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English Here to Stay? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| dpoesc Newbie United States Joined 6415 days ago 29 posts - 33 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 1 of 23 17 January 2011 at 3:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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Interesting article by John McWhorter, any thoughts?
English Here to Stay Edited by dpoesc on 17 January 2011 at 3:05pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jae Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5474 days ago 206 posts - 239 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Latin Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, French | Message 2 of 23 17 January 2011 at 4:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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Although I agree in part with what the author wrote, I still believe it to be very useful to learn a language such as Mandarin. I do believe that Mandarin will have a tough time passing English in international popularity, but I think that being able to speak Mandarin is a big plus for anyone interested in working in China or with Chinese companies, visiting the country, or even learning more about the culture. And, though I may be mistaken, isn't it already a sort of lingua franca in Asia? As China's influence continues to expand, aren't more people going to want to learn the language as well, and it's linguistic influence will expand too? Just a thought. Thanks for posting the article!
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| Calico Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4873 days ago 4 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Thai, Portuguese | Message 3 of 23 17 January 2011 at 7:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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The article is a load of toss.
LoL Firstly the World does'nt speak English just because American movies or American pop music are in English, British colonialism has had the major influence (America, Australia, India, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Canada. Pakistan...) Contrary to the article English does have tones eg "He's cold?" "He's cold!" The pitch of the voice in English can change the whole sentance, in Chinese the pitch can change single words. Edited by Calico on 17 January 2011 at 7:15pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Didgeridoo Newbie United States Joined 4963 days ago 28 posts - 31 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish | Message 4 of 23 17 January 2011 at 10:25pm | IP Logged | ||
I think American culture is more important than British colonialism though, France and Portugal had tons of colonies too and their languages aren't as big as English. And English doesn't really have tones like Mandarin. I mean, in any commonly spoken language there is a difference between a question and an exclamation... 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| litovec Tetraglot Groupie Switzerland lingvometer.com Joined 4941 days ago 42 posts - 60 votes Speaks: German, Russian, French, English | Message 5 of 23 17 January 2011 at 10:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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The author's position is very biased. He is a native English speaker, so he doesn't come up with the difficulties and irregularities of English. For example, why the words "wind" and "mind" are pronounced differently? At the beginning, it's pretty hard to predict the word's pronounciation.
His historical comparison is far from being consistent. Mongols accepted Chinese in conquered China because they were not civilized. Aramaic was set as it was the language with the least distance to the other languages of empire. Why put all this together? Chinese are civilized and are big enough to be a centre that attracts. If China's economy continued to grow, the impact of their language would come along. Being the first economy, they won't stay stuck to English. The only question is if it happens (and when). 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Martin M Newbie United States Joined 5065 days ago 20 posts - 26 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 6 of 23 18 January 2011 at 12:07am | IP Logged | ||
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The elephant in the room that people ignore about Mandarin is that, while piracy of intellectual property is spreading, the rampant disregard for intellectual property rights and copyrights serve as a disincentive to the creation of new ideas and innovation.
Now, this isn't to quibble about the rising importance of China. Their economy seems strong and getting stronger. The Chinese work ethic is indomitable. They understood the value of social networking centuries before the term was coined in English. Yes, Chinese will become a dominant language. Just remember that English is not solely tied to the US. By my last recollection, English is also spoken by the English, Scottish, Australians, Irish, among others. Edited by Martin M on 18 January 2011 at 7:06pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5144 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 7 of 23 18 January 2011 at 12:15am | IP Logged | ||
That is not entirely accurate: I found this on Wikipedia: People's Republic of China Main article: List of Chinese Nobel laureates 1. Liu Xiaobo, Peace, 2010 2. Ei'ichi Negishi*, Chemistry, 2010 3. Charles K. Kao, Physics, 2009 4. Roger Y. Tsien, Chemistry, 2008 5. Gao Xingjian*, Literature, 2000 6. Daniel C. Tsui, Physics, 1998 7. Edmond H. Fischer*, Medicine/Physiology, 1992 8. Tenzin Gyatso (The 14th Dalai Lama), Peace, 1989 9. Samuel C. C. Ting, Physics, 1976 10. Chen Ning Yang, Physics, 1957 11. Tsung-Dao Lee, Physics, 1957 12. Walter Houser Brattain*, Physics, 1956 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Nguyen Senior Member Vietnam Joined 4903 days ago 109 posts - 195 votes Speaks: Vietnamese | Message 8 of 23 18 January 2011 at 3:34am | IP Logged | ||
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The Dalai Lama is Chinese? I would beg to differ...
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