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Is Chinese going to be the lingua franca? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6766 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 17 of 249 15 October 2009 at 6:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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I remember recently that some famous economist and investor (could be Peter Schiff, not sure) had moved his
children to Singapore to grow up learning Mandarin. That could be a sign of the times. Even if the Chinese script is hard for adults to learn, those with money and foresight will be making sure their children learn it. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Paskwc Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5675 days ago 450 posts - 624 votes Speaks: Hindi, Urdu*, Arabic (Levantine), French, English Studies: Persian, Spanish | Message 18 of 249 15 October 2009 at 7:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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Never. Nobody (as in people from the general population) wants to learn it. Chinese
cultural exports aren't even on the radar outside of East Asia. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6907 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 19 of 249 16 October 2009 at 1:37am | IP Logged | ||
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Perhaps it will be one of the major lingua francas, but I doubt that it will be the lingua franca anytime soon (English still has a world-wide economical and cultural influence).
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| Saif Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5610 days ago 122 posts - 208 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Levantine)*, French | Message 20 of 249 16 October 2009 at 2:05am | IP Logged | ||
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There won't be a clear dominating language in the world. The future will require high-level multilingualism. Technology is advancing so rapidly that the selective positions today will be common positions tomorrow. New careers will have to adapt to changing environments due to globalization. Lesser developed countries will not stay that way forever. Greater opportunity means greater competition. Greater competition means broader and more advanced skills are required to survive in a highly advanced planet. One of these skills is language. Multilingualism will be very common, indeed necessary, even in America. It's already happening in fact. The competing languages will be English (obvious), Mandarin (obvious), and Spanish (opening economies in South America). Also look for Arabic (post-post colonialism in the middle east and north africa), Russian, and Indonesian (that's right).
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| skeeterses Senior Member United States angelfire.com/games5Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6616 days ago 302 posts - 356 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Korean, Spanish | Message 21 of 249 16 October 2009 at 6:00am | IP Logged | ||
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Depending on which way the Global economy goes. If it goes the direction that Saif and a few others think, increased competition will require people to know more languages and not just English.
On the other hand, if the current economic mess gets worse, the powerful nations will have to go back to their own spheres of influence and the lingua de franca will be decided on a regional basis rather than everyone in the World attempting 1 language be it English or Chinese. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6766 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 22 of 249 16 October 2009 at 11:25am | IP Logged | ||
I suspect Portuguese will be big rather than Indonesian. It has speakers on every continent, and Brazil is growing rapidly. Otherwise, you're probably right. Edited by Captain Haddock on 16 October 2009 at 11:25am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Woodpecker Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5809 days ago 351 posts - 590 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (Egyptian) Studies: Arabic (classical) | Message 23 of 249 16 October 2009 at 12:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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I definitely think the answer to the original question is a resounding no. Chinese is not a language well-adapted to the current era of explosive growth in information technology. Or perhaps, more correctly, the current era is already adapted to English and other languages with relatively simple orthographies.*
I think a more interesting question (and the trend of this thread seems to support that feeling) is whether English will end up the sole global lingua franca, the Esperanto that actually succeeded. The general consensus seems to be that it won't. I disagree. I must admit, a lot of my evidence is anecdotal. But I've found in my travels so far that among the people in my generation (current high school and university students, basically) English is taking firm hold as a vital skill for anyone in the middle class. Both in Japan and here in Egypt, I have found that most people my age, and especially those a few years younger, can interact quite effectively in English. Last night, I was at a meeting at the NGO where I volunteer as an English teacher.** The native languages in the room, if I remember correctly, were two dialects of Arabic, German, Swiss German, French, Polish (?), Spanish, and three native dialects of English. There was never any question about which language we would use for the meeting. The part that really started me thinking about this, however, was how good everyone's English was. Certainly, there were large gaps in terms of vocabulary and accent, but everyone could communicate quite effectively. My personal experiences, plus the huge demand for English teachers in China, the fact that English has actually become the functional lingua franca of India, and the near certainty of the continued status of the United States as the world's leading superpower until at least 2050*** lead me to the following thesis. I personally believe English has reached a critical mass in terms of global ubiquity, and I don't think another language will overtake it for a long, long time. Even if English is replaced by Chinese or Spanish as the language of the world economic superpower in the next century, I think English will be too firmly entrenched. In terms of the high-level multilingualism argument, well, that would be wonderful, but the fact is, it's not very efficient. Having one language as the common global language is far easier, and I think English is close enough that it will reach the point where it can be called that by the time my generation hits middle age. And once it's there, the chances of it being dislodged are almost nil. Whether this outcome is necessarily desirable is, I think, a subject for another thread. *In response to one argument made above, that English spelling is actually quite difficult, I would make two points. First of all, though it is not systematically phonetic as a whole (like, for example, Spanish basically is), large portions of it are. English is a weird hybrid of a language, and its Germanic and Romance vocabularies have very different spelling systems. However, I would argue that within those two groups, there is reasonable phonetic consistency. My second point is that regardless, Chinese is exponentially more difficult for obvious reasons. **So much for trying to sound impartial... ***Let's not argue about this, please. That would definitely be a good way to ruin an interesting thread. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Clintaroo Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 6869 days ago 189 posts - 201 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Tagalog, Indonesian | Message 24 of 249 16 October 2009 at 2:14pm | IP Logged | ||
I tend to agree. Here in Australia at least, the perception is that one must be a rocket scientist to hold a decent proficiency in Chinese. A lot of the population are rather ignorant and lazy when it comes to learning foreign languages, and just one look at Chinese is enough to scare people away. Can I see this narrow perception changing? No, I highly doubt it will. Even though our very own Prime Minister speaks Mandarin, and this should be applauded, I can't see this enthusiasm spreading to the wider population who really have no real reason to learn Chinese unless doing serious business with China. Objects which allow transnational communication such as the internet are effectively built on the foundation of the English language. In addition to this, English is the official language of more than 70 (off the top of my head, and not including the USA) sovereign and non-sovereign entities throughout the world, giving it an unparalleled global reach and pool of speakers. Quite frankly I just don't buy the idea that Chinese is somehow going to take over English. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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