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Top 10 Languages - Rankings in 2050 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| robsolete Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5174 days ago 191 posts - 428 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin | Message 73 of 108 13 January 2011 at 6:02pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
This makes me laugh, because I visited Ethiopia this summer. After several unsuccessful attempts by the Italians to colonize Ethiopia, pretty much everything about Italian is distrusted and hated by many Ethiopians. They never learned the language, resented the history, and seemed to more or less completely reject Italian culture. But you can still get pasta anywhere. They kept that. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| clumsy Octoglot Senior Member Poland lang-8.com/6715Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4967 days ago 1116 posts - 1367 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Japanese, Korean, French, Mandarin, Italian, Vietnamese Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swedish Studies: Danish, Dari, Kirundi | Message 74 of 108 13 January 2011 at 6:17pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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The fact I think it would not be French, is simple because in future the economical importance of Europe will drop, Asian countries are currently developing.
If they will reach the European living standard, due to the number of people, they will become more important. I have nothing to France, but I think Africans are gonna be more African, I don't know. Especially countries in the East Asia are going to be more Important, due do it's economic growth. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5134 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 75 of 108 13 January 2011 at 8:50pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Key aspects to consider when approaching this subject:
Demographics, past, present and future Economics, today Economics, in 2050 as predicted today (grain of salt) Numbers of speakers, today 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| polyglHot Pentaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 4855 days ago 173 posts - 229 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, German, Spanish, Indonesian Studies: Russian | Message 76 of 108 13 January 2011 at 10:12pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
That's hilarious! I didn't know that about Ethiopia. Only that they are the only African country that wasn't colonized and that they have great food, not pasta. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Huliganov Octoglot Senior Member Poland huliganov.tvRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5144 days ago 91 posts - 304 votes Speaks: English*, Polish, French, German, Russian, Spanish, Esperanto, Czech Studies: Romanian, Turkish, Mandarin, Japanese, Hungarian | Message 77 of 108 14 January 2011 at 1:59am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
It's entirely up to you, but I can tell you that my kid is fluent in three and is learning three more at ten years of age. You don't get that from school. In fact you can't be sure of coming out of school with one single foreign language to usable level. One very nice way to cripple your children mentally is to rely on others to teach them and not provide an example of lifelong learning and the joy of learning at home. But like I say, it's up to you. God didn't give me your children to look after, he gave me mine. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Huliganov Octoglot Senior Member Poland huliganov.tvRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5144 days ago 91 posts - 304 votes Speaks: English*, Polish, French, German, Russian, Spanish, Esperanto, Czech Studies: Romanian, Turkish, Mandarin, Japanese, Hungarian | Message 78 of 108 14 January 2011 at 2:16am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I don't recall anyone writing in fear. I was one of the people who outlined the power of the Chinese economy, but the question was which will be the top languages. The top languages go hand in hand with the top economies because people want to do business, they want to research and be in the vanguard of knowledge. These things are possible with the languages of big economies. China will be the leading economy by 2050 and therefore the reasons why America encouraged everyone to learn English will encourage everyone then to learn Chinese. I'm not sure that Americans would like to think that it was fear that made people learn English, but rather the admiration of success and the search for opportunities. I believe that Europeans and Americans will be economically migrating to China to find a better life in 2050 and some already are. That's not fear, it's the same motivations that applied to the world's push to learn English during the time of American world leadership in the time from the end of the second world war to the inauguration of Barack Obama. You get pretty sarcastic about hanzi at one point in your post, there, and seem to believe that alphabets are automatically always going to be better, but have you considered that there is always a chance that people will simply learn, each in their own languages, the hanzi for various ideas and then use that as a kind of written Esperanto around the world which would solve the language problem even among people who never manage to crack into learning languages the way most people here do, but are certainly able to learn a few hundred of the hanzi, even if they use corny, heisig/hoenig style means to do it? If there wasn't something useful about them, they would have been replaced by pinyin and kana. But they weren't - partly because of the levels of homophones in Chinese and Japanese, but not entirely. Korean has fewer homophones, but still they continue their romance with hanzi. And it is probably only a question of time before input methods like Swype make the use of hanzi in a computer much more efficient than it is today. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| dbruggeman Diglot Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4861 days ago 14 posts - 24 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 79 of 108 14 January 2011 at 7:02am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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[/QUOTE] It's entirely up to you, but I can tell you that my kid is fluent in three and is learning three more at ten years of age. You don't get that from school. In fact you can't be sure of coming out of school with one single foreign language to usable level. One very nice way to cripple your children mentally is to rely on others to teach them and not provide an example of lifelong learning and the joy of learning at home. But like I say, it's up to you. God didn't give me your children to look after, he gave me mine. [/QUOTE] This is impressive. What 3 languages does your child already know and what 3 are they learning? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Meelämmchen Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4872 days ago 214 posts - 249 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Modern Hebrew | Message 80 of 108 14 January 2011 at 10:29am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I don't think Americans and Europeans emigrate to China by 2050. Right now China, India, and also Indonesia, are emigrating countries, and the USA have, in contrast, a high immigration rate from Asia and especially China, and so has Japan from China. The main economic immigration countries are the richest countries of today, which still will be the richest countries by 2050. And the USA will stay the top immigration nation by 2050, says UN.
It's the same with most Asian countries as with Europe in the 19th century - industrialization, population growth, pauperism, enormous inequality, reasons for emigration - but with the difference that the Western countries have a much stricter immigration policy than the USA back then. Huliganov, I also think the top languages are the one from the top economies, but also from those countries that are also rich and garantee personal freedom and security (maybe because of this Russian never became really popular). So "admiration of success and the search for opportunities": even a majority of China's (or India's) people does not have that perspective today. If they worked like crazy in Europe or the USA as they have to in China, then that would be an opportunity. And so, I guess, many wish to work and live there. And you also wouldn't have to fear dying while or because of working, getting physically and psychologically totally exhausted of working, or getting shipped into work camps when making use of free speech etc. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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