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Which world language? | ||
Tags: Lingua franca | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| fireflies Senior Member Joined 5182 days ago 172 posts - 234 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 9 of 38 19 October 2010 at 10:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
If you are talking to me I wasn't trying to dismiss Portuguese. I was saying more people should learn it in my opinion. The Italian and French cultures are so popular that people in the States focus on them instead of Portuguese (and sometimes Spanish). What language you will learn is a very personal choice but what a useful global language is less subjective. Although for some people learning a language with a smaller # of speakers and economy is useful to their purposes. I can understand learning French because it is well distributed and used internationally. I was just saying there is a case for Portuguese as well that is often overlooked. Edited by fireflies on 19 October 2010 at 10:58pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Hardheim Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5200 days ago 34 posts - 78 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, French | Message 10 of 38 20 October 2010 at 12:33am | IP Logged | |||||
There is no doubt that Portuguese has a lot of future potential. Brazil is primed to becomse an economic juggernaut. If they can develop their potential properly, it will become an important language on the western hemisphere. While I see Spanish remaining the overwhelming favorite in the north, I see Portuguese becoming more and more popular in South America. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Paskwc Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5678 days ago 450 posts - 624 votes Speaks: Hindi, Urdu*, Arabic (Levantine), French, English Studies: Persian, Spanish | Message 11 of 38 20 October 2010 at 1:11am | IP Logged | |||||
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World Languages: English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese (to a lesser extent)
Regional Languages: Arabic, Mandarin, Russian, and so on I disagree with Ari about Mandarin being a lingua franca based on the fact that it is the coordinating language in China. Our world is social and we have considerable weight to the role of states. Thus, the fact that not many states speak Mandarin can't be dismissed. Also, Mandarin is largely restricted to ethnic Hans. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5346 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 12 of 38 20 October 2010 at 1:33am | IP Logged | |||||
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The only "world language" in existence today is English.
All the other ones are relevant in certain regions/contexts, but nothing more. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| TheMatthias Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6247 days ago 105 posts - 124 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Mandarin | Message 13 of 38 20 October 2010 at 2:26am | IP Logged | |||||
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English
FTW! 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| noriyuki_nomura Bilingual Octoglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 5341 days ago 304 posts - 465 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Japanese, FrenchC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, SpanishB2, DutchB1 Studies: TurkishA1, Korean | Message 14 of 38 20 October 2010 at 4:17am | IP Logged | |||||
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To me, the only world language is English too. A very good example of this is traveling. Practically everywhere in the world where you travel, customs officers will ask for "passport" in English (and pronounced in English), hardly in any other languages, be it in France, Germany, Japan, China, Brazil, India, Dubai, Dominican Republic - places that I have traveled to.
Edited by noriyuki_nomura on 20 October 2010 at 4:19am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6583 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 15 of 38 20 October 2010 at 4:32am | IP Logged | |||||
This is a question that's very hard to answer, since the dialects in China exist in gradients, where each is mutually intelligible with its neighbor but the intelligibility decays as you move further out. Add to this that there's no generally accepted definition as to what constitutes a dialect and you'll get a difficult situation to assess. If you ask a Chinese, they'll probably tell you it's around 50 (I've heard 54 a number of times, and I think that's some sort of traditional count), whereas the Ethnologue lists 14, I think. Mutual intelligibility is, as I said, generally good for neighboring villages, but gets worse as you move away. Languages like Cantonese and Mandarin are very different in sound, but a lot more similar in writing (since they use ideographs).
Merriam-Webster has three definitions, of which this is the relevant one: "any of various languages used as common or commercial tongues among peoples of diverse speech". No mention of nations. Mandarin assuredly fits this definition. As for it being restricted to ethnic Hans, that's simply not true (China's ruthless campaign to make sure everyone speaks Mandarin is frightening to behold) and even if it was, the Hans still comprise many different language groups and they're 90% of the Chinese population. Edited by Ari on 20 October 2010 at 4:35am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| noriyuki_nomura Bilingual Octoglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 5341 days ago 304 posts - 465 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Japanese, FrenchC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, SpanishB2, DutchB1 Studies: TurkishA1, Korean | Message 16 of 38 20 October 2010 at 4:40am | IP Logged | |||||
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For a person like me who speak Mandarin, Hokkien and Hainanese, of which the two latter are Chinese dialects, the difference between Hokkien and Hainanese is pretty much like the difference between Spanish and Italian; difference between Mandarin and Hokkien is like the difference between English and French.
And I certainly have absolutely no clue at all when cantonese, shanghainese, Sichuanese etc are spoken since they are completely mutually unintelligible from the Chinese dialects and Mandarin that I know. Edited by noriyuki_nomura on 20 October 2010 at 4:46am 6 persons have voted this message useful |
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