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Future outlook: French vs. Portuguese | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5420 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 33 of 81 21 January 2012 at 10:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
There are a lot of things Chinese lacks, but history ain't one of them... 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gallo1801 Diglot Senior Member Spain Joined 4907 days ago 164 posts - 248 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), Croatian, German, French | Message 34 of 81 22 January 2012 at 1:00am | IP Logged | |||||
Haha I don't mean history in the sense of civilization, of course. Rather history of the language being wide-spread and studied or used by non-speakers for communication. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5420 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 35 of 81 22 January 2012 at 1:31am | IP Logged | |||||
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Until the early 20th century, Classical Chinese served as both the written lingua franca and the diplomatic language across greater East Asia.
From the 20th century onward, although it certainly doesn't have the tradition that Classical Chinese had of being widely studied amongst elites across China's periphery, Standard Mandarin has still served as both the written and spoken lingua franca for speakers of different mutually unintelligible Chinese languages, not only internally within the immediate Sinosphere (which—I needn't point out—is massive), but also amongst the approximately 40 million overseas Chinese. So I'd say Classical Chinese and Standard Chinese both have had very significant histories of being studied by non-native learners. The catch is that most of these non-native learners happen to associate with Chinese identity, so outsiders (e.g., Westerners) assume that these people all speak it natively. It would be as if Europe were geographically contiguous with North America, and Europeans became so proficient at English that outsiders (non-Westerners) simply assumed that all Europeans speak English natively, and therefore European speakers of English shouldn't be counted as secondary speakers, even though the overwhelming majority of them would be. Sorry for that somewhat off-topic tangent, but Standard Mandarin is very much so a language studied by non-native speakers for communication across a very widespread region of the earth. Edited by nway on 22 January 2012 at 1:34am 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5267 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 36 of 81 22 January 2012 at 1:48am | IP Logged | |||||
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To me, what may or may not happen in the future has no bearing on why I am learning Portuguese. I'm learning it because I like the people and cultures it represents, and that is now. The past is gone. The future, well, it just hasn't happened yet. All we have is now. The rest is speculation. It's what we do with now that is most important in life as well as language learning. Edited by iguanamon on 22 January 2012 at 2:45am 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gallo1801 Diglot Senior Member Spain Joined 4907 days ago 164 posts - 248 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), Croatian, German, French | Message 37 of 81 22 January 2012 at 5:08am | IP Logged | |||||
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Yes, from a more anthropologically correct view that is true all the way! For better
or worse we (proverbial we) tend to be Eurocentric, even if we are not actively so in our minds. It's just the nature of the beast. I for one find the topic of different spheres fascinating, I was going off a global view which always finds its way back to Europe. I'd love to investigate more about the Indian sea community and how from Zanzibar to Singapore their was a type of cultural commonality with the Indic cultures... The world is so diverse it gets mind-numbing sometimes when we compartamentalize it too much. I agree with iguanamon. I like Portuguese because I like it, particularly for Brazil's music scene of the 60's and 70's. The importance argument is so touchy, understandably, but I do enjoy it nonetheless! I wouldn't be interested in Irish if I only was interested in 'importance' :-) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5420 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 38 of 81 22 January 2012 at 5:19am | IP Logged | |||||
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Who knows—maybe one day the world will be at the mercy of an all-powerful Irish Kingdom.
... Edited by nway on 22 January 2012 at 5:23am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5852 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 39 of 81 22 January 2012 at 6:40am | IP Logged | |||||
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For people who live in Europe and are focusing on career possibilities French would be the professionally more useful language. In Europe Portuguese is more a language for people who have a special interest in it like for example I have in Danish.
Fasulye 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| vientito Senior Member Canada Joined 6343 days ago 212 posts - 281 votes | Message 40 of 81 22 January 2012 at 5:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
Do not hold your breath to that yet. We are probably witnessing a major turning point in human history right at this point. All of the major developed countries are experiencing aging population and huge social net burden. The culmination of wealth is also steadfastly being channeled into a few hands. Greed has indeed known no bounds in this atmosphere. Nature has its funny way to correct the imbalance. The reckoning is not so far out of the equation. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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