary, or both. In the West, and in many parts of the world, English is spoken and will continue to be spoken, especially as long as the West - economically and culturally - continue to exert a strong influence. But things can change. The British empire is gone. Soon the American empire may be gone, too. And who will be left to take up the spoils? China may go down, too, so she may not be around either. In the meantime, Spanish is gaining ground in the US. Arabic is a strong force in the Arabic speaking world. Other languages are spoken by millions and millions of people. English is spoken now and is the primary lingua franca in the West but only as long as the West is around. Fortunes may change. The (primary) lingua franca of the future will be the language of the most economical and culturally important influence in the world. It may not be a language spoken in the West. But who it is remains to be seen. The early bird catcheth the fish. Why not learn both English and Mandarin... and Arabic... and Spanish... and Hindi... and...? 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6583 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 4 of 121 12 July 2011 at 7:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
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There is a distinct difference between a populous language and a popular one. Mandarin is certainly populous, but it's far from being a commonly spoken language outside of China. Websites in English are read by people all over the world, including China. Websites in Mandarin are read by people in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore. The Chinese web also grows because of censorship restricting mainland users' access to many foreign websites, allowing native versions to prosper, but these native versions will have a hard time out-competing the "original" versions the rest of the world is using. Kaixinwang and Youku are very popular in China, but they're rarely used in Hong Kong, where people use Facebook and YouTube.
Mandarin may take over the world, but so far all it's taken over is China. The rest of the world is going to take some time. I'm betting it takes more than 20 years. 8 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tritone Senior Member United States reflectionsinpo Joined 6121 days ago 246 posts - 385 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, French | Message 5 of 121 12 July 2011 at 8:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
I don't think English grammar is borrowed, and much less "stolen" from any other language. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| celticrover Diglot Newbie Ireland Joined 5207 days ago 10 posts - 20 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, French, Russian | Message 6 of 121 12 July 2011 at 9:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Many people overestimate the importance of Chinese. It will never overtake English. There have been language fads in the past - Russian prior to the collapse of the Iron Curtain and Japanese before their economy collapsed in the early 1990s. Chinese is just another one. The Chinese economy has grown spectacularly in recent years but it's starting from a very low base. The vast majority of the population is very poor and it will take several generations for them to enjoy the level of prosperity that Europeans and North Americans enjoy.
6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| boon Diglot Groupie Ireland Joined 6160 days ago 91 posts - 177 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Mandarin, Latin | Message 7 of 121 12 July 2011 at 10:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
And most of the "begged, borrowed and stolen" vocabulary is a result of the Norman invasion of Britain. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| zhanglong Senior Member United States Joined 4930 days ago 322 posts - 427 votes Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 8 of 121 12 July 2011 at 11:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
Hmm, the expression, "beg, borrow, or steal" is an informal or flippant way to say that something is obtained in a variety of ways or by any means necessary. English vocabulary is drawn from many sources, comprende? I don't mean to kowtow to the English Grammar Gods, but my point was that English shares many grammatical features with German, French, Spanish, etc, making a Western European language learner able to learn it more easily than someone from China, Japan, or Korea. While a great deal of English vocabulary is clearly taken from many languages, like Latin, Greek, French, and German, English grammar is also flexible enough to incorporate features from neighboring or minority languages, hence differences between let's say American English, British English, Chinglish, Spanglish, Louisiana English, Liverpool English, and "ebonics". Unlike French and Spanish who both have had academies dedicated to preserving the "pure" form of their respective languages, English is the ecumenical mongrel that jeet kune do's its way across the world, adopting what is useful and discarding the rest. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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