Top 10 Languages - Rankings in 2050 (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

Top 10 Languages - Rankings in 2050
Tags: Language Importance
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Language Learning Forum : General discussion

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microsnout
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Senior Member
Canada
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Joined 5260 days ago
277 posts - 553 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: French

Message 49 of 108

09 January 2011 at 5:27am | IP Logged

I think the degree of difficulty of learning a language is irrelevant to this discussion. Given how much work it is to
successfully learn a language, the number of people who do this will be dwarfed by the larger trends of population
growth and decline in these countries over such a long period of time.

Granted as a language gains in importance, more people will try to learn it but they will be doing this because it is
becoming important, they will not add much to its importance.
2 persons have voted this message useful

WANNABEAFREAK
Diglot
Senior Member
Hong Kong
cantonese.hk
Joined 6616 days ago
144 posts - 185 votes

1 sounds
Speaks: English*, Cantonese
Studies: French

Message 50 of 108

09 January 2011 at 6:03am | IP Logged

Everyone, how on earth can hindi or urdu get to be important global languages? It's only spoken by Indians and basically ALL of them speak English for anything that involves information technology. I even asked an Indian guy at work and he said Indians will all use English at work even though they can speak Hindi. They simply don't learn Hindi words etc at university.

And, why are people associating ECONOMY with language importance. There are other factors as media and popularity in terms of culture. Why is cantonese still popular? It's because of the movies and entertainment that Hong Kong produces that attracts people to do it from the mandarin population.

Then if we just look at economy, China is eventually going to be more and more expensive which will deter the rest of the world from using them as a cheap source of goods. I went to Shanghai last week and it was ridiculously expensive to buy food and buy anything.

As you guys are simply looking at economy as a factor of making the top 10, why is German consistently not regarded as anything? but its economy is awesome. It is obvious that USA will be effectively 1/2 Spanish and 1/2 English in the future with the continual growth of immigrants from south america. So Spanish is going to be of course top 5 for sure.

I simply hope that Canada takes a "practical" approach in promoting French outside of Québec
3 persons have voted this message useful

Huliganov
Octoglot
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Poland
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Speaks: English*, Polish, French, German, Russian, Spanish, Esperanto, Czech
Studies: Romanian, Turkish, Mandarin, Japanese, Hungarian

Message 51 of 108

09 January 2011 at 8:20pm | IP Logged

I'm coming in late, but here's my 2050 predictions:

1. Chinese (all types)
2. English (all types)
3. Arabic (all dialects)
4. Russian
5. Spanish (all types)
6. Japanese
7. German
8. French
9/10.Portuguese and Korean(if there is Korean unification, Korean takes the higher slot)
11. Italian
12. Turkish and mutually intellible forms of Turkic
13. Indic (all largely mutually intelligible types: Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, etc)
14. Dutch with Afrikaans
15. Bahasa (Malay with Indonesian)
16. Polish
17. Mutually intelligible Scandywegian
18. ex Serbo-Croat group
19. Hebrew
20 Phaasa Thai (all dialects, and with Lao)
21. Czech with Slovak
22. Swahili
23. Vietnamese
24. Ukrainian
25. Greek
26. Farsi (unless Iran ends up being on the receiving end of US "attention" in the way Iraq did, in which case I'd push it several spaces higher)
27. Romanian with Moldovan
28. Tagalog
29. Bulgarian
30. Armenian, unless it's Pushtu.

Probably thirty's enough.

This is by economic value, and the business and employment options that you would get from knowing the language. Populations speaking these languages as first languages would give an entirely different listing.

Edited by Huliganov on 09 January 2011 at 8:28pm
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SSalvestrini
Diglot
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United States
Joined 4963 days ago
33 posts - 43 votes
Speaks: Italian, English*
Studies: German, Spanish, Russian

Message 52 of 108

09 January 2011 at 8:29pm | IP Logged

I agree with WANNABEFREAK in regards to Hindi and Urdu. That's the point I've been
making with Mandarin this entire discussion. English is SO prevalent in both countries
that neither language will be important internationally come 2050. Just think, in
China, the majority of the younger generation is learning English. That means by 2050,
those students will have good backgrounds in English- and their children will be taught
English. Again, people keep posting Mandarin as 1, 2, or 3, but no one has effectively
explained why.

Sure, it's important in China, but NOT outside of China (bar Singapore and Taiwan). No
international media source in the world, for example, broadcasts in Chinese-- always
English. On a political scale it has little importance, on an economic scale it has
little importance, on a media scale it has little importance, etc. (outside of China I
mean).

When you look at English, Spanish, French, Arabic, and yes, even German, these
languages all have a much broader reach than Mandarin will ever have. So WHY is it
being ranked so high?
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SSalvestrini
Diglot
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United States
Joined 4963 days ago
33 posts - 43 votes
Speaks: Italian, English*
Studies: German, Spanish, Russian

Message 53 of 108

09 January 2011 at 8:33pm | IP Logged

Martin M wrote:

About Googling in mainland China: I just remember reading in The
Economist that when they Googled those terms the sites did not include any mention of
any negative action by the government. There is no mention of Tibet being invaded, the
Nobel Prize going to a political dissdent was sanitized from Google in China.

Also, they have executed the internet kill switch on multiple occasions. My point is
that the Chinese government is standing in the way of the free flow of information in
China and, by not including China fully on the internet, is not allowing the Chinese
language to flourish in terms of numbers of users.

I apologize if this seems an attack on China. I don't mean it to be. It's just that
the censorship by the Chinese government is something the forum users are not
mentioning. When I first read someone propose Chinese would be the language of the
internet by 2020, I had to laugh. There are many sites you cannot visit using a
Chinese internet provider. Without access to the entire internet, the Chinese and
their language will not be able to dominate it.

This said, I do believe Chinese is an important language. For it to top English will
take a great change in the attitude of the Chinese government. Also, the strong urge
to conform culturally (rather than to innovate) will also be a hindrance to the global
rise of the Chinese language. While their "hard power" is waxing, their "soft power"
is not.

Yes, I agree with you completely. I am not up to date really on where in China kill
spots have been turned off, but it definitely makes sense that in more "western" cities
they would not function much (especially during events like the World Expo in
Shanghai). And also, I was using Google. I'm sure if I had used Baidu I probably
wouldn't have seen the negativity.

And in response to the Chinese government paying students in the US to learn Mandarin,
this is not so unique. The AP Italian course was only kept afloat by the Italian
government. The AP Russian course was created because of money dumped into by the
Russian government. The AP French and AP German courses also receive funding from
France and Germany respectively.

Edited by SSalvestrini on 09 January 2011 at 8:40pm
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SSalvestrini
Diglot
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United States
Joined 4963 days ago
33 posts - 43 votes
Speaks: Italian, English*
Studies: German, Spanish, Russian

Message 54 of 108

09 January 2011 at 8:36pm | IP Logged

microsnout wrote:

I think the degree of difficulty of learning a language is
irrelevant to this discussion. Given how much work it is to
successfully learn a language, the number of people who do this will be dwarfed by the
larger trends of population
growth and decline in these countries over such a long period of time.

Granted as a language gains in importance, more people will try to learn it but they
will be doing this because it is
becoming important, they will not add much to its importance.

I disagree. I think that the difficult of a language is very important. After years and
years of study, most Westerns can't speak harder languages such as Arabic or Mandarin.
As a result, international negotiations are done in English, which is considered
universally one of the easiest. Also, most foreign school systems have integrated
English into their programs. That's not true of language study in America, where only
Spanish is generally taught (although French and German are taken sometimes).
1 person has voted this message useful

dbruggeman
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United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4861 days ago
14 posts - 24 votes
Speaks: English*, Spanish

Message 55 of 108

09 January 2011 at 8:52pm | IP Logged

SSalvestrini wrote:

I'm simply going to pick five languages, as 10 is a bit hard, and
after 5 it's
basically like drawing languages from a hat pretty much (as just SO much of the
educated world speaks English)!

My projected list:

1.) English.
Sometimes it's even a bit hard for me to motivate myself to learn another language for
anything besides cultural exploration. My profession requires international awareness,
but I find that English is so broadly spoken in politics and economics that I barely
ever need to use Mandarin, or need to use German (actually, I sadly never
use German because everyone in Germany wants to speak English with me). English may not
have the highest number of speakers, but it's unarguably the lingua franca of business
and politics. If the UN were to choose just one language for it's official language, as
has been discussed extensively in the past, it would without a doubt be English. And
actually, it's quite possible that this will happen (it would save a ton of time and
money when it comes to translation- it's strikingly expensive to translate a document
into 6 languages, have it proof read countless times, and be unable to print it until
it's perfect in not only English, but French, Mandarin, Russian, Arabic, and Spanish).

2.) This is a bit trickier, as I can think of many, many arguments as to why it should
not be counted so highly, but I shall say Spanish.
There are countless economic opportunities in Latin and South America that are still
undeveloped. Both of those regions can be considered relatively underdeveloped (or
"third world") and as democratic shifts are being made in those countries, it is likely
that we will see an explosion of economic power (just like in Asia). Incentive will
definitely exist to learn Spanish, just for the sake of business.
On the other hand, as the latino population of the US increases, more and more
Americans are finding it necessary to learn Spanish (which is quite a hot debate here
at the moment). Spanish is taught in all high schools and universities, so the
population of Americans who speak Spanish will naturally increase, especially in the
southern states, which will inherently end up contributing to the economic development
of South and Central America.

3.) French:
If it wasn't for Africa, I would not put French on this list. However, seeing as French
is the official language of much of Africa, and is widely spoken, it is only logical.
It is important to note that I'm considering French from an African standpoint only-
too much of France itself speaks English to really be considered that important
anymore. On the contrary, in many African countries that speak French, citizens know
the latter and perhaps a tribal language. A large percentage do not speak English. I
think that in the next forty years we will see the continent start to develop and some
major shifts towards democratization. Capitalism from the West is a great possibility,
and French will be essential- mainly because there is minimal educational foundations
in these countries, and consequently no opportunities for people to learn English.

4.) Arabic
If one looks at the Arab world, one will notice amazing political and economic change
within the last fifty years. I predict just as much change will occur within the next
fifty. There is a lot of opportunity still, and I think that regions with the most
fiscal potential and the most social/economic stratification will inevitably be
penetrated economically in the next few decades. Aside from the Middle East, look at
Eastern Africa. HUGE development potential, and Arabic is the lingua franca of that
coast (the most important stretch of Eastern Africa).

5.) Russian
[See previous post for a detailed explanation].

I hope that I am not being too narrow minded by over-stressing the importance of
English. But empirically, I honestly do not doubt that it will dominate the political
and economic world of 2050 almost indefinitely.

I agree that English is so dominate that there is little reason to know other languages
for business. I work with people around the world and communicate in English.

I agree with Spanish as number 2.

I do not understand your reasoning with French. If your focus is on French is Africa
then I would expect Portuguese to be more important since it is spoken in Africa and
one of the up and coming world economies - Brazil.

I disagree with your low priority for Chinese. The Chinese economy is predicted to
pass the US economy by 2030 and be double the US by 2050. The items you say are not
there now are likely to be there by 2050. I know people in Korea and Japan are
starting to learn Chinese.

5 persons have voted this message useful

SSalvestrini
Diglot
Newbie
United States
Joined 4963 days ago
33 posts - 43 votes
Speaks: Italian, English*
Studies: German, Spanish, Russian

Message 56 of 108

09 January 2011 at 9:07pm | IP Logged

Thank you for your good answer, dbruggeman. I will agree that Portuguese should be on
the list, but as I only chose 5, I thought it less important than the preceding
languages.

As far as Mandarin, just because the economy is great doesn't mean it will become
widespread. HOWEVER, I also know many Japanese and Korean students learning Mandarin so
you may indeed be right. I still doubt that Mandarin will become popular in Europe,
Africa, or the Americas, but I think you're right when you say that by 2050 it will be
far more prominent in Asia. Perhaps it will even be paralleled with the position
English now holds in the continent. This is a good reason for the importance of
Mandarin, thank you.

Also, if we can all agree on regional importance of languages in comparison to global
importance, there are several that should be noted.

Spanish, in Central and South America. German in central Europe. Russian in Russia and
the bloc countries (plus many countries bordering them). Mandarin in East and South
East Asia. French in Africa and Western Europe. Arabic in the Middle East and Africa.
Portuguese in Brazil, Portugal, and Africa. And English being "the" lingua franca.

Perhaps because the term "important" is so nebulous, a better topic would be regional
importance? And then how that regional importance will effect various aspects of the
world (such as media, politics, economics, business, etc).

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