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French: the most spoken tongue in 2050? | ||
Tags: Number of speakers | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Hungringo Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 3988 days ago 168 posts - 329 votes  Speaks: Hungarian*, English, Spanish Studies: French | Message 1 of 19 27 March 2014 at 10:12am | IP Logged |
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I have just come across this article. What do you think about the future of French?
Will French be the most spoken tongue by 2050? Edited by Hungringo on 27 March 2014 at 10:13am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4707 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 2 of 19 27 March 2014 at 10:14am | IP Logged |
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French is not threatened, and will continue to claim a huge slice of the international
linguistic pie. Overtake English? Hardly, but chauvinistic French reports will try and change that ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Hungringo Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 3988 days ago 168 posts - 329 votes Speaks: Hungarian*, English, Spanish Studies: French | Message 3 of 19 27 March 2014 at 10:30am | IP Logged |
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I think it may overtake English in numbers, but not in influence. Spanish is on par with English in numbers but there is no economic clout behind the language. In the same way hundreds of millions of French speakers in impoverished African countries will not change the current tendencies.
5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5599 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes | Message 4 of 19 27 March 2014 at 10:40am | IP Logged |
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Well, now for example, Bengali is the seventh biggest language in the world, more than Russian or Japanese and an equal to Portuguese, but does anyone notice? No.. Numbers are only one factor. (No bashing intended)
2 persons have voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 19 27 March 2014 at 1:46pm | IP Logged |
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The author of the claim makes two, maybe three gross errors:
1) the claim is based on a comparison of a mixture of 1. (few) and 2. (many) language speakers in the 'French-speaking' African countries with 1. language speakers in the rest of the world. In 2050 I'm pretty sure that every single Chinese will speak Mandarin, though maybe only as a second language. It should in all fairness be said that the article acknowledges that "in African countries, French may the official national language, but not the most spoken". Yes, precisely. If you take secondary language speakers into account then you also should include those who speak English, including those in a number of rapidly growing African countries. 2) it assumes that the present population in Subsaharan Africa can continue its exponential growth. Ahem, what should 500 million new citizens in some of the worlds poorest countries eat? 3) French has all but disappeared from Asia - even from former French colonies. What if the same happens in Africa? Right now France offers military aid and a steady influx of money for cultural purposes to its former colonies in Africa. Who says that this will continue forever? Edited by Iversen on 27 March 2014 at 2:06pm 7 persons have voted this message useful | |
| hjordis Senior Member United States snapshotsoftheworld. Joined 5186 days ago 209 posts - 264 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 6 of 19 27 March 2014 at 4:39pm | IP Logged |
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Oh, I reread the article after writing this and it mentions that the population, not
the economy, is fast-growing. Well, my points still work with that, and a fast growing population doesn't mean much if the economy isn't strong, and as Iversen said, isn't really sustainable. Sub-Saharan Africa? If I'm thinking of French-speaking African countries Northern Africa comes to mind first, particularly Morocco. Central Africa is probably the last place I think to look for economic strength. In Western Africa, there are a handful of countries where English is actually more useful to French, and in French-speaking countries it's a bit of a toss up whether French is actually useful outside of large cities(which, granted, are the economic powerhouses.) Basically, Sub-Saharan Africa is a HUGE area, and depending on where you are French isn't necessarily useful. Presumably whoever wrote that article was paying particular attention to French-speaking countries, but doing a quick glance at a few lists of fastest-growing economies I see a mixture of English and French speaking, with English speaking the majority if anything. And, as others have pointed out, fast-growing doesn't mean the same thing as strong, or that they will keep growing until they are strong. Edited by hjordis on 27 March 2014 at 4:43pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| SamD Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6659 days ago 823 posts - 987 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 7 of 19 27 March 2014 at 5:05pm | IP Logged |
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The year 2050 is only 36 years away. French is going to have to move very quickly to overcome the great head start that (Mandarin) Chinese and English have. There is also the matter of Arabic, Portuguese, Hindi, Bengali....
French has and will continue to have a huge number of L2 speakers, so it will be an important world language for a long time to come. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5228 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 8 of 19 27 March 2014 at 7:33pm | IP Logged |
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I, for one, welcome our new Gallic overlords.
9 persons have voted this message useful |
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