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#2 international language is...? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| jaliyah Newbie United States Joined 5126 days ago 20 posts - 22 votes | Message 1 of 19 03 February 2012 at 11:16am | IP Logged | ||
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English is obviously the #1 most useful international language, but what's #2?
Is it still French? Or is it more likely that there is no worldwide #2, but rather a bunch of #2s, which differ by region? (So, in that case, Spanish in Latin America & Caribbean; Russian in Eastern Europe and former USSR + Mongolia; Mandarin (or Japanese?) in East Asia; etc.? And why didn't Esperanto ever really catch on? Seems like such a nice solution - a very easy to learn second language... but only a few nerds ever bothered to learn it? Why? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4708 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 03 February 2012 at 11:36am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't think there's a definitive no. 2 - there's already a well-functioning number one (English).
I figure the big regions make more sense. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| a3 Triglot Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 5257 days ago 273 posts - 370 votes Speaks: Bulgarian*, English, Russian Studies: Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish, Norwegian, Finnish | Message 3 of 19 03 February 2012 at 12:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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According to several sources, Spanish is among the 4 most spoken world languages and Hindi and Mandarin(the other two) are mainly spoken in their countries
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| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5730 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 4 of 19 03 February 2012 at 1:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think Spanish is a language that is often studied, but I'm not sure if it is the second most studied international language. I still think French is the 2nd most studied language and I've heard that stated as fact, but I have no proof.
According to this link, Spanish needs a stronger online prescence to be the West's second language: http://www.pagef30.com/2011/03/spanish-needs-stronger-online -presence.html As far as Esperanto never becoming the world's second language, a quote from Barry Farber in his book "How to Learn Any Language" comes to mind: you vote a language into being the international language like you vote warmth into a blizzard. That being said I like Esperanto and other conlangs, but Esperanto never really had a chance to become the world's second language since French and English were playing that role already. I'm learning Esperanto because I like conlangs and I want to have access to the Esperanto community, not because I seriously think one day everyone in the world will use it as an auxiliary language. I'll be honest, using an IAL to solve the language problem is a bit out there and I think most people would rather just hire interpreters to overcome the language barrier than learn an IAL, even if the IAL is easy to learn. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6440 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 5 of 19 03 February 2012 at 4:15pm | IP Logged | ||
I'd say #2 is regional. As for Esperanto - it was invented by a single guy, who hardly had the money to publish a pamphlet on it. Within a few decades, it had original literature, a few native speakers, and 4-digit attendance at the biggest yearly conference; the League of Nations considered adopting it. Then Europe went through two world wars, and during the second Esperanto speakers were murdered for speaking Esperanto. I know someone who was raised as a native Esperanto speaker during the Nazi occupation of her country; her parents were risking the death of the whole family with that. Esperanto was also actively suppressed and speakers persecuted in other countries, such as the USSR; several of my favorite authors were killed. After WWII, English became even stronger internationally. Esperanto, which started from nothing, had a community in tatters. Nowadays, Esperanto has a couple thousand native speakers, some hundreds of thousand to a couple of million speakers (and over 10,000,000 people who have at least cursorily studied it), etc. Has it taken over as the main lingua franca of the world? Absolutely not. But it's not something that's "just spoken by a few nerds" either. Languages become widely used because of network effects: it's useful for people to speak them because other people that they want/need to interact with do, and because people are exposed to them. Simplicity doesn't play much role in this. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Mad Max Tetraglot Groupie Spain Joined 5052 days ago 79 posts - 146 votes Speaks: Spanish*, French, English, Russian Studies: Arabic (classical) | Message 6 of 19 03 February 2012 at 6:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, it depènds on several points.
The economic languages are English, Chinese and Spanish. Besides, the top 3 Internet languages are also English, Chinese and Spanish. http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm On the other hand the Diplomatic languages are English, Spanish and French. These languages are official in at least 20 countries, and official in almost all the World Organizations. Take into account that English and Spanish are in both lists, meanwhile Chinese and French are in one. 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 7 of 19 03 February 2012 at 9:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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This topic seems to find its way into a discussion on this forum every other week.
I can remember two big threads in particular that dealt with this topic: Chinese will rule the World Wide Web French outlook: French vs. Portuguese I'm sure there was also a "Spanish vs. Portuguese" thread, though I can't remember its exact name. There are probably dozens floating around on HTLAL. As for Esperanto, it just isn't going to happen. There's too much nationalism invested in the propagation of each major regional language. When people are cheering for their own languages like sports fans rooting for a local team, no one is going to be interested in a neutral, third-party compromise. Besides, as the economic momentum of the world continues to gravitate away from the West, it will be even more unlikely that an intellectual pan-European linguistic experiment will ever catch on with the new superpowers of tomorrow. Edited by nway on 03 February 2012 at 9:22pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Northernlights Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4676 days ago 73 posts - 93 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French | Message 8 of 19 06 February 2012 at 8:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'd agree that #2 is regional, and that #1 is, without question, English.
It's hard to say for Europe though. In the olden days it'd have been French, but that isn't really the case any more. I expect German is #2 for Central and parts of Eastern Europe. Russian would have been the lingua franca of Eastern Europe till the end of the 80s, but apparently isn't nowadays. On a global scale I'd go for Spanish then Mandarin. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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