|
 |
The 10 most influential languages | ||
Tags: Language Importance | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Cyrus Diglot Newbie France Joined 5508 days ago 39 posts - 70 votes  Speaks: French*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Mandarin | Message 1 of 40 21 March 2010 at 12:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
Good afternoon everybody,
Those days while I was surfing the internet I came across this page : the 10 most influential languages, by G.Weber I found it quite interesting but I am not positive that I totally agree with the ranking ; in particular, I think that the today's influence of mandarin is a little under-estimate and that it is also going to grow up in the future ; once more the arguments that G.Weber use to justify the ranking of this language seems me to be quite irrelevant. What do you think of it ? Thank you for your responses :) (and sorry for the probable mistakes I made) 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6768 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 2 of 40 21 March 2010 at 12:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
Well, the ranking isn't something you can just agree or disagree with. It's a sum of points allocated by methods he
carefully explains. You can always produce your own ranking by allocating points differently, or for different values. What factors would you add or remove for such a ranking? Presumably, it's a snapshot of right now, and not of the future, so estimates based on assumed future growth would not really be valid, except as they impact current decision-making. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6783 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 3 of 40 21 March 2010 at 1:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
Cool ranking. I know it doesn't necessarily mean a whole lot, but I enjoy seeing people try to quantify these things that are hard to quantify.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| markchapman Diglot Groupie Taiwan tesolzone.com/ Joined 5472 days ago 44 posts - 55 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Portuguese | Message 4 of 40 21 March 2010 at 1:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
Thanks for the link. It's an interesting article. I think the writer is right about Mandarin. The Chinese don't really
promote their own language, and see it as a tactical advantage that others don't understand it when doing business. I think his criteria for judging the influence of a language are quite good. Numbers of speakers alone is not enough. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Blunderstein Triglot Pro Member Sweden schackhandeln.se Joined 5418 days ago 60 posts - 82 votes Speaks: Swedish*, EnglishC2, FrenchB2 Studies: German, Esperanto Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 40 21 March 2010 at 1:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
A truly great read! Thanks for posting.
In my opinion, the most interesting part was the description of the situation for each language in the list, rather than the rankings. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| elvisrules Tetraglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5469 days ago 286 posts - 390 votes Speaks: French, English*, Dutch, Flemish Studies: Lowland Scots, Japanese, German | Message 6 of 40 21 March 2010 at 2:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
It would be interesting to have a list of the most influential languages ever. Apart from the obvious ones such as Latin and Greek, I'm curious as to what would make the list. French, German and Chinese would surely be more important than English.
2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cyrus Diglot Newbie France Joined 5508 days ago 39 posts - 70 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Mandarin | Message 7 of 40 21 March 2010 at 3:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
You are totally right ! I have also to clarify my questions : 1°) Do you find it interesting (I am glad to see that some people would agree this point !), and do you think it is perfectly relevant to help for the choice of a foreign language (when you want to learn the most useful language possible), or do some factors have to be rectify ? 2°) In the case of Mandarin, I would say that, even with keeping Weber's scale, I would allocate 16-17 points to this language ; do you agree or not ?
Right, but the author show too the rise of the languages in the last 10 years ; and mandarin is straight-line. I would say that I think rather that it is growing up. Of course it is very debatable. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6783 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 8 of 40 21 March 2010 at 3:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
If you've already decided on the language and the article confirms that you have made the right decision, then yes. :D 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
