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Russian : why so popular ? | ||
Tags: Reasons for study | Russian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5057 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes  Speaks: Russian* | Message 17 of 107 25 February 2012 at 1:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Beauty is a subjective thing. But where and how is Russian popular?
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5416 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 18 of 107 25 February 2012 at 4:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
If my records are correct, Russian is the fourth-most studied language on HTLAL (other than English):
This list only includes languages that I'd like to study, but I'm pretty sure this covers all the world's major languages that would possibly rank above Russian. Now, if we index the number of HTLAL learners against these languages' respective economic outputs (GDP is a strong indicator of a language's popularity), we are then able to see which languages may objectively be considered "overstudied" or "understudied", relative to the neutral base of economic weight: 
Russian sits right in the middle, meaning its popularity is relatively proportional to how popular it "ought" to be. Of course, the underlying assumption here is that HTLAL users are representative of the general global populace. They likely aren't, but they're probably fairly representative of the general English-speaking populace (including secondary speakers), so the question is to what degree Anglophones (and the languages they study) are representative of the rest of the world. Edited by nway on 25 February 2012 at 5:45pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| kerateo Triglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 5647 days ago 112 posts - 180 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English, French Studies: Italian | Message 19 of 107 25 February 2012 at 5:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Amm, Because Russian is the sexiest language... ever?
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| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5010 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 20 of 107 25 February 2012 at 6:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
No, no, no, I am not saying there cannot be a lot of beautiful Russians. I just don't think it is a too different % from other nations so it seems to me as a bit strange reason :-D 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5057 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 21 of 107 25 February 2012 at 6:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
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GDP is a strong indicator of a language's popularity
It's not. Nominal GDP means nothing. Edited by Марк on 25 February 2012 at 6:44pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5416 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 22 of 107 25 February 2012 at 6:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
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It is. It's not just a coincidence that German and Chinese are popular, while Khmer and Azerbaijani are not.
If you run a regression of the world's several thousand languages, you'll clearly see that the there's a very strong correlation between GDP and popularity. Edited by nway on 25 February 2012 at 6:45pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5057 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 23 of 107 25 February 2012 at 6:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Anyway, we have to count GDP with PPP.
GDPs are changing every year. Some languages have tradition to be learnt, some are not. Latin is widely taught in the USA, what GDP s related to this language? 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Merv Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5274 days ago 414 posts - 749 votes Speaks: English*, Serbo-Croatian* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 24 of 107 25 February 2012 at 8:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
The population of German and Chinese speakers is also substantially larger than Khmer and Azerbaijani speakers, and objectively the former two cultures have had a far more profound and far-ranging impact on world culture/civilization/history than the latter two. Not trying to put down anyone, just trying to be objective. So you have confounding variables that render your correlation to GDP somewhat baseless. Western intellectuals and linguists have been learning Chinese for centuries before China's relatively recent re-ascent to world power status. Likewise, East Asian intellectuals have been learning German for centuries because of Germany's role in European culture and history. Neither group has been doing much to learn Azerbaijani or Khmer. Russian is being learned for good reasons that have nothing to do with GDP. Edited by Merv on 25 February 2012 at 8:15pm 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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