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The most spoken language in 2050 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5133 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes  Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 73 of 115 17 January 2015 at 1:12am | IP Logged | |||||
"Vietnamese (and the rest) are pretty much tonal versions of Indonesian." Guess who I just quoted? R. == 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4710 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 74 of 115 17 January 2015 at 1:27am | IP Logged | |||||
There's also that, but I'd rather not add in such an obvious ad hominem. My point was that it's unrealistic to expect the average person to have such a detailed grasp of linguistics, because people don't, quite simply, even educated people, since it's not that common a field of study. Stolan is taking the opinions of people completely ignorant on the matter as if it's actually important to the discussion - who cares what internet trolls write about English anyways. That's not to mention any definition of complexity (whatever the hell that means) being so dependent on your vantage point and your previous knowledge, plus the fact we all interpret complexity so differently, that it's ridiculous to make any kind of value judgement based on that criterion. And the third is that it just really often has zero effect on language learning - some of the languages people find difficult are languages I perceive to be much easier (I find Mandarin very doable apart from the writing system) and some are much harder (French). Motivation plays a big role, your previous experience etc. etc... and I wouldn't take the linguistic opinions of major politicians that seriously, unless they're just trying to root out a language altogether. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4293 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 75 of 115 20 January 2015 at 4:04am | IP Logged | |||||
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I keep saying that I should not use personal experience, but at a bookstore just 10
minutes ago, the cashier person running the tillasked if I spoke Spanish and said yes, he mentioned, "You should learn Chinese, it is the new language of the future. Everyone is learning it, it is going to replace English really soon!". This is probably the 20th time at least that I have heard this, at completely disconnected incidents and times, and I honestly think that Mandarin is underestimated amongst Occidental, especially Anglophone areas, i.e. especially within the Anglosphere that English as a dominant lingua franca of the current times is as strong as Cæsar's Roman Empire and Latin, and given that, as it has been mentioned already, with the amount of technology, i.e. Internet, telecommunications etc., the world evolves much more quickly than before, and Spanish and Mandarin could easily change the world, and Anglohpones and those who support Anglophone dominance would never have expected that English is supplanted so quickly. Edited by 1e4e6 on 20 January 2015 at 4:11am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4668 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 76 of 115 20 January 2015 at 4:11am | IP Logged | |||||
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I doubt that native Anglophones learn Mandarin at even one tenth the rate that native Mandarin speakers learn English. The last article I read had the population of English learners in China roughly as large as the whole population of the United States...
English dominance no longer depends on the clout of the United States or any other Anglophone country. The enormous numbers of people enthusiastic about learning it around the world and the hordes of businesspeople, scientists, and politicians using it daily for international projects will see just fine to that. Edited by tastyonions on 20 January 2015 at 4:16am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4293 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 77 of 115 20 January 2015 at 4:17am | IP Logged | |||||
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The population of the USA is sometihng like 310.000.000, or something if I remember
correctly, and PRC excluding other Mandarin speakers must be something like 1.800.000.000 I am not sure the exact number, but 310.000.000/1.800.000.000 is a bit over 1/6th of the PRC population, but is it not logic that because there are just so many people in the PRC, that whatever is done there is generally on a larger scale because they are the most populated country on earth? Just like India, India probably compose most of the Anglosphere due to the massive population. Regarding enthusiasm, there are also an increasing number of people with zero connection to MAndarin in the Western World (and probably Eastern World) who are starting to learn it with the aim of using it as a business language, mostly with the PRC, or at least sending their children to Mandarin immersion programmes like how people send their children to English language programmes. I notice this increase in both places where I live, both in California and basically everywhere in the UK, I would guess the big metropolitan areas like London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Birmingham, but I see Mandarin programmes more in the USA. I do not want to disclose too many details, but my cousin works with companies and trade with the PRC, and there are a lot of people who send their children to immersion programmes in that firm, as well as they learning it themselves, even though they might be completely unrelated to Chinese, like German-Americans, Italian-Americans, etc. Edited by 1e4e6 on 20 January 2015 at 4:33am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4668 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 78 of 115 20 January 2015 at 4:35am | IP Logged | |||||
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The enthusiasm for Mandarin is based almost entirely on a single cause: the rapid economic growth and continued manufacturing dominance of the PRC. Take that away and watch the number of learners drop like a rock. Can the same be said for English? Edited by tastyonions on 20 January 2015 at 4:36am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6585 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 79 of 115 20 January 2015 at 7:38am | IP Logged | |||||
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Let's not forget the times when everyone was learning Japanese. Read any cyberpunk novel from the 80s and the Japanese are ruling the world.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4625 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 80 of 115 20 January 2015 at 11:00am | IP Logged | |||||
Agreed. Once a large volume of people embrace (or by the same token, reject) a particular language, it will gain momentum at a rapid rate and be very difficult to reverse or even slow down. That's a far more powerful force than what can be generated by any politician or parent. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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