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Which world language? | ||
Tags: Lingua franca | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| nebojats Triglot Groupie United States Joined 5197 days ago 89 posts - 120 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Thai Studies: French, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Italian | Message 17 of 38 20 October 2010 at 7:55am | IP Logged | ||
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@Ari and noriyuki_nomura:
I was actually talking about just Mandarin, not the various languages in China (so, I wasn't asking whether Cantonese and Mandarin are mutually intelligible). Does Mandarin have sub-dialects? Are they mutually intelligible? If so, that would further weaken Mandarin's capacity to be a "world language," it seems to me. @Hardheim: Would you care to expand on German's lingua franca status? I've read some that it is a common second language in parts of Europe, but is it losing out to English with younger generations? @Everyone: I just don't see Portuguese being a "world language" when thinking about linguae francae and languages used in international organizations. It's linguistic situation is sort of similar to Mandarin: one massive country, and two or three quite small ones (perhaps oficially more, but I don't think you could walk down a random street in too many countries getting by with Portuguese). Only in the Portuguese situation, these countries are all spread out. Also, all (or wait... most?) of Brazil's neighbors speak Spanish, which seems like it would pose Spanish to be the natural lingua franca in South America. It would be like if all of China's neighbors spoke a single language... there would be much less chance of Mandarin being used as a regional lingua franca. International Lingua Franca #1... English! International Lingua Franca #2? Not Mandarin. I'm not convinced on German or Portuguese. My first hunch would be Spanish, but on second thought, it's not really a lingua franca... it just has many native speakers (i.e. two people speaking different languages not likely to speak to each other in Spanish). I think the strongest contenders are French, Arabic, or Russian. French is spoken as a second language in so many countries (although I do think it's being replaced by English very quickly, according to what I've read). MSA is truly a lingua franca since it allows communication between mutually unintelligible dialects and is hardly anyone's primary language. Russian is still a major lingua franca for countries in the former Soviet Union with huge numbers of speakers in ex-USSR countries. Thoughts? Edited by nebojats on 20 October 2010 at 8:13am 1 person has 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 18 of 38 20 October 2010 at 8:57am | IP Logged | ||
The English word "Mandarin" is a bit of an imprecise term, since it can refer to both Standard Mandarin, which is the de facto official language of China, and the Mandarin dialect group, which has developed naturally in northern China (Standard Mandarin is pretty much the world's biggest conlang). These are different from each other, but they're all mutually intelligible, to the point that most native speakers of Mandarin dialects don't feel like they need to study Standard Mandarin. People with non-Mandarin mother tongues learn Standard Mandarin and the greatest compliment you can give people on their pronunciation is that it's "very standard" (though many people have strong accents carried from their mother tongue). If you try to learn to speak the way people speak in the place you live, people will look at you like you're mad. A standard pronunciation of Mandarin is a must for good jobs. I suspect the Mandarin dialects are also moving towards Standard Mandarin under governmental pressure for everything to be the same no matter where in China you are. Historical movies, no matter where they are set, are all in Standard Mandarin. Even Chairman Mao, with his strong Henan accent, is portrayed with impeccable Standard Mandarin nowadays. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| John Smith Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Australia Joined 6043 days ago 396 posts - 542 votes Speaks: English*, Czech*, Spanish Studies: German | Message 19 of 38 20 October 2010 at 11:50am | IP Logged | ||
I don't follow your line of reasoning. If China broke up into 40 different little countries Mandarin would be in the same position as Spanish. Spoken in lots of countries. In one area of the world. Think the Americas. The vast majority of Spanish speakers are located there. Brazil also comes to mind. It is huge. Brazil makes up nearly half of South America. Portuguese might be spoken in only one country in the Americas but that doesn't mean that it's less important than Spanish in South America. You should not look at the number of countries instead you should look at geographic distribution. A language spoken in 3 countries. One in Africa. One in Europe. One in Asia. by 20 million people is more influential than a language spoken by two million people in 34 small countries in Central America. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| nebojats Triglot Groupie United States Joined 5197 days ago 89 posts - 120 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Thai Studies: French, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Italian | Message 20 of 38 20 October 2010 at 12:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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@Ari:
Thanks for the explanation... I never knew how vague the term Mandarin was. That's the most I've learned about Mandarin from any post on this forum. @John Smith: That's not a line of reasoning you quoted. I was just stating some facts about those two languages that may or may not support their status as international linguae francae. A language's "influence" or "importance" is definitely a worthy topic of discussion, but in this thread I'm more interested in hearing peoples' thoughts on languages that are successfully: 1) used by international organizations; 2) understood very widely; and 3) used as linguae francae. There's quite a bit of wiggle room in there for interpretation, which is why the topic can be approached from a variety of angles. I agree that geographical distribution and the population of speakers are both important, when keeping the three aforementioned aspects in mind. I think it's hard to argue that the number of countries in which a language is spoken is completely irrelevant to this thread's topic, though. For instance, Mandarin and Portuguese are simply not used as often as English and French in international organizations, are less understood outside of their respective "homelands," and are less often used as linguae francae (internationally). I believe this has something to do with the relatively few number of countries in which Mandarin and Portuguese are spoken, although I may be wrong. And, although this is a little unrelated to the thread topic, I'd like to respond to your hypothetical scenario the same way I did to a nearly identical proposal in another thread. If China were split into forty countries, personally, I would be more interested in learning Mandarin. That's my opinion. Edited by nebojats on 20 October 2010 at 2:52pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fireflies Senior Member Joined 5182 days ago 172 posts - 234 votes Speaks: English* | Message 21 of 38 20 October 2010 at 2:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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Many separate countries (in one area or not) does cause some cultural variety and increases the chances of a country that uses the language without censorship existing. The Australians and Canadians are different from the US despite sharing a language. Argentina is different from Cuba, Venezuela and Costa Rica (can you imagine if Castro or Chavez governed all of Latin America? Spanish would be studied less in that case).
There are (very) slight cultural differences between states in the US as well. Europe has a lot of cultural and linguistic variety in one area because of separate nations. I think that borders encourage cultural differences to grow. Edited by fireflies on 20 October 2010 at 3:42pm 1 person has 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 22 of 38 20 October 2010 at 4:46pm | IP Logged | ||
I agree (I only said they're unimportant to what is considered a lingua franca). China is pretty much culturally homogeneous and becoming more so every day in ways that certainly wouldn't be happening if there wasn't a centralized government ruling the entire country. The cultural differences between Taiwan, Hong Kong and China are pretty large. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fireflies Senior Member Joined 5182 days ago 172 posts - 234 votes Speaks: English* | Message 23 of 38 20 October 2010 at 6:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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It is certainly the lingua franca in that large area under one government. Similarly, the languages Spanish, English, French, and Italian are also the lingua francas of their original geographical areas in Europe (they take precedence over any dialects as a means of common communication).
The difference is that Spanish, French and English unite a lot of countries in the sense that it makes communication possible between them without foreign language study. It doesn't mean that their governments always have the same goals or that their people have the exact same cultures. I think that there is a flow of culture between the uk and us that would not exist if we had different languages or the same government/culture. English is a bit different from Spanish and French since culture in English flows into countries that widely understand English but don't speak it natively. Lots of people write in our language from all across the world. Most native English speakers did not ask for this to happen it just did. I would have been ok with it not becoming a global language although it makes things easier. English's status as a global language means that there is less work for English speakers but it's also a bit strange sometimes. Native English speakers are usually monolingual and are therefore considered to be less interested in language. This is often a matter of everyone already knowing our language. Foreign language classes are offered in English speaking countries but they are probably not encouraged and promoted as much as they are elsewhere. The many speakers of Chinese share 1 culture and govt. (more or less) but English is scattered over many cultures. For starters, Americans aren't always actually from England nor do they always have English ancestors! Edited by fireflies on 20 October 2010 at 8:10pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Gray Newbie United States Joined 6037 days ago 32 posts - 48 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 24 of 38 20 October 2010 at 11:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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Can anyone with first hand knowledge of Arabic give us some insight into how MSA is
actually used as a lingua franca? I was under the impression that while it *is* taught in schools, and most even mildly educated people have a passive understanding of it, it would still be difficult to communicate with people on the street using only MSA since most people would not be able to speak in a way that would be understood by someone who doesn't have knowledge of the local dialect. I thought that the only places you'd commonly find people communicating with each other in fluent MSA is in formal business and academic situations. Of course, this is all what I've heard, told to me by people with who-knows-how-many- hands' knowledge. I'm just interested in how useful MSA is as a communicative medium in the various Arabic speaking countries. Could you go to, say, Morocco and get by with only MSA, for instance? Or would you be better off with French in North Africa? Or is learning one or more of the individual dialects in addition to MSA really the only way to go? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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