22 replies to this topic

[A200]

Hello

Well in this time and age, with the internet and technology, it will seem like everything has to be in english. Most internet sites are in english, most products made have english signage, and english is everywhere!

Or is it?



Well after visiting places like Paris, English is like a second offical language in the city but once you get into the rural areas of non-english speaking countries, you truly realise how unimportant English really is.

As many of you know, the most widely spoken language is Chinese, then Spanish then English. Countries such as USA, Australia, Canada, UK, NZ and South Africa are english speaking countries. But with the new financial credit crisis, will this status quo stay?

Eastern China is really booming ahead in terms of financial wealth (the same can't be said for western China) and the Chinese economy is becoming ever more important on a global scale.

To succeed, the language people might need will not be English, but Chinese, in a world where the US is not a major powerhouse, and instead, Asia is.

Countries like Australia and NZ can really be boosted with this financial might of Asia. Could we see a world where OZ and NZ gradually ditch the English language and become Chinese speaking countries? This change may take a long time to occur, but could it happen?

Could we see a trend where non English and non Chinese speaking countries change languages into one of these two? or could english be pushed away with most countries choosing Chinese?

It would be an amazing world if everyone spoke the same language, but the chances seem to be very low.

Communication worldwide would be 1000000x easier as everyone could speak to anyone on the street.

What do people here think? What is the global language? What is the future of English?

A200

[Echo_of_thunder]

I believe it is English as the worlds language, but not for sure. I do agree it would be nice if everyone spoke the same language.
I know I have been with my Girlfriend now for over 2yrs She is from the Phils, and speaks english, but there words in English that may mean one thing here in the states and another thing there. It is the same way in England too. Take the word Cigarette. There they call it a *BLEEP*. No noy a gay joke, they really do.

So yes I do feel as if the world had one language it would be great. Fact how about even one money for all the world. No more of this US Dollor Yen Rubble or Yero. Just one for all? Nice dream but we know that it could never happen. In our lifetime maybe.


But who know's in time the world will be as one and things like this just may happen.

[sonesay]

It would be really silly in my opinion to try and make another language other then English the main language. Sure there may be more people in other parts of the world speaking some other language but only English is and will always be considered the international language. We have keyboards that are designed for English. We write programs in English. If you try and make another language other then English a main language your taking a step backwards. It would be much easier for other speaking languages to learn English if they would like to do business internationally.

[Evolke]

sonesay, on Nov 9 2008, 06:53 PM, said:

It would be much easier for other speaking languages to learn English if they would like to do business internationally.

Its easy for someone already speaking English to tell the world to learning English. Imagine you didn't already speak it and being told you had to learn it or you will end up cut of from the worlds communication.

Its said that English is the hardest language to learn. Or one of the hardest. With puncuation and grammer that goes though the roof, one can barely disagree. The majority of the worlds population is situated in Asia, and in Chinese speaking countries. So technically, if majortiy rules, then we should all speak Chinese. Shouldn't we?

[sonesay]

No thats just going to be crazy. They don't speak Chinese they speak many other languages like Cantonese or what ever else they have. Plus do those people code in Cantonese? I'm sure they have keyboards in their language but I doubt a lot of applications are written or supported by them. What you guys are trying to suggest is a huge change and it affects a wide range of everyday life not just in communicating but also how we go about doing work. What about numbers do they have their own characters for numbers? They may even count up to 12 or something like the US lol.

I'm not saying everyone go learn English. I'm saying if we were to make everyone communicate in one language it would be English for many reasons. But the whole idea of only moving to one language is stupid. What differences we have make us unique so why take that away. People who speak two languages are valuable for that.

Edited by sonesay, 09 November 2008 - 10:37 AM.

[Evolke]

LOL True. But it would be a gradual change, no matter what language became the world wide language. It would be a change the progress ovre generations. Maybe it would mean that coding would remain in English?

sonesay, on Nov 9 2008, 08:03 PM, said:

What about numbers do they have their own characters for numbers? They may even count up to 12 or something like the US lol.

The numerals could remain English also. Maybe this world wide language would have to be somthing that encorperated a variety of things from multiple languages? The simplest option was selected from each language and was titled the world language for that catogoy(sp).

[darasen]

I do not think English is going to go away anytime even remotely soon. The main reason for that being that English is a very inclusive language and very dynamic.

If you read some thing modern then go and read some thing written about 100 years ago and you will see a difference in the language. A hundred years is not a very long time in terms of linguistic evolution. Consider English like that used in the plays of Shakespeare is incomprehensible to some people, yet his English is considered to be early Modern English. Middle English is nearly another language altogether while Old English is utterly incomprehensible with out the study of it.

English is very inclusive as well. English has words with both Latin and Germanic etymology. New words are being added regularly as well. Consider how many words from Asian languages have made it into the English lexicon via martial arts. We have words like dojo and kata that are new to the language. (I have no idea why they are not in Firefox's dictionary though) New words are being added in English as well from the ever expanding technology field, but old ones from other languages keep coming in as well.

With the versatility of English I really do not see it going anywhere in the next century or more. In my study of German I do not see such a large shift in the language as I do in English. Of course English Dialects are not nearly as diverse as some other languages. Take Hoch Deutsch and Schweiz Deutsch for example.

There may well be more Spanish speakers in the world than English speakers but consider how many of those speakers live in poverty stricken countries and have little to no access to the world beyond where they live, same for the Chinese language. By and large the English speakers of the world have greater influence world wide than Chinese speakers. China has a growing economy but that economy is not spread among it's residents like the U.S. economy is. I would bet that there are more Americans engaging in international business than there are Chinese. Thus English still dominates.

Of course if you watch Firefly you know that only English and Chinese will exist in the future.

[Lightning73]

The world would probably be better off if everyone spoke just English. Imagine that you can go to any country in the world without having to learn a difficult language or trying to understand what they're saying.

Most software would be cheaper because only one language is included; Translations are no longer necessary anywhere;

I once saw a movie about some kinds of aliens that changed all humans, and then everyone was able to understand everyone else, no matter the language. Pretty awesome movie.

Too bad that translators would lose their job though.

[darasen]

Yes once we discover the babel fish the world will be a better place.

[Quatrux]

Well, I disagree that everyone should learn only one language, it's best if people would a speak at least 3 languages and it would be even better that at least one of those languages would be English..

For example in USA, if you're an American, you have to know English and Spanish + French and I think you're ready to go and communicate with the world quite easy, another example here in Lithuania:

I know Lithuanian, I can speak Russian, read a little, but not even interested to write it, also I can read,write and speak English even though my dictionary is not as well as it could be, but I can always look at one to remember or learn.. OF course I knwo some other languages, like German and Polish, but only the basics to communicate then I'm a tourist there, some foods, how to buy a ticket in the train station or bus station.

I also disagree that Chinese language should become something important, it's quite a hard language and has a lots of variations in different cultures, what I believe is that Chinese people should know Chinese then English and some other language too, for say people in Arab world they should know Arabic, then something else and English too, same for Europe, the mother-tongue, English and some other language, I guess the best would be the one of your neighbouring countries..

In Information Technology world, English language is the main, all the programming is done with English syntax, it would be stupid to create other language syntax, very unpractical.