Is Chinese going to be the lingua franca? (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

Is Chinese going to be the lingua franca?
Tags: Lingua franca \| Language Importance \| Cultural Identity \| China \| Mandarin
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Language Learning Forum : General discussion

249 messages over 32 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 2 ... 31 32 Next >>

XGargoyle
Bilingual Triglot
Groupie
Spain
Joined 5954 days ago
42 posts - 93 votes

Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan*, English^B2
Studies: German^A2, Japanese, Russian

Message 9 of 249

15 October 2009 at 1:09pm | IP Logged

I believe the next lingua franca will be some kind of Simple/Basic English mixed with some Spanish words and structure.

Reasons to believe this:
- Spanish becoming second most spoken language in the US and growing rapidly in numbers
- Spanish is spoken in almost the entire Latin America region
- Current lingua franca is already a bastardized version of English... certainly not Cambridge or Oxford standards.
- Latin based alphabets are easier to learn and write than Chinese
- Internet usage: As of 2008, 30% of English websites Vs. 19% of Chinese ones (rounded up). People with no knowledge of these languages find it easier to translate English-based websites than Chinese ones (due to the current technology), so at the end, information available in English is more accessible than the one available in Chinese.
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jimbo
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 6292 days ago
469 posts - 642 votes

Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French
Studies: Japanese, Latin

Message 10 of 249

15 October 2009 at 2:02pm | IP Logged

doviende wrote:

Also, having attended a Chinese university and met many students there, I can quite readily
believe that it is theoretically possible that Chinese may become a dominant scientific language in a few
decades. When you look at the population of china, and the amount of effort the government is putting into
science & tech education, and the difficulty of English for speakers of a totally unrelated language, it starts to
become more feasible that there could be more and more scientific publishing done in Chinese.

This sort of scientific publishing could take off quite easily just within the Chinese scientific community, just
because of the size of it. It could be a flourishing publishing community without having to rely on any outside
people for readership. This could give rise to other countries starting to contribute to it too, especially if the
world economy favours business relationships with Chinese tech companies.

Not to mention the huge number of Chinese academics at universities in North America, etc. They can publish in
journals in English if they like but they can publish in journals in Chinese too. Seems there will be a natural shift
as the prestige of the Chinese journals grow.

If you do research in the fields where the Chinese journals become strong, you will eventually be missing out on
a lot of the developments in your field if you don't learn Chinese or hire someone to translate what you need.

Edited by jimbo on 15 October 2009 at 2:04pm
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Rikyu-san
Diglot
Senior Member
Denmark
Joined 5526 days ago
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Speaks: Danish*, English
Studies: German, French

Message 11 of 249

15 October 2009 at 2:31pm | IP Logged

Maybe Chinese will be the next lingua franca, maybe a mix of Spanish and English.

Or maybe it will be something else. Take a look at this video by Steve Kaufman about multi-lingualism. With the ailing financial structures of the (English-based) Western world, not only might Western financial structures lose its appeal, English might lose out as the most important language to learn.

His answer to this is not one lingua franca but multi-lingualism:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT0MvbsOIz4

I agree with some of the above posters that Chinese (Mandarin) will gain prominence and it is definitely not impossible that it will one day become important or even required to learn Chinese if one wants to get a chance to advance in our rapidly changing world where the West is in decline.

Even in Denmark, there has been a few posts about intensifying language studies in our school system. Not only English but also German, French and ... surprise... Mandarin. It still a fringe subject to speak about Mandarin here but it might change.

Further, in Denmark we have 8 universities. That is just a number and you might think: "hey, what the fridge... we have (say), 21". However, powerful sectors of our society has now decided to build our 9th university. Guess where? Yes, you probably guessed it: In China, near Beijing... ready for students to enroll by 2013.

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Sennin
Senior Member
Bulgaria
Joined 6032 days ago
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Message 12 of 249

15 October 2009 at 4:41pm | IP Logged

doviende wrote:

English has a horrible spelling system. Don't underestimate how difficult it can be for other people to learn English. Also, people don't choose to learn English because it's "nice and easy" or something. They are typically economically driven to learn it in order to get a better job. If the same thing were to happen with Chinese, due to economic and political circumstances, then it wouldn't be a matter of "oh no, Chinese writing is complex"...people would just have to learn it.

Also, having attended a Chinese university and met many students there, I can quite readily believe that it is theoretically possible that Chinese may become a dominant scientific language in a few decades. When you look at the population of china, and the amount of effort the government is putting into science & tech education, and the difficulty of English for speakers of a totally unrelated language, it starts to become more feasible that there could be more and more scientific publishing done in Chinese.

This sort of scientific publishing could take off quite easily just within the Chinese scientific community, just because of the size of it. It could be a flourishing publishing community without having to rely on any outside people for readership. This could give rise to other countries starting to contribute to it too, especially if the world economy favours business relationships with Chinese tech companies.

Anyway, if all of this somehow happens, i don't think it will be a linguistic matter of "Chinese is hard, i don't wanna learn it." Instead, it will be a matter of political and economic forces, the same way English is "enforced" today.

I can add to this that Asian universities are constantly rising in various rank-lists, usually at the expense of the Anglophone world. If these universities attract more international students it is reasonable to expect that the corresponding languages would gain in importance - be it Mandarin Chinese or other Asian languages. I don't think this is enough to make Chinese the new lingua franca but it certainly is an important factor.

Edited by Sennin on 15 October 2009 at 4:46pm
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Juan M.
Senior Member
Colombia
Joined 5897 days ago
460 posts - 597 votes

Message 13 of 249

15 October 2009 at 4:57pm | IP Logged

Perhaps if they successfully transition from a catching-up nation to one pushing the boundaries of economic development (while averting environmental catastrophe), and if they manage a new balance between order and liberty.

Any prediction at this time would be no more than speculation. Just witness the fates of Japan and Europe (stagnation). One thing is certain though - Mandarin will be in any event a very relevant, influential and profitable language to learn. Hopefully, the same will be true for Hindi.

Edited by JuanM on 15 October 2009 at 4:59pm
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Sennin
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Bulgaria
Joined 6032 days ago
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Message 14 of 249

15 October 2009 at 5:06pm | IP Logged

JuanM, Europe will rise from the ashes in a federative form ^_^. But never mind this, the topic is about Chinese and Chine.
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Alvinho
Triglot
Senior Member
Brazil
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Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Spanish

Message 15 of 249

15 October 2009 at 5:35pm | IP Logged

Would I be wrong if I said that Mandarin and Spanish are on the top of importance in the US as foreign languages?
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maaku
Senior Member
United States
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Speaks: English*

Message 16 of 249

15 October 2009 at 5:58pm | IP Logged

If you go by what's popular in schools, Spanish and French (the languages of our direct neighbors) are given the most attention. Politically speaking, Arabic and Farsi ore of much higher importance, and probably still Russian as well. But Mandarin is certainly rising in importance...

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