# Next "universal" language



## Miguelillo 87

Hi everybody, Me and my friends have always discuss about wish language it’s going to be the next to be “universal” As you should know, Many languages through the history had been leader the world for many years or centuries, For example, When The Rome empire was leading the world , everybody try to speak it language, When Napoleon conquest almost all Europe was French, When was the second W W it was German , in The Aztecs time Everybody n Mesoamerica spoke nahualt (I think so I’m not sure which one was the language of the Aztecs) In the Cold War, it was Russian and English, and Nowadays English it’s the universal language.
But we know and history has teaches us that this is not going to last forever, so My friend and I have decided the three languages that we think can be the next “universal language”

- Chinese ( mandarin), Why? Because We think China it’s one of the nation which it’s taking more advantages of the globalisation, and it’s becoming really powerful and could be a nation with a big economical power in order to take the power to USA and in a few years.

- German.- We believe Germany it’s one of the most important nations on EU, and one of the most developed, also Germany it’s one of the leaders on technology, medicine and science.


- Spanish.- It’s one of the most spoken languages all around the world, Also Latin-America (Spanish it’s the first language on America)it’s growing and it’s a important target for many investor of all the world.


So what it’s your opinion 4 you which languages could be and why?


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## fenixpollo

some language suggestions, tocayo. 


			
				Miguelillo 87 said:
			
		

> Hi everybody, Me and my friends have always talked about wish language it’s going to be the next to be “universal” one. As you might know, Many languages through the history had been leader of the world for many years or centuries, For example, When The Roman empire was leading the world , everybody tried to speak its language, When Napoleon conquered almost all Europe it was French, When was the second W W it was German , in The Aztecs' time Everybody n Mesoamerica spoke nahualt (I think so I’m not sure which one was the language of the Aztecs) In the Cold War, it was Russian and English, and Nowadays English is the universal language.
> But we know and history has taught us that this is not going to last forever, so My friend and I have decided the three languages that we think might/may be the next “universal language”
> 
> - Chinese ( mandarin), Why? Because We think China is one of the nations which is taking more advantages of the globalisation, and it’s becoming really powerful and could be a nation with a big economical power in order to take the power from the USA and in a few years.
> 
> - German.- We believe Germany it’s one of the most important nations in the EU, and one of the most developed, also Germany is one of the leaders on technology, medicine and science.
> 
> - Spanish.- It’s one of the most spoken languages all around the world, Also Latin-America (Spanish it’s the first language on America)it’s growing and it’s a important target for many investor of all the world.
> 
> So what is your opinion? For you, which languages might it be and why?


German was not a "universal" language during World War II -- it became the language of science in the 1800's because of German domination of science prior to WWII. Outside of scientific communities, I doubt whether German reached "universal" status, despite Nazi dominance.

The Aztecs spoke Nahuatl, but there were many other nations in America when the Europeans arrived -- and each group had its own language or dialect. I don't know how many non-Mejicas spoke Nahuatl, but I suspect that the language didn't stretch beyond Aztec lands and its fiefdoms.

I don't know if Russian was a lingua franca of the Communist Bloc during the cold war, but it certainly wasn't a "universal" language. It showed promise of reaching universality for about 2 years after glasnost, when every Business Administration student studied Russian because that market was set to be the next big thing.... but then everything fizzled and the only Russian that even comes close to universality is one word: _pjalsta_. 

In order that people in faraway places study a foreign language, there has to be a compelling reason for them to do so... almost always an _economic_ reason. Despite the geographic spread of Spanish, I don't think that the Latin American market shows such potential to become a dominant force in the world and cause people in Mongolia and Mozambique to choose to study Spanish. China, on the other hand...


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## jinti

What language will become universal next?

Mmm, maybe binary?


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## natasha2000

Well, I think that Chinese couldn't be the one, because for one simple reason: it's too complicated. English has become today's "lingua franca" precisely for being os synthetic and simple. No cases, no declinations, nouns that can be used as adjectives... The basic English in order to communicate is very easy to learn, which is not the case with Chinese...

I vote for Spanish. Maybe there is no big or powerful enough market in Latin America, but the Latin culture becomes very, but VERY popular in the world... Even though I am not sure if you and I will live long enough to see it... English is simply, too powerful at the moment...


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## Cereth

mm i think that english is a very utilized language not only because USA and UK have a big economical and industrial power...i think that the success of english language is that is easy to learn, speaking in future, using auxiliars all that is so easy to understand (in comparison to spanish and japanese for example...) 
i think that chinese is not only difficult to write/read but so difficult to speak!! and which chinese are you considering?? mandarin, cantonese, putong tua (i don´t if it is well written).

I think english will be ruling more and more years...
It is suitable i think...


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## natasha2000

I really do not find Spanish that difficult so as to compare it to Japanese... 

It is just another Indo-European language, and that is why it is much easier than any Asian language... Grammar basics are the same, as in all Indo-European languages... 
Why do all Spanish speakers think their language is so difficult when it is not? 

That is why I do not consider any non-Indo-European language as new "lingua franca".... Slavic languages, neither, because their grammar is too complicated. It must be some Roman language, if ever English looses its power and popularity that has right now....


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## vince

I think that if China becomes a superpower then people will learn Mandarin no matter how difficult it is.

The only thing is, the difficulty of learning Written Chinese will present itself as a trade barrier. People overseas would have to spend lots of time and money to train people in using Chinese characters in order to trade with China, which will cut into profits. This is a pragmatic reason why China should adopt a phonetic-based writing system.


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## danielfranco

I think it's very difficult to guess which language might gain ascendancy as the lingua franca of our world in the years to come, after English makes its exit stage-left. I remember back in the eighties everyone thought we ought to start learning Japanese 'cause we all thought they were taking over. Nowdays we think perhaps we should learn some Chinese. Whatever. I think perhaps the Chinese are thinking right now, "maybe we ought to be learning some English if we want to take over the world market?"
When I was a kid it was still more fashionable to speak French as a second language than English. And that wasn't so long ago, either, alright? Don't think I'm older than dirt, okay?
So, really, there's no telling... Spanish? Maaaaaaaaybe, but my uneducated guess is that English is more likely to adapt to the onslaught of foreign words and to use them than other languages (really, who would have thought that words like "mustang, lasso, fuselage, etc." were once foreign words?) so maybe the next "universal" language will be some form of bastardized (or modernized, depending on you point of view) English.


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## justjukka

Technology will have a great influence on our future's languages.  When the topic is brought up in conversation, many thoughts turn to Japan.  Their compuer languages have proven most useful for technological development.  However, I've heard that English is the most easily scripted language for computers.  Someday, perhaps the universal language could be a composition of the families the two languages are from.


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## justjukka

jinti said:
			
		

> What language will become universal next?
> 
> Mmm, maybe binary?


 
I want to learn binary...


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## ERASMO_GALENO

Hi,

Have you ever heard about the Esperanto? It's supposed to be a universal language, built from several ones, but I think a lot of us hasn't even heard about it.

Greetings,

*Erasmo.*


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## panjabigator

I don't think Esperanto will ever take hold.  I think the future dominant language will remain as English, and maybe even Spanish.  Chinese sounds enticing, but I don't think it's a realistic language for everyone to learn.


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## GenJen54

*Mod NOTE:*  There are already several threads concerning the topics of *artificial* languages, including esperanto.  You are welcome to discuss those languages in those threads.  For the purposes of this thread, please keep to the topic of current "natural" languages.  Thank you.


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## ozon

what about love? this one is universal and is older than the human being. ja ja ja. Seriously what abuot a mixture? a new one? becouse the actual global movement of peopel glovally, a mixture of English and spanish... Spanglish! I have eared it befor... I'm with DanielF.
About the computer lenguage... morse?


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## natasha2000

I think no artificial language can get to be in real use, so therefore it is out of the question that any artificial language becomes "lingua franca". It must be alive language. Which one...? Well, I have alredy said what I think.


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## hedonist

Chinese (mandarin? cantonese?) could be a contender.  They're making huge strides in their economy and that would probably mean that they would have a bigger influence and say in world matters in years to come.


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## Etcetera

fenixpollo said:
			
		

> I don't know if Russian was a lingua franca of the Communist Bloc during the cold war, but it certainly wasn't a "universal" language. It showed promise of reaching universality for about 2 years after glasnost, when every Business Administration student studied Russian because that market was set to be the next big thing.... but then everything fizzled and the only Russian that even comes close to universality is one word: _pjalsta_.


Russian used to be the universal language for countries ruled by Communists - children in Poland, for instance, had to learn Russian at school. 
As for Russian words which have become universal... Well, there's a number of Russian words that are pretty well-known. But they all seems to come into English and other languages long ago. 



> So what it’s your opinion 4 you which languages could be and why?


Spanish, I think. It's spoken in Europe and throughout both Americas, so Spanish has all the chances to become the nexp universal language. 
I'd rather see Italian, one of my most favoutite languages, as the language of international communication, though.


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## natasha2000

Etcetera said:
			
		

> Russian used to be the universal language for countries ruled by Communists - children in Poland, for instance, had to learn Russian at school.


 
Well, in my country, one of four languages that could be learnt in school was Russian. Somehow, people who learnt Russian at school, they never learnt it good enough to speak it, unless those who actually wanted to study it at the University. On the other hand, people who learnt English, French or German, do know to speak it even though languages are not their occupation now. I think that Russian in my country wasn't very popular... Sorry, Etcetera...


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## Etcetera

natasha2000 said:
			
		

> Well, in my country, one of four languages that could be learnt in school was Russian. Somehow, people who learnt Russian at school, they never learnt it good enough to speak it, unless those who actually wanted to study it at the University. On the other hand, people who learnt English, French or German, do know to speak it even though languages are not their occupation now. I think that Russian in my country wasn't very popular... Sorry, Etcetera...


Why are you sorry, Natasha?  I doubt if studying Russian can be a great pleasure for those who were just forced to do it. Let alone that English or even German are less difficult to learn than Russian.


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## natasha2000

Etcetera said:
			
		

> Why are you sorry, Natasha?  I doubt if studying Russian can be a great pleasure for those who were just forced to do it. Let alone that English or even German are less difficult to learn than Russian.


 
No, Etcetera, you didn't understand... 
Nobody was forced to do it. It was just another foreign language we had in schools. So, if someone wasn't so gifted for languages, he would hate any language, not only Russian.
The reason is the usefulness of the language. The most common sentence that was (is) heard is: Russian is spoken only in Russia. And English is spoken all over the world. French and German also prevailed over Russian, not as much as English, but they did, and for the same reason.


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## Etcetera

Ah, Natasha, now I see it. 
I'd argue that Russian is spoken only in Russia, but undoubtedly, English/German/Spanish are more useful in modern world.


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## natasha2000

Etcetera said:
			
		

> Ah, Natasha, now I see it.
> I'd argue that Russian is spoken only in Russia, but undoubtedly, English/German/Spanish are more useful in modern world.


 
I agree with you, but this is what most of plain people think.


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## Miguelillo 87

Hi everybody, thanks for your answers, I know to establish a lingua franca it’s too difficult, I just want to know which one do you think it will be and  I can see that a lot of people think  Spanish it’s a good option (thanks!!!!), Also I can see English it’s still considerate as lingua franca for many, many years ,and I believe the same I mean English power it’s not going to finish from one day to another, but I believe and history has teaches us that anything it’s forever, so maybe our generation and the 3 next to it are gonna us English too, but maybe after that, the world will change.
 
About my first post I say clearly that I was talking about Chinese mandarin, (for those who asked which type of Chinese I was talking about, by the way a lot of those), About Russian and German I know they were not a lingua franca all over the world but it was on its regions and a really big regions, I know I’m talking about a universal but it was only to give an example and to clarify the point I wanted to pointed out.


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## panjabigator

Honestly I would prefer anything to English...I want the attention off the west for once....maybe then nations will stop their westernizations (ie India).

PS:  I am refering to westernizing culture.


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## karuna

I don't think that there have ever been a universal language, meaning a language which was spoken by majority of Earth population. There have been languages of great importance in different times and in certain areas like Sanskrit, Persian, Russian, German, French, Latin, Greek etc. but the world at large have always been linguistically very divided.

However, it looks that English has a very good chance to become such universal language in the near future. I have read that now there are more people speaking English as a second language than native speakers. It is projected that there will be 2.6 billion English speakers (at different proficiency levels though) by 2030. It will be very unprecedented in the world's history, however, there still will be more than 3 or 4 billion people using other languages in everyday's dealings. So, no worry, learning other languages will still be terribly useful thing to do.


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## robbie_SWE

Etcetera said:
			
		

> Russian used to be the universal language for countries ruled by Communists - children in Poland, for instance, had to learn Russian at school.
> As for Russian words which have become universal... Well, there's a number of Russian words that are pretty well-known. But they all seems to come into English and other languages long ago.


 
This may be true Etcetera, it was the same in Romania during the beginning of the 20th century. BUT almost everybody resented being forced to learn Russian! My grandmother told me how they were forced to learn Russian in school and that people hated it and suppressed it as soon as they got out of the classroom. If Russian really was a universal language, why did it take so little time for it to disappear from the former communist states (especially from Romania, more people knew French and German than Russian)?? 

As for the "made up languages"; they will never and I repeat NEVER dominate in any future! 

I think that English will continue to dominate in the mere future. I doubt that Chinese or Spanish will take over the torch from English. I think that Arabic will become a very important language in the future. The Middle East is an economical melting pot, just waiting to burst. 

  robbie


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## Etcetera

robbie_SWE said:
			
		

> This may be true Etcetera, it was the same in Romania during the beginning of the 20th century. BUT almost everybody resented being forced to learn Russian! My grandmother told me how they were forced to learn Russian in school and that people hated it and suppressed it as soon as they got out of the classroom. If Russian really was a universal language, why did it take so little time for it to disappear from the former communist states (especially from Romania, more people knew French and German than Russian)??


I've always known that methods used by Communists were (and are!) up to no good. 
The situation vary from country to country, it seems. My Polish friend once told me that people of older generation still remember some Russian and are able to speak it. But, Polish is closer to Russian than Romanian.


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## Samuel Hain

Miguelillo 87 said:
			
		

> - Chinese ( mandarin), Why? Because We think China it’s one of the nation which it’s taking more advantages of the globalisation, and it’s becoming really powerful and could be a nation with a big economical power in order to take the power to USA and in a few years.
> 
> - German.- We believe Germany it’s one of the most important nations on EU, and one of the most developed, also Germany it’s one of the leaders on technology, medicine and science.
> 
> 
> - Spanish.- It’s one of the most spoken languages all around the world, Also Latin-America (Spanish it’s the first language on America)it’s growing and it’s a important target for many investor of all the world.


 
Chinese - I don't thing so it will be in near future. Their do trade with Euro-American civilization, and this civilization in glabal is too lazy ti learn it. Therefore Chinese have to learn English.

German - after WW I and WWII German nation feel some stigma, that's why a lot of them learn English.

Spanish - maby, it depends on how many people from Iberoamerica moved to US, but I do not think they have enough economical and political power there.

My opinion? It will be *English* - because US is still economical, cultural (I am so sorry that I have to say it, but how many Hollywood movies, American Pop stars and TV programmes do you know), political and military leader.


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## Miguelillo 87

I KNOW English it’s going to be a really strong language, for many many years, but some day will have to fall, so maybe another language or country will have the antorch and everybody will have to learn it. I know in this time seems to be improbable but remember nothing last forever


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## hohodicestu

Hi,

Nothing in this world is guaranteed. As we all know today's international language is definitely English, but we have to keep in mind that things are changing constantly. So my guess for the future language could be a combination of related languages such as Spanish, portuguese, and English.


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## Miguelillo 87

hohodicestu said:
			
		

> Hi,
> 
> Nothing in this world is guaranteed. As we all know today's international language is definitely English, but we have to keep in mind that things are changing constantly. So my guess for the future language could be a combination of related languages such as Spanish, portuguese, and English.


Why do you think portugese it's going to be one?


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## Miguelillo 87

karuna said:
			
		

> So, no worry, learning other languages will still be terribly useful thing to do.


 
I know nowadays it seems that English it’s going to reign forever, as your very good explanation has shown us, but as I said nothing last forever and as Napoleons Empire and Hitler and Roman Empire felt, English will do it too, I know it’s not gonna be tomorrow but it’s going to happen it’s for sure. So I wanted to know which language do you think will be the next to reign as English id doing it right now, So Karuna it seems you said English its’ going to continue dominating the world and it seems this forum too!!! 
Not.- Imagine if some day this forum will be full of Chinese symbols (if Chinese will be the one) that’s will be *weird!!!!!*


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## Miguelillo 87

robbie_SWE said:
			
		

> . I think that Arabic will become a very important language in the future. The Middle East is an economical melting pot, just waiting to burst.
> 
> robbie


I would have never thinl about Arbic, it's good to see diferent point of view and to be truly it's not such a nonsense idea, I think it's a good option but I think matbe only in Middle Asia and parts of Europe but world wide I doubt it. But Who knows? (Sólo Dios sabe , I will say it in spanish)


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## panjabigator

I honestly do not see how anything could displace English.  I don't envision a day where children will grow up taking Chinese language classes from kindergarden to 12th grade, with everyone else in the US.  But I really would like to see another language push English aside.


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## robbie_SWE

Miguelillo 87 said:
			
		

> I would have never thinl about Arbic, it's good to see diferent point of view and to be truly it's not such a nonsense idea, I think it's a good option but I think matbe only in Middle Asia and parts of Europe but world wide I doubt it. But Who knows? (Sólo Dios sabe , I will say it in spanish)


 
Yeah, maybe you're right. Now that you mention it, I doubt that South American countries will do a lot of business with Arabic countries. But here in Europe anyway, I think it will be very important to know how to speak Arabic. 

(Entiendo español y soy verdad; sólo Dios sabe  !)

 robbie


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## natasha2000

panjabigator said:
			
		

> But I really would like to see another language push English aside.


 
Why? What's wrong with English?


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## robbie_SWE

panjabigator said:
			
		

> I honestly do not see how anything could displace English. I don't envision a day where children will grow up taking Chinese language classes from kindergarden to 12th grade, with everyone else in the US. But I really would like to see another language push English aside.


 
Consider this: 100 years ago people had a very hard time picturing a world where most things were in English and most people spoke English. During Napoleon's reign it was unthinkable that French will loose its dominance as the _lingua franca_. Even your ancestors, Panjabigator (I presume you come from India), couldn't picture themselves speaking in English (this before the British colonisation). Everything is relative! 

Greetings

 robbie


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## Miguelillo 87

robbie_SWE said:
			
		

> Consider this: 100 years ago people had a very hard time picturing a world where most things were in English and most people spoke English. During Napoleon's reign it was unthinkable that French will loose its dominance as the _lingua franca_. Even your ancestors, Panjabigator (I presume you come from India), couldn't picture themselves speaking in English (this before the British colonisation). Everything is relative!
> 
> Greetings
> 
> robbie


I totally agree with you Robbie I mean When countries or languages are on the power for too many years it’s really hard to believe that this situation will change, But we know it will change, That’s why I’m asking.


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## Miguelillo 87

robbie_SWE said:
			
		

> (Entiendo español y soy verdad; sólo Dios sabe  !)
> 
> robbie


 
By the way its (es verdad) no (soy verdad) a little change I hope it helps to improve your spanish.


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## Miguelillo 87

panjabigator said:
			
		

> I honestly do not see how anything could displace English. I don't envision a day where children will grow up taking Chinese language classes from kindergarden to 12th grade, with everyone else in the US. But I really would like to see another language push English aside.


Well I doubt it too if you speak for the next 60 or 70 yrs but maybe in 150 years things are not going to be the same, politic worlds and commercial world will change and everything will do it too, I also would like to see other language taking over of the world and displace English but unfortunately I think our generation it’s not gonna see it


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## karuna

Miguelillo 87 said:
			
		

> I know nowadays it seems that English it’s going to reign forever, as your very good explanation has shown us, but as I said nothing last forever and as Napoleons Empire and Hitler and Roman Empire felt, English will do it too, I know it’s not gonna be tomorrow but it’s going to happen it’s for sure. So I wanted to know which language do you think will be the next to reign as English id doing it right now, So Karuna it seems you said English its’ going to continue dominating the world and it seems this forum too!!!
> Not.- Imagine if some day this forum will be full of Chinese symbols (if Chinese will be the one) that’s will be *weird!!!!!*


I am not sure that English will last forever. The differences between different "flavors" of English will only increase with time that they will become clearly separated dialects and with more time even separate languages. It is hard to predict how or how many centuries it will take but it all happened with Latin. Maybe people will learn so called International English for science or communication but speaking different type of English at home.

Despite what writing system we use, a language is primarily speech, pronounced loudly or understood internally. For this reason I prefer phonetic writing systems. Of course, it beats to not be able to understand the dialect that your grandfathers spoke but symbolic writing hides the history of language development.


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## übermönch

panjabigator said:
			
		

> Honestly I would prefer anything to English...I want the attention off the west for once....


Agreed. If there'd be a new election, non-indoeuropean languages like Malagasy, Kongolese or Vietnamese would be better choices, imho. Europe isn't the world's centre. Natasha2000 stated that IE languages were easier...  well, they are. To indoeuropean speakers.


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## natasha2000

It is not the question what it should be, or what we would like to be or what's fair to be. If we took this criteria, then I could say I WOULD LIKE that Serbian becomes new lingua franca. But everyone here knows this is ridiculous asumption. Why? Because Serbian is spoken by very small number of people compared with world. So Übermonch sorry but the world will never see Kongolese or Vietnamese as new lingua franca, no matter how much you would like it.
Besides the condition that it should be spoken by a larger number of people, the language also must be spoken by economically strong nation, and I don't see any Asiatic country which could substitute the US and the UK, or many other European countries. Again, sorry, but this is the fact. 
I might agree with those who said that China is an economical potential that is yet to be seen, but then, the difficulty of Chinese and its alphabet is a big obstacle for it. Compare any Indo-European language and Chinese, and you'll see what I am talking about. I've heard that not even all Chinese know all signs of their alphabet, because there are a couple of thousands of them (those who speak Chinese will forgive me my lack of precise information). And besides, we don't even know "which" Chinese would become lingua franca if it happens. According to what I read here in this forum, many times those who speak the language of China don't like this language to be called just Chinese, but they specify it as Mandarin, Cantonese etc... English is English, wherever you speak it. The same goes to Spanish or German. They do have their dialects and differences, but in the end, it is ONE language, and an American from Texas will be understood by an Irish from Dublin, or Australian from Sydney, as well as by any other citizen of this planet who speaks English.


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## Etcetera

And why cannot *two *languages share the position of lingua franca? 
I think English and Spanish have all chances to share this role. They're spoken throughout the world.


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## natasha2000

Etcetera, I think they already do


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## polaco

think that chinese is not only difficult to write/read but so difficult to speak!! and which chinese are you considering?? mandarin, cantonese, putong tua (i don´t if it is well written).

Chinese is not difficult to speak. People can learn it, beeing there, in one year (basic phrases and most popular words.) Of course it can be hard to speak for spanish and englishspeaking pesons, because they for e.g. cannot imitate _thank you - xie xie _in putung hua (beijng dialect).


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## polaco

polaco said:
			
		

> think that chinese is not only difficult to write/read but so difficult to speak!! and which chinese are you considering?? mandarin, cantonese, putong tua (i don´t if it is well written).
> 
> Chinese is not difficult to speak. People can learn it, beeing there, in one year (basic phrases and most popular words.) Of course it can be hard to speak for spanish and englishspeaking pesons, because they for e.g. cannot imitate _thank you - xie xie _in putung hua (beijng dialect).


 
I forgot to add, that I'm voting for _español._


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## Loquacious

If I were to _choose_ a language to become "universal", it would be French.  My opinion is, of course terribly biased with me being a francophile, but either way I would like to Fench returning to a dominant position in the political world at least.

As to what will most likely happen, I say English or Chinese.  English because we have absorbed the words of so many other languages into our linguistic arsenal.  I believe people are forgetting that English became "universal" because England created an empire that stretched across the entire globe.  North America, Africa, Asia, Australia (an entire continent, no less!), an itsy bitsy bit of South America, and then of course the island base in Europe.  That's quite a bit of land, all ruled by the English-speaking British Crown for a time until those territories sought independence.  Their may not be a British Empire anymore, but their surely is an English-speaking one.  

I also mentioned Chinese as a possiblity.  It is a rising economic power, but the language seems very complex, and one should also note that almost all the universal languages that the world has experienced have used the Roman Alphabet.


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## Miguelillo 87

Well Loquacious also Spain made an Empire in Africa, Asia and AMERICA, and now Spanish natives are more tan English natives. That’s why I said that Spanish it’s a very good option for the next lingua franca.


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## Loquacious

Spain may have had the largest colonial empire for a time, but it couldn't maintain its influence.  Africa was dominated by the French, Spain's claims on North America were denied by the newly-formed United States... South America may have been taken by the Spanish and the Portuguese, but England was able to maintain their empire and ensure English as the dominant communication form.  

Also do you see any Hispanic superpowers climbing onto the world stage?  Superpowers are what we are looking for when predicting future universal languages.  In the past, empires determned the lingua franca, and today's empires take the form of superpowers.


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## ozon

(and ensure English as the dominant communication form. (?))
The Nord American empire is who played a definitive role to ashure the today's English lenguage position in the ranking.
Do you know what happened with the superpowers like was Roma or Greece? I think that we can have some surprises and find a unexpected lenguages caming up becouse the points that make a nation (and his lenguage) a superpower are changing; politics, Knowledge, REOURCES...
We cand find our selfs on 2090 talking... arabic? becouse the petrol in Arabia Saudi? or Spanish because Venesuela's black gold? 
Possibly Italian becouse the fashion.


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## Loquacious

Fashion, while it is dear to my heart and many others, will not be the determining factor for a universal language.  Fashion is a world in itself, and does not effect the world as a whole, so it is irrelevant.

The Middle Eastern countries hardly have much control over their oil; they are exploited for it, and western civilizations like to play war in the deserts as cover-up for oil companies.  I don't see Arabic becoming dominant, even though it is a language widely called for among government officials in the U.S.

Black gold from Venezuela most likely will not dominate the world markets. so I can't see that as a determining factor either.


----------



## Canof

Language is evolutionary and so whatever has been the dominant, most popular language throughout evolution is likely to stay as the global language - in this case it is English.

I wouldn't call English the "universal language" however, because we haven't met any yet.


----------



## ERASMO_GALENO

Hi again,

If you are rouling out the Esperanto because it is an artificial language, I imagin Mandarin as the next international language. It is not going to prevale even in decades, but the number of speakers, the economic and commercial growth, all that counts... as it did for English.

Greetings,

*Erasmo.*


----------



## Why Not?

natasha2000 said:
			
		

> Well, I think that Chinese couldn't be the one, because for one simple reason: it's too complicated.


In how far? Just in terms of sings? If you refer to signs: there is coding system based on the latin alphabet that might make it easier for foreigners to communicate in Chinese.

But I don't know anything about Chinese grammar ...


----------



## belén

Why Not? said:
			
		

> In how far? Just in terms of sings? If you refer to signs: there is coding system based on the latin alphabet that might make it easier for foreigners to communicate in Chinese.
> 
> But I don't know anything about Chinese grammar ...


Mandarin Chinese grammar is actually pretty simple, it doesn't have any conjugations, gender, singular or plural forms, declinations... It is an analytic language. (Wikipedia link)

The problems we foreigner encounter when trying to learn Chinese: 

Obviously writting and the "tonal factor", it has different tones that completely change the meaning of a word. Mandarin has 4 tones, Cantonese has more than 9!!


----------



## claudine2006

I think it will be Chinese (just because China is the most numerous populous country). That's why I decided to learn it!


----------



## Miguelillo 87

Loquacious said:
			
		

> Fashion, while it is dear to my heart and many others, will not be the determining factor for a universal language. Fashion is a world in itself, and does not effect the world as a whole, so it is irrelevant.
> 
> The Middle Eastern countries hardly have much control over their oil; they are exploited for it, and western civilizations like to play war in the deserts as cover-up for oil companies. I don't see Arabic becoming dominant, even though it is a language widely called for among government officials in the U.S.
> 
> Black gold from Venezuela most likely will not dominate the world markets. so I can't see that as a determining factor either.


I will have to disagree I know English as a language it’s dominating the world, as we can see in this forum we communicate in English ,and also the most powerful country in the world speak English (USA) but as many have said, France, Greece, Rome, has also been big empires, and look they felt down.
 
As I said maybe English will be on the power for another 100 yrs but be sure that’s in not gonna be forever. Now you said Spain didn’t maintain the control in its colonies as England did, And it’s true but, that’s doesn’t mean that the language (Spanish) has also disappear as its control did. 
 
Now you said that superpower countries has to speak the lingua franca, Well China it’s becoming one and  Germany and almost all the members of the EU has the power to turn into one, Italian, German, French… so US it’s not the absolute king of the world, nowadays he is sharing the power.


----------



## natasha2000

I think that one of the factors for English being so popular, besides the political and economic power of the countries where it is a mother tongue, IS fashion - media. Hollywood and music. We can all agree that in each and every country of all of us here in this forum, the most listened music is US and British music. If some singer or group wants to make their way to the world market, chooses to sing in English. The most seen movies are English speaking movies coming from Hollywood. So, in some way, not only politics and economy decide on which language will be lingua franca, but also media.

Therefore, I think that the biggest chance is for Spanish. No matter the spanish speaking countries are not economically the most powerful ones, Spansih is very popular, and becomes each day more and more popular. I also think there is some kind of "latin  temperament" cliché that is spreading all around the world as a plague. People like the language that means party, love, sex, fun, explosive temeprament, good time, hot girls and hot boys. Even though we know that not all latinos are like this, it is just what people around the world think. This is what is served to the world through the latin music and image latinos have.


----------



## Miguelillo 87

natasha2000 said:
			
		

> I think that one of the factors for English being so popular, besides the political and economic power of the countries where it is a mother tongue, IS fashion - media. Hollywood and music. We can all agree that in each and every country of all of us here in this forum, the most listened music is US and British music. If some singer or group wants to make their way to the world market, chooses to sing in English. The most seen movies are English speaking movies coming from Hollywood. So, in some way, not only politics and economy decide on which language will be lingua franca, but also media.
> 
> Therefore, I think that the biggest chance is for Spanish. .


 
Yes 
You are right but remember that not all the people around the world see the movies in English, a lot specially the ones for the kids are translated into the language the movie goes for, I mean I’m 100 % sure no kid on Mexico or LatinAmerica knows the real voice of Nemo or Fiona princess or Shrek or Mickey given by Hollywood.


----------



## User1001

Miguelillo 87 said:
			
		

> Hi Everybody! My friends and I have always discussed which language is going to be the next to be “universal” . As you should already know, Many languages throughout history have been leading the world for many years or centuries, For example, when The Roman Empire was leading the world, everybody tried to speak their language; when Napoleon's conquest took place, almost all of Europe was speaking French; during WWII, it was German; and in the Aztec's time, everybody in Mesoamerica spoke Nahuatl. (I think so, I’m not sure which one was the language of the Aztecs) In the Cold War, it was Russian and English, and presently, English is the universal language.
> 
> But we know and history has taught us that this is not going to last forever, so my friend and I have decided upon three languages that we think can be the next “universal languages”.
> 
> - Chinese (Mandarin): Why? We think China is one of the nations which is taking advantage of the globalization, and it’s becoming really powerful, which could be a nation with a big economical power in order to take the power to the USA in a few years.
> 
> - German: We believe Germany is one of the most important nations in EU, and one of the most-developed. Also Germany is one of the leaders in Technology, Medicine and Science.
> 
> 
> - Spanish: It’s one of the most widely-spoken languages all around the world. Also Latin America (Spanish is the primary language) is growing and it’s an important target for many investors from all around the world.
> 
> 
> So what is your opinion of which languages could be the next _universal language_s and why?


Hello Miguelillo 87. Firstly, I'd like to apologize for all my corrections. I tend to go overboard when I can correct English, and help someone improve it. Putting that aside, I'd like to congratulate you on your English, because you actually write English better than some people in my grade, that just don't care. Keep up the good work with your English studies!

The next universal languages, hm. I'd personally say that the next universal languages will be Russian, Chinese, German, and English. 
Russia is a huge country, and most of the Post-Soviet Countries still speak Russian, as a secondary language.
China has an economy growing rapidly, and it would help people in different countries who are trying to establish trades or something of the like, with China.
Many people have learned German in the past, because they have German heritage. However, some people learn German, simply because they think it is cool. Putting those two reasons aside, Germany is a big country for studies in Science and Medicine, as well as advancements in Technology and Programming.
English is spoken in over four countries, so that alone is a good reason to learn English.


----------



## robbie_SWE

tspier2 said:
			
		

> Hello Miguelillo 87. Firstly, I'd like to apologize for all my corrections. I tend to go overboard when I can correct English, and help someone improve it. Putting that aside, I'd like to congratulate you on your English, because you actually write English better than some people in my grade, that just don't care. Keep up the good work with your English studies!
> 
> The next universal languages, hm. I'd personally say that the next universal languages will be Russian, Chinese, German, and English.
> 
> Russia is a huge country, and most of the Post-Soviet Countries still speak Russian, as a secondary language.
> China has an economy growing rapidly, and it would help people in different countries who are trying to establish trades or something of the like, with China.
> Many people have learned German in the past, because they have German heritage. However, some people learn German, simply because they think it is cool. Putting those two reasons aside, Germany is a big country for studies in Science and Medicine, as well as advancements in Technology and Programming.
> English is spoken in over four countries, so that alone is a good reason to learn English.


 
I would actually beg to differ Tspier2. 

The former Soviet states are trying (most of them) to distance themselves from "mother Russia". People who were alive during WW II in Poland still know how to speak Russian (on the other hand they choose not to speak it), but the Polish youth today don't know Russian. Young people in Eastern Europe have a "grudge" against Russia and would not like to learn the language. 
German is loosing popularity in Europe. I can only speak from a Swedish point of view: fewer and fewer students are taking German as their third foreign language in Sweden. The latest statistical diagrams show that German may even disappear from schools completely in a couple of years. 
Last but not least, I think that there are more countries that have English as their leading language than the four you mentioned. 
 robbie


----------



## natasha2000

Miguelillo 87 said:
			
		

> Yes
> You are right but remember that not all the people around the world see the movies in English, a lot specially the ones for the kids are translated into the language the movie goes for, I mean I’m 100 % sure no kid on Mexico or LatinAmerica knows the real voice of Nemo or Fiona princess or Shrek or Mickey given by Hollywood.


 
Precisely because of that I think that Spanish has good chances to be next lingua franca. My experience in Spain is that in general, Spanish people are very reluctant to learn English. Not once I have heard: Why I must learn English? Why don't they learn Spanish?


----------



## ampurdan

I think that English has many possibilities to remain "lingua franca" until it evolves to something that won't be called English any longer.

Hi, Natasha. I'm afraid that this attitude regarding English you attribute to Spaniards could be as well attributed to French, Germans, Italians, Portuguese, etc. with the same grounds.


----------



## natasha2000

ampurdan said:
			
		

> I think that English has many possibilities to remain "lingua franca" until it evolves to something that won't be called English any longer.
> 
> Hi, Natasha. I'm afraid that this attitude regarding English you attribute to Spaniards could be as well attributed to French, Germans, Italians, Portuguese, etc. with the same grounds.


 
Yes, you're right. But I mentioned that as only one tiny factor among many, many others why I think Spanish and not German, French or Italian has the most chances to become new "lingua franca". On the other hand, even if this happens, I don't think we shall be live to see it, because I think that English is becoming more and more firm in the Nº1 position and it has no intention to step down from there.


----------



## fenixpollo

Natasha, it sounds like you are saying that you think that the reason that English is dominant in the world today is for cultural reasons, not economic or political ones.  Others in this thread appear to say the opposite.  So, do people in Spain complain about learning English, but then they go ahead and study it because they love the culture and the movies?  Or do they study it because they think it will get them some kind of economic advantage?





			
				natasha2000 said:
			
		

> (edit: blue = "fad"; passing fancy)  Therefore, I think that the biggest chance is for Spanish. No matter the spanish speaking countries are not economically the most powerful ones, Spansih is very *popular*, and becomes each day more and more popular. I also think there is some kind of "latin  temperament" *cliché* that is spreading all around the world as a *plague*. People like the language that means party, love, sex, fun, explosive temeprament, good time, hot girls and hot boys. Even though we know that not all latinos are like this, it is just what people around the world think. This is what is served to the world through the latin music and *image* latinos have.


 So, Spanish will become the next universal language because all the kids will want to study it so that they can meet cute Spanish-speaking boys and girls and have hot latino sex?


----------



## panjabigator

I think that for as long as westernization is present, English will reign supreme.  In India, the two are synonymous...you do not need to learn any language but English to visit India, and in some regions, live!


----------



## natasha2000

fenixpollo said:
			
		

> Natasha, it sounds like you are saying that you think that the reason that English is dominant in the world today is for cultural reasons, not economic or political ones. Others in this thread appear to say the opposite. So, do people in Spain complain about learning English, but then they go ahead and study it because they love the culture and the movies? Or do they study it because they think it will get them some kind of economic advantage?


 
Fenix, I am very dissapointed. You've missed my point from the very beginning. I just added some more thinking on why English is dominant, I never said that Hollywood is the only reason for having English now as most studied language in the world. I was trying to amplify the subject, since the thing about power is very well known to everyone and it is a little bit boring. 
People in Spain I saw trying to learn Enlgish and having statements like this, usually never learn English. not because they are Spanish, but because of their attitude. the thing is that, unlike my country, some Spanish do think like that (Why don't they learn Spanish?). I have never heard this excuse in my country for not learning English. Why? Because of a simple fact that Serbian is spoken only in Serbia and by a little bit more than 11 million people, and Spanish is spoken in 24 countries and by 410 million, of whom 390 million are native speakers. So, numbers do count. And please do not mention Chinese, and try to see what I am talking now like a part of my opinion, and not as the only opinion I have.

There are various factors that make one language to become "lingua franca". All of them should be observed and analyzed. Power, popularity, easiness, accessibility, necessity...



> So, Spanish will become the next universal language because all the kids will want to study it so that they can meet cute Spanish-speaking boys and girls and have hot latino sex?


 
As a matter of fact, yes, not all, but many people get interested in Spanish precisely because of cute little boys and girls. I myself was atracted by Argenitinan accent way of speaking so I try to learn to speak that way, too. There are many people who learn languages because they will need them in the future jobs, but I think that a much greater number learns it because it likes it and because of something that attracted their attention.

Besides, I think I was clear enough that I do not think that Spanish speaking people are only reduced to sex symbols. I said cliché and I think you know what cliché means. At least when I say that something is cliché, I usually do not agree with it.

PS: On the other hand, how many times I have seen here threads started by X (not Spanish) language speakers asking to translate or help to understand some love words that some Spanish speaking person said to them? I have never seen this other way around - a Spanish native asking help to understand "I love you, my cute little baby", even though we all agreed that English is today's "lingua franca". Which drives me to the following conclusion: That when there are two people who like each other and one person is Spanish speaking native, and there is no common language that both speak more or less fluently, then usually the other one tries to understand Spanish, and eventually it ends up in learning it. The other way around is more rare.


----------



## fenixpollo

my comments in blue:


			
				natasha2000 said:
			
		

> Fenix, I am very disapointed. You've missed my point from the very beginning. I just added some more thinking on why English is dominant, I never said that Hollywood is the only reason for having English now as most studied language in the world.
> You're right -- I took your last post out of context. Sorry.
> 
> I was trying to amplify the subject, since the thing about power is very well known to everyone and it is a little bit boring.
> Well, it may be boring, but it's still the point of the thread: to analyze why a language becomes dominant and which might be the next one (after English).
> 
> There are various factors that make one language to become "lingua franca". All of them should be observed and analyzed. Power, popularity, easiness, accessibility, necessity...
> Agreed.
> 
> There are many people who learn languages because they will need them in the future jobs, but I think that a much greater number learns it because it likes it and because of something that attracted their attention.
> I disagree (see below).
> 
> Besides, I think I was clear enough that I do not think that Spanish speaking people are only reduced to sex symbols. I said cliché and I think you know what cliché means. At least when I say that something is cliché, I usually do not agree with it.
> In citing the cliché as a reason to learn Spanish, you were validating that the cliché is believed by many (not by yourself). That was understood. I was disagreeing with your argument that the cliché is a reason for learning Spanish - I wasn't arguing with you about the cliché itself.


The majority of people don't learn a language because of cultural curiosity. That is true for you and me, and most foreros here, but we all know that we are a minority in each of our cultures. The majority of people are not inclined to learn a second language, hence the attitude of many Spaniards that you cited ("Why don't they learn Spanish?"). The _primary _reason that they might force themselves to learn another language is economic -- not political or cultural. They learn a second language to earn more money, when there are economic opportunities to be found; politics and sex can be had more easily, in their native language.


----------



## robbie_SWE

fenixpollo said:
			
		

> my comments in blue:The majority of people don't learn a language because of cultural curiosity. That is true for you and me, and most foreros here, but we all know that we are a minority in each of our cultures. The majority of people are not inclined to learn a second language, hence the attitude of many Spaniards that you cited ("Why don't they learn Spanish?"). The _primary _reason that they might force themselves to learn another language is economic -- not political or cultural. They learn a second language to earn more money, when there are economic opportunities to be found; politics and sex can be had more easily, in their native language.


 
Sorry Fenixpollo, but you come off a bit shallow if you think that the ONLY reasons for learning a new language are economic! 

I'm currently learning Greek. Yeah, Greek! What do I have to gain from that??!! Greece isn't the first country you think of, when you think of a powerful nation with a thriving economy. 

Greek is for me a beautiful language and that's why I want to learn it! 

I agree with you Natasha2000 and her arguments are plausible!  

 robbie


----------



## natasha2000

fenixpollo said:
			
		

> my comments in blue:The majority of people don't learn a language because of cultural curiosity. That is true for you and me, and most foreros here, but we all know that we are a minority in each of our cultures. The majority of people are not inclined to learn a second language, hence the attitude of many Spaniards that you cited ("Why don't they learn Spanish?"). The _primary _reason that they might force themselves to learn another language is economic -- not political or cultural. They learn a second language to earn more money, when there are economic opportunities to be found; politics and sex can be had more easily, in their native language.


 
You're repeating yourself. I said many, not majority. 

And sometimes foreign language increases desire and excitment  and it is far more attractive than your native one. (Have you seen Fish called Vanda?)

And I wanted to discuss other reasons for English being the "lingua franca", other than power, because I thought that everything on that was already said, and I don't have anything new to add.

I had many, but many Spanish natives students who tired to learn English with thids attitude. Usually they gave up after some time. They are usually middle aged people. I agree that young people, even if they do not especially like learning English, they do learn it because of economical reasons. But this is because they still can. It is far harder for a middle aged person to start learning foreign language without wanting it really, but only because it might give him better job.


----------



## maxiogee

If the world woke up tomorrow all speaking the same language — how long would it be before someone
~ invented a new slang?
~ coined a new word?
~ broke the rules of grammar, deliberately, to make a stronger statement?
~ ridiculed the accent with which someone else spoke?
~ decided that the new language wasn't good enough and tried to invent an even newer one?


----------



## Johnny Blaze

I think it's pretty obvious what the next universal language will be:

Irish.


----------



## Miguelillo 87

natasha2000 said:
			
		

> Precisely because of that I think that Spanish has good chances to be next lingua franca. My experience in Spain is that in general, Spanish people are very reluctant to learn English. Not once I have heard: Why I must learn English? Why don't they learn Spanish?


 
Me too!!!! I mean I work in a international company and when people form US come everybody has to speak in English and a lot of employees said why we have to learn English if they are the one who are coming to our country and made profits from our people They should be the one who learn our language.
 
That’s Why I think Spanish it’s a good candidate for be the next UL ‘cause a lot of people form English native countries are investors in Spanish countries (Latin-American for be more precisely) and little by little these investors will have to learn Spanish as we will be growing up . I know it will take a lot of time but some day we will do it That’s from a political economical point, and in a cultural point as Natasha pointed out Spanish is taken a big popularity in the world for example one day I red that when Beckham changes his team for the Real Madrid a lot of English girls wanted to learn Spanish and the demand for S classes grew up more than 100%!! 
.


----------



## Miguelillo 87

*I couldn’t quote so this is what I think about Robbie answer:*
 
I didn’t know that in Europe German will be decreasing, her on México  lot of people is studding German as a matter of fact it’s one of the most popular languages to learn in our country. Maybe when Mexican student finished their studies of German, Germans it’s not going to be so popular in Europe. What a pity for them!!!!


----------



## User1001

Miguelillo 87 said:
			
		

> *I couldn’t quote so this is what I think about Robbie answer:*
> 
> I didn’t know that in Europe, German will be losing popularity; here in México, a lot of people are studying German. As a matter of fact, it’s one of the most-popular languages to learn in our country. Maybe when Mexican students finish their studies of German, German will not be so popular in Europe. What a pity for them!!!!


I know. That's breaking my heart, because I want to move to Germany. I'm very passionate about the language.


----------



## User1001

natasha2000 said:
			
		

> Precisely because of that I think that Spanish has good chances to be next lingua franca. My experience in Spain is that in general, Spanish people are very reluctant to learn English. Not once I have heard: Why I must learn English? Why don't they learn Spanish?



Well, maybe the people in Spain should realize that Spanish is popular in the United States, primarily because residents of Mexico can get working papers to work here, but they cannot speak a word of English. However, while Spanish is popular in the United States, Spanish is not popular in a place like Russia or Japan, where Spanish isn't even a secondary language, while English is.


----------



## natasha2000

tspier2 said:
			
		

> Well, maybe the people in Spain should realize that Spanish is popular in the United States, primarily because residents of Mexico can get working papers to work here, but they cannot speak a word of English. However, while Spanish is popular in the United States, Spanish is not popular in a place like Russia or Japan, where Spanish isn't even a secondary language, while English is.


 
But what if, eventually, one day Spanish speaking people outnumber English speaking people in the US, and as we know, the US is the most powerful country in the world, we all agreed upon that? then, if supposedly there is a larger number of Spanish speakers than English speakers, would then Spanish be imposed as it had been done with English?

On the other hand, since English is so spread in the world, in countries like mine everyone at least manages a little bit of English, and it is almost considered the obligation of any educated person to speak it. Then, if someone wants to learn some foreign language they choose some other than English. I wouldn't know about Russia, but at least in my country, Serbia, lately Spanish has been taking the supremacy over the other popular languages (blame the "telenovelas" for it  )....

Of course, all of this are pure speculations and even if something of this becomes reality, many moons will pass from now...


----------



## Miguelillo 87

tspier2 said:
			
		

> Well, maybe the people in Spain should realize that Spanish is popular in the United States, primarily because residents of Mexico can get working papers to work here, but they cannot speak a word of English. However, while Spanish is popular in the United States, Spanish is not popular in a place like Russia or Japan, where Spanish isn't even a secondary language, while English is.


Well as you said it now it’s not popular but we should wait also we are talking about a near future, also you forget that in a many parts of Europe Spanish is a popular language, Also in Japan , ‘cause México has a lot of Japanese investors her for example I next to the tower I work,  there are 6 Japanese enterprises. And don’t talk about Chinese they have take over of Tepito and half of Zócalo!!!!1


----------



## Johnny Blaze

natasha2000 said:
			
		

> But what if, eventually, one day Spanish speaking people outnumber English speaking people in the US, and as we know, the US is the most powerful country in the world, we all agreed upon that? then, if supposedly there is a larger number of Spanish speakers than English speakers, would then Spanish be imposed as it had been done with English?


I doubt very much that the Americans would let that happen. 1) It'd take centuries. (Hispanics are only around 13 per cent of the US population) and 2) The US Congress is already thinking about passing a law making English the "sole offical" language of the US. Besides you can't go very far in the US without speaking or at least having a basic grasp of English. All the studies show that Hispanic immigrants by the second or third generation downgrade and in many cases abandon their mother tougne. Just like the Italians and Germans did before them.

Anyway, Spanish has already had it's time in the sun. At the time of Cortes et al Spanish was the world language. I can't see it coming back any time soon.

English is the language of business, even the Chinese do a lot of their business in English. Thus, seeing as English has been the lingua franca of the world since at least the early 1900's and continues to spread it's influence world-wide (through the likes of MTV, Hollywood etc.) I can't see the situation changing any time soon.


----------



## Miguelillo 87

natasha2000 said:
			
		

> But what if, eventually, one day Spanish speaking people outnumber English speaking people in the US, and as we know, the US is the most powerful country in the world, we all agreed upon that? then, if supposedly there is a larger number of Spanish speakers than English speakers, would then Spanish be imposed as it had been done with English?
> 
> On the other hand, since English is so spread in the world, in countries like mine everyone at least manages a little bit of English, and it is almost considered the obligation of any educated person to speak it. Then, if someone wants to learn some foreign language they choose some other than English. I wouldn't know about Russia, but at least in my country, Serbia, lately Spanish has been taking the supremacy over the other popular languages (blame the "telenovelas" for it  )....
> 
> Of course, all of this are pure speculations and even if something of this becomes reality, many moons will pass from now...


Yes Natasha you’re right, According to one of the TV stations in Mexico (televisa) Mexico it’s the first country to export soap operas to the world and that they are shown From Russia to Serbia.
Now I believe it but also as you say maybe Spanish it’s not he first second language to be learnt but it’s the second or the third to be.
Also your point it’s very important we are talking about too many moons before this could happen and English lost its power.


----------



## fenixpollo

robbie_SWE said:
			
		

> Sorry Fenixpollo, but you come off a bit shallow if you think that the ONLY reasons for learning a new language are economic!


 Lucky for me, robbie, that the reason I am bilingual is not economic, but because of cultural curiosity and a love of learning. That's not shallow, is it? 

Unfortunately for the Earth, "love of learning" and "cultural curiosity" are not generally sufficient to motivate people to change their behavior. They're too busy just trying to make a living. They'll change their language behavior if it helps them make a better living.

Sorry for repeating myself, Natasha.  I agree with you on every one of your points except about which factor is most important in motivating people to learn a second language; and I appreciate your successful and insightful way of taking the discussion to a new level.


----------



## allblackfan333

i only skimmed the thread and didnt really read all 80 some entries but it seems that when someone brought up Arabic as the possible lingua franca of the future they were dismissed on economic grounds

something that nobody seems to have considered is religion... Islam is the second largest religion in the world at the moment and is growing rapidly, and central to Islam is Arabic, in that the Qur'an is technically accepted as the word of God only in Arabic

with like a third of the world already Muslim and more on the way, maybe someone should consider Arabic as a possible universal language.

on the other hand, Chinese is a fairly simple language in terms of grammar, and the Chinese are about to be the next superpower...


----------



## natasha2000

fenixpollo said:
			
		

> Sorry for repeating myself, Natasha.  I agree with you on every one of your points except about which factor is most important in motivating people to learn a second language; and I appreciate your successful and insightful way of taking the discussion to a new level.


 
You're welcome, Fenix.. 

AAAAAAA!!!! (This is the scream of impotency and desesperation, there is no icon with this feeling )

I never said that this is the most important factor, but ONE OF THE FACTORS that also have its share of influence.... Of course, there is no doubt that the majority of people in this world put in the first place their economical status. That is precisely why in Serbia, there are many parents with very modest incomes who pay private classes of English to their children. They made unhuman efforts just to give their children the possibility of better future.


----------



## fenixpollo

natasha2000 said:
			
		

> AAAAAAA!!!! (This is the scream of impotency and desesperation, there is no icon with this feeling )
> 
> I never said that this is the most important factor, but ONE OF THE FACTORS that also have its share of influence....


 Look at your post 68. 





			
				natasha said:
			
		

> There are many people who learn languages because they will need them in the future jobs, but I think that a much greater number learns it because it likes it and because of something that attracted their attention.


 I'm not trying to argue -- just to be understood.


----------



## natasha2000

fenixpollo said:
			
		

> Look at your post 68. I'm not trying to argue -- just to be understood.


 
OK. If this sounded like this, I apologize. I didn't mean this. But in what measure or percentage one factor is more important than the other... This is hard to say. And I already know you and I won't agree on this one.


----------



## Miguelillo 87

allblackfan333 said:
			
		

> i only skimmed the thread and didnt really read all 80 some entries but it seems that when someone brought up Arabic as the possible lingua franca of the future they were dismissed on economic grounds
> 
> something that nobody seems to have considered is religion... Islam is the second largest religion in the world at the moment and is growing rapidly, and central to Islam is Arabic, in that the Qur'an is technically accepted as the word of God only in Arabic
> 
> with like a third of the world already Muslim and more on the way, maybe someone should consider Arabic as a possible universal language.
> 
> on the other hand, Chinese is a fairly simple language in terms of grammar, and the Chinese are about to be the next superpower...


Someone has already say that and as I said before, Maybe arabic could be a lingua franca but only in some parts of Europe and Middle East, Also you said about religion here in Latin-American despite of the fact that Muslim exist the most popular religion it’s catholic and its branches as Christians , Mormonism etc Muslim IN Latin-American HARD TO BELIEVE 
About China I agree with you


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## natasha2000

I can hardly believe that Arabic can ever become lingua franca, especially not in Europe and in America. Maybe in Middle East, I don't know. But Europe and America, both South and North.... I don't think so. In those two continents, only Indo-European language can prevail.


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## THE SPANINGLISH

China is growing a lot maybe they are going to be the next super nation. 
A teacher used to told me China has a lot of technology but they are not saying it to all the world they keep it for them, I don't know if it's try but the real thing is that they are growing


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## natasha2000

THE SPANINGLISH said:
			
		

> China is growing a lot maybe they are going to be the next super nation.
> A teacher used to told me China has a lot of technology but they are not saying it to all the world they keep it for them, I don't know if it's try but the real thing is that they are growing


 
Do you really believe everything your teacher says?


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## Miguelillo 87

Hi my friends, today I took the time to count each of yout votes, and in this moment(the Prep ha decidido) the votation it's like that 

First place!!!!!.- Chinese!
Second!!!.- Spanish!!!!!!!!! Bravo!!!!!!
Third.- German 
si alguien quiere voto x voto, casilla x casilla, ¡Háganlo ustedes mismos!
Me atengo a los resultados.
So in this moment the score it's like that, if another one wants to contribute please,Fell free to do it.(It'll be really important to have more opinons)
That's why I decided to make the recount of the votes so maybe new participants will participate 'cause they won't have to look all the trad in order to know what we think (in general)
Las letras en rojo es un pequeño chascarillo para los mexicanos, Espero les guste


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## Outsider

Hmm, no English? I demand a recount!


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## Brioche

Outsider said:


> Hmm, no English? I demand a recount!


 
English cannot be the _*next *_universal language!

You cannot be first and second at the same time.


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## konungursvia

I hope it's Italian or Spanish that comes next, but they are unlikely. Chinese is even more unlikely, because it is far too cumbersome to learn the writing system. Did Japanese really gain ground outside the Land of the Gods during their reign as economic Kings of the world? Not at all, save for a few enthusiasts here and there. English shows no signs of slowing down, not least because it's already the language of aviation, business and the internet. It's also easy to learn mediocre English (though hard to learn impeccable English). And as the Prime Minister of Malaysia once said at an ASEAN meeting: "I commend to you, gentlemen, the virtues of the English language." Unfortunately, Latin America is still too rife with corruption to rise up economically, and therefore it will never have the cultural capital (in Bourdieu's sense) that the Norteamericanos have. Too bad, I love Spanish.


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## Etcetera

Miguelillo 87 said:


> Hi my friends, today I took the time to count each of yout votes, and in this moment(the Prep ha decidido) the votation it's like that
> 
> First place!!!!!.- Chinese!
> Second!!!.- Spanish!!!!!!!!! Bravo!!!!!!
> Third.- German
> si alguien quiere voto x voto, casilla x casilla, ¡Háganlo ustedes mismos!
> Me atengo a los resultados.
> So in this moment the score it's like that, if another one wants to contribute please,Fell free to do it.(It'll be really important to have more opinons)
> That's why I decided to make the recount of the votes so maybe new participants will participate 'cause they won't have to look all the trad in order to know what we think (in general)
> Las letras en rojo es un pequeño chascarillo para los mexicanos, Espero les guste


Miguelillo, that's great! Thank you for the job you've done. 
I've voted for Spanish, and I can assure you that I still hold to the opinion that Spanish has the best chances to become the next universal language.


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## Violet Green

I've lived in a few different (non English-speaking) European countries and I've always been enormously solicited to help people who were learning English... whereas, whenever I was living in English-speaking countries, I saw very few signs of native English speakers trying to learn a foreign language, and no-one ever asked me for help even though they knew I mastered a few languages. Any young Chinese people I know in Europe are learning English (and sometimes another European language.) Right now, I don't know a single European learning Chinese. 
Most people (Forum members excepted) seem to think that they won't be needing much else if they know English... 
So if this trend continues...


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## Etcetera

Violet Green said:


> Most people (Forum members excepted) seem to think that they won't be needing much else if they know English...


It is true. 
One of the strongest arguments for learning English is that "knowing English, you can go to any country, and you'll be understood everywhere!" In Russia, this statement is very popular. Of course, it's true, English is widely spoken, and the statement can really encourage someone to learn English, but... I doubt if they would then want to learn any other language. They know English already, what do they need else?..


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## Riccardino

I don't see any reason why it would not be English for a very long time. Given the nature of American corporations doing their business mostly in English, the popularity of English-language media, the spread of English-learning, as well as the fact that many of the World's dialects and languages are dying out, it's feasible that English will stay on top. A World that one can go anywhere using only English is becoming a reality, and a scary one at that, for human culture at least.

Also, what seperates English from say, Latin and the Roman Empire, which did last for over 1000 years in Europe, is that it's not being forced on anyone really, and that its not in the hands of a single entity - many countries use English. And the proliferation of technology and travel would render any kind of evolution of English into seperate, unintelligible languages highly unlikely.


The next contender is definitely Chinese, especially if a phonetic alphabet were to become common.


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## ampurdan

Riccardino said:


> Also, what seperates English from say, Latin and the Roman Empire, which did last for over 1000 years in Europe, is that it's not being forced on anyone really, and that its not in the hands of a single entity - many countries use English.


 
I think that the difference isn't precisely this one. Latin was not forced on anyone, or at least, it was forced the same way that English has been forced on people, and it wasn't certainly in the hands of a single entitity... That's why it has had so many children-languages.


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## Outsider

Do we have any evidence of how Latin imposed itself on the conquered peoples of Western Europe? I didn't think much was known about it...

Anyway, Latin was certainly the language of the elites of the Empire. That alone would have been an imposition. And the Romans sure "civilized" -- read imposed their culture on -- the peoples they subjugated. I expect that language was simple one facet of that.


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## ampurdan

Outsider said:


> Anyway, Latin was certainly the language of the elites of the Empire. That alone would have been an imposition. And the Romans sure "civilized" -- read imposed their culture on -- the peoples they subjugated. I expect that language was simple one facet of that.


 
...which is pretty much the same as what's done with English in many places outside England. Imposition or not, it looks like a very similar process to me.


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## Outsider

ampurdan said:


> ...which is pretty much the same as what's done with English in many places outside England.


Which places do you have in mind?


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## ampurdan

Outsider said:


> Which places do you have in mind?


 
 Many countries of the Americas and Africa, India, Australia, New Zealand... And Wales, Scotland, Ireland.


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## konungursvia

A comment about the guy (remaining nameless) who made a few dozen "corrections" to the English of the person who posted the interesting question here: that was uncalled-for; the person didn't post the question to have their English corrected, only to raise a fascinating issue. I'd say, don't correct other people unless it's what they ask for.


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## Outsider

ampurdan said:


> Many countries of the Americas and Africa, India, Australia, New Zealand... And Wales, Scotland, Ireland.


In Australia, New Zealand, Scotland and Ireland, the majority of the population already speaks English as their first language, and has done so for a considerable amount of time. This is not a product of modern globalization.

In the Americas, discounting the English or French speaking regions, Spanish and Portuguese (not English) still seem to be solidly established as the local languages.

You may have a point about other regions, such as Africa and India. Isotta has started an interested thread about linguistic imperialism in the developing world.


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## ampurdan

True, but as far as I am concerned, we weren't limiting ourselves to current day globalisation, we were comparing Latin and English as languages of imposition. I think that Latin was made its way into other places outside Latium in the same way that English has made its way outsied England: first through war, conquests, then through trade, schools, media (Romans had their Religion and then, the Christian one) and finally through the prestige obteined therewith. It sounds like the same story to me.


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## ireney

Outsider
Ah! So the fact that people in India or Cyprus for example learn English has  to do purely with the fact that English is the language of commmerce and so on and so forth!

Anyway, 1000 years seems long enough to me


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## Outsider

ampurdan said:


> True, but as far as I am concerned, we weren't limiting ourselves to current day globalisation, we were comparing Latin and English as languages of imposition. I think that Latin was made its way into other places outside Latium in the same way that English has made its way outsied England: first through war, conquests, then through trade, schools, media (Romans had their Religion and then, the Christian one) and finally through the prestige obteined therewith. It sounds like the same story to me.


Well, not to me. Latin only managed to root itself in the lands the Romans had conquered militarily in Western Europe (and not in all of them). Elsewhere, it was never an important language, except perhaps for intellectuals, for a while. English today is important everywhere in the world, even in places the British Empire never reached.



ireney said:


> Outsider
> Ah! So the fact that people in India or Cyprus for example learn English has  to do purely with the fact that English is the language of commmerce and so on and so forth!


I'm not sure what you mean...


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## ireney

Outsider, there wasn't much commerce or any kind of interaction with many places outside the areas/countries the Romans conquered!


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## ampurdan

Outsider said:


> Well, not to me. Latin only managed to root itself in the lands the Romans had conquered militarily in Western Europe (and not in all of them). Elsewhere, it was never an important language, except perhaps for intellectuals, for a while. English today is important everywhere in the world, even in places the British Empire never reached.


 
Yes, that's a difference. Rome collapsed before reaching to this stage, its economy was not mature, but it's the same process. English has more chances today to keep its "essence" than Latin had back in the first century of our Era; but I think that if you say that one has been imposed, then you'll have to say that both have and if you say that one has not been imposed, then none have been. That was my point.


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## Outsider

I think it's too simplistic to frame this issue as "imposed" versus "not imposed". 
English was certainly imposed on some parts of the world in the past, such as the British Isles, North America, and Australia. It is not, however, being imposed on most of the world today. If we all end up speaking English one day, that will be because we chose to, not because it was imposed on us.


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## Miguelillo 87

Well I just want to clarify something, if I didn't take into account english in my top three, it was because I want to show another dofferent language, that wasn't English. Buy yes you're certain that English's won. Now it's really interesting your comments, and yes you're right Latin was impossed almost in all America!!


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## konungursvia

In philology, they use the term "superstratum" to designate a language perceived as superior by virtue of the greater economic, military, and cultural power of a dominant nation. This is seen, for example, even in Muslim Indonesia, where country music, cowboy hats and American English are admired and emulated. I don't think the Romans had to impose their language the way the Brits did in Ireland (an isolated case) -- I think people wanted to be like the Romans and join them. They were a superstratum.


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## Miguelillo 87

Well outsider, we have two ways of view, One it's.- English it's imposed 'cause if you don't learn it you cannot get a good job, so it's almos an obligation to know English if you want to growing up; Second.- It's not impossed if you want to communicate with people and to have fun, and get in touch with persons of all the world, as here where all from Japan to Argentina can understan each other Grace à L'Anglais


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## ampurdan

Yes, "imposition" is not the ultimate word to describe the process by which a language becomes the world language, there are more factors. Once reached the first place in the ranking, a language needs not to be imposed to keep it.


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## konungursvia

Another thought: before Latin, Greek was the _koine_, or common language of culture and commerce. The Greeks did not spread the language by military conquest, but by cultural capital growth (cf. Bourdieu). So maybe the Roman military conquests coincided with their cultural dominance, rather than causing that dominance.


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## ampurdan

konungursvia said:


> Another thought: before Latin, Greek was the _koine_, or common language of culture and commerce. The Greeks did not spread the language by military conquest, but by cultural capital growth (cf. Bourdieu). So maybe the Roman military conquests coincided with their cultural dominance, rather than causing that dominance.


 
What about Alexander the Great? Without him, there would have been no _koiné._


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## konungursvia

Alexander the Great contributed, but remember this, why do you think the Persians kept invading Asia Minor, full of Greek cities, before his campaign? His was a form of revenge, or rather the continuation of a feud, that had been going on between the civilisations. Greek speaking cities were all over the Mediterranean before Alexander went east. It was a language of cultural and commercial strength before him. He did unify the main dialect however. Anyhow, my point is that it's not just military might. 

  The French were far less successful than the English, Spanish and Portuguese in conquering large areas of the globe, but theirs was the common language of the West up until the late nineteenth century, for their cultural strength. That's all I'm getting at.

 Sorry for editing this again so quickly, but I thought of another example of a cultural superstratum: the African-Americans. Theirs was a people long oppressed, and still denied full equality; they can hardly be thought of as the conquerors of North America. Yet it is African-American music, slang, clothing and style that dominate youth culture all over the world at present. A walk through Osaka at midnight will confirm that. Interesting, eh?


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## ampurdan

The places in which Greek colonies where settled did not spread their language inland (except for Magna Grecia), the places through which Alexander the Great spread Greek dominance developped the _koiné_.

And I'm sure that not only Molière and Balzac, but also people like Louis XIV and Napoleon had something to do with French international prestige. France is still the biggest country in Western Europe. It seems that culture came after (big money and) the military.


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## konungursvia

Ok, but then, why do white kids in America follow Eminem's example and dress, speak, gesture and aspire to emulate their Afro-American brothers? Besides, Napoleon was loathed where he conquered. However I agree with you that the military is the main form of authority, my point was that there were also cultural  ones that have been strong enough to act as linguistic superstrata.


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## ireney

Koine continued to be a _lingua franca_ (at least for the Easter part of the Roman world) even after the Romans had subdued the Greek "states" (Gospels serve as a good example). 
So yes, the fact that Alexander the Great (for whichever reasons that's off topic perhaps he was dying for a cuppa and tried to get to the source of good tea, who knows?) conquered lots and lots of lands had a lot to do with the spread of the Greek language. 

As with the English in modern times, others "had" to learn Greek and others learnt Greek for other reasons (although I bet their reasons were quite different from those of the Romans)

Now on-topic.
It's too early to tell really. I believe that English will continue being the "univeral language" for many years. For a language to become "universal" many different parameters have to be "right". Economic growth alone for instance doesn't cut it.


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## ampurdan

I think this is a different phenomenon. In fact, its the counter-phenomenon. Eminem uses this language and style as oposed to the WASP language, which would be the prestigeous language in America. Still, people around the world are more likely to know who Eminem is because of the fact that he is singing in English. If he sang in Swahili, his audience would be probably smaller.


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## Miguelillo 87

Ireney as I have told before, I know English it's going to be for many, many years a Lingua Franca, but in the future (whether this is Far or near) Ernglish will be displaced. So your vote goes for? Or Do you think English will last forever and ever?


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## ireney

Miguelillo I can't possibly vote because, as things stand today, there's no good candidate. It can be one of those already mentioned or someone no one has thought before)

Why not Arabic for instance?
I'd love Italian to be the next one and they are rather simple if you ask me (although I still haven't managed to learn enough Italian to have a decent conversation -or even an indecent one).
How about Russian?

Don't tell me why any of these languages is not a good candidate because to that I will answer that, as I see it, none of the others is good enough either. Right now the "universal" language is English, I don't think it is in decline and I cannot in anyway foretell what will be the conditions under which another language will replace it.

If you want a vote I will but you shouldn't take it seriously  ;p  (enough with the emoticons!)


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## konungursvia

Well, we're just disagreeing and no longer enlightening each other, so I'll say only one last thing: for anyone who lives here, in North America, it is obvious that African-American culture is hugely prestigious among our youth. Their cultural dominance is due to purely aesthetic, and not military or economic, criteria. C'est tout! I think English will stay the main language for the next couple hundred years, to boot.


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## Nuclear Grenade

English will continue to rule for possibly a hundred years or more. Not only is it widely spoken in many countries, but their is an entire english industry in East Asia where all the rising economic powers are. English easily absorbs words from other languages. Look at Japanese. I would say about 10% of their vocabulary is made up of english words that they pronounce slightly different. And here in Korea, a lot of the modern words are englishl. Credit Card, PC, Internet etc.  
Afterall, what is english? French+ some german+ a dash of other languages and Vollah! A world class language.
What will the next universal language be? Martian.


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## KESHUGOMU

I think it´s going to be japanese.

Lo siento si es que  mi respuesta es corta solo que no hablo inglés *sorry*.


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## Pedro y La Torre

Portugese. Brazil is the next big thing.


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## Vladislav

> *Next "universal" language
> *


*

Russian  

Because Russian spaceships will colonize the whole universe  

*


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## invictaspirit

I hope it is Spanish and I vote for it.

But don't hold your breath, folks.  

The proportion of world GDP, and again, the percentage of world trade, that is accounted for by the economic activity of the USA, UK, Canada, Australia all together is huge. Add to this India, and you're talking about a situation that will see English as the universal language for a really long time yet. The basic premise is (probably) right, though. Nothing cultural, political or economic lasts for ever.

*However...*is it possible that English will always remain the world's lingua franca? Perhaps! The language that rose to universal use during the media and internet age, during the age of globalisation, during the age of easy, cheap, user-friendly technology, during the age when it is completely easy for someone in Marseilles to type 'live' to someone in Shanghai in a shared second language...by several accidents of history that happens to be English. *That has never happened before. There is no historical precendent.* Powerful, rich countries have always projected their languages beyond their borders. But never before have more or less 'normal' people been able to converse like this in Rio, London, Berlin, Los Angeles, Cairo, Hanoi and Madrid. That could be a very hard habit to break, even if the English-speaking countries lose their economic power.


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## PianoMan

I'd have to say Spanish also.  If we're excluding the already semi-universal language of English and the international language of French.


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## Poetic Device

If there were to ba a universal language, I can very easily see it to be Spanish. However, I doubt this would ever happen (see Tower of Babel). 

====================================================================
EDIT: I just thought of something. With English (as well I'm sure with all the other languages) there are many different dialects. Because of this, could there ever really be a universal language? Let's use English as an example. Will everyone say jimmies or sprinkles?


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## Vladislav

I agree with those who think that English could remain the universal language for good.

In my point of view, the only threats to this dominance could be:

1. Very poor economic performance of English-speaking countries durning a long period of time, combined with an excellent economic performance of countries with "language-comepetitors" (Arabic world, Russia, China, India, Francophonie, Latin world).

Is it likely to happen? I'd say not. Probably SOME of this things could happen, but not in a sufficient degree. 

Rule out this possibility.

2. Demography: all of a sudden the English- speaking countries will stop having children. And the "competitors" will throw out all the condoms and contribute together with their wifes to the replacement of English.  And do so every 9 months during decades ....

I think that's another unlikely scenario. First, unlike Europe, the English-speaking countries (except G.Britain) have their population INCREASING. They have a more healthy demography that Europe. This means, that countries like France, Russia or Germany wont' be able to carry it out. 

What about Arabs, Latins, India and China? 

Latin America has a better demography than the English world, but I don't think too much. Many African countries speak English, and the rate of birth in Latin America is going down.

China's birth rate is not so high as many people think. It is just a bit higer than in the US now. And it's DECREASING. China has already lived it's "demographic boom". Is being the most-populated country in the word sufficient to make Chinese replace English. As we can see, it's not, although, it's sufficient to make Chinese one of the universal languages. 

The same thing will happen in India but 50 years later than in China. 

And in Arabic world even later than in India. 

Will it be sufficient in case of Hindi and Arabic? The time will show, but I think ONLY a high demography will not be enough to replace English, although will be enough to make of them an important languages. Something needs to happen, like ... : point 3

3. Assimilation of the English-speakers into another cultures. 

I mean, that the immigrants that are not English-speakers will replace the natives in their countries. 

It is closely related to the previous point. Indian, Arab or Latin immigrants if they are allowed to immigrate massively to UK, US, Canada, Australia, etc, will probably not integrate, or will do it untill they are demanded by the environment.

But in the very moment they will replace the English-speaking majority, and become the "new majority" in some region ...

We can see something like this in the South of the US where the arrival of Latin immigrants threatens the English dominance it that region. What if the same thing happens in the rest of the US? Of course the Latin demography must be sufficient, that's why this point is very related to the previous one. 

Another example is the growing influence of Arabs in Europe. But, except for UK, it is not a threat for English itself, although it's a negative factor. If Arabic is imposed in Europe, 1)English would be less studied 2) A big language and culture, suported by economic power of Europe and resources of Middle East, would appear. 

Apart of Arabic and Spanish, Chinese (Chinese towns are present in the countries all over the world) and Hindi could probably carry out this scenario. 

Wheather is likely or not depends on:

1) Demography in USA, UK, Australia, English Africa, etc

2) Demography in Latin America, India, China, Arabic world.

3) Willingness of Europe, USA and others to receive more and more immigrants form those countries. 

4) The policy towards the immigrants:
- Simply integration or assimilation? 
- Citizenship after 5-10 years in the county or not? 
- Allow them to live together in big communities or disperse

I think, this posibility is the most likely of all to happen. 

4. There is another scenario: English will be split. 

As well as Latin lost its power after it was split into separate Romance languages, English could follow the same path after it splits into "American", "Asutralian","British","Cameroonian", "Hinduglish" , etc. 

Of course, such a process is very unlikely and will take ages ... especially now when everyting is connected and globalized. In fact Latin was split because of lost connection between the regions of the Empire.

5. A destructive war, meteorite shower, floodings, nuclear explosions, alien invasion, Russian colonization of the universe and the imposition of Russian to the Martians (as I said before), massive suicide (this last, rather in Japan) ... that will only affect the English-world and destroy it or al least damage it so severely, that will end its supremacy. 
    

I think no comments are needed. VERY, VERY unlikely.


To sum up (it's my and only my modest opinion of course):

- English will remain the universal language for many years.

- Probably it will be universal for ages ... why not forever.

- Chinese, Spanish are the most likely to replace it, but very far in the future.

- French, Russian   , German, Japonese, Portuguese will never become "universal" languages. 

 Despite Japan and Germany have prestige and economic power and means, they are not sufficienty widely-spoken. There's no good demography.

 The same thing for French, although it's more likely to keep on being important (more speakers, more prestige, more tradition of being important, growing population in Eastern Africa, etc).

 Russian and also Portuguese in fewer degree, have got the demography required, but neither economic power, nor prestige. And, in addition, Russian is loosing quickly its demography. 

 Neither of these five languages is capable of carring out the replacement of English.


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## TRG

Just an observation, but when I buy something that requires directions it almost always comes with three languages: English, Spanish, and French. Occasionally, I see German and maybe Chinese or Japanese (I can't tell them apart ).

I don't know what the "next" universal language is, but I think there is a great likelyhood of everyone speaking the same language someday. Where we are now (on the internet) everyone wants to be able to talk to everyone else and we are currently using English as a proximate universal language. This could easily continue. If the day comes when we do all speak the same language, will that be a good thing? I think it will be regardless of whether it turns out to be English or not.


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## danielfranco

LOL! TRG observation reminds me of Douglas Adams' concept of the babelfish, that because it translated any language for anyone, it caused more wars and strife than anything ever in the history of the universe!!!


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## TRG

danielfranco said:


> LOL! TRG observation reminds me of Douglas Adams' concept of the babelfish, that because it translated any language for anyone, it caused more wars and strife than anything ever in the history of the universe!!!


 
I didn't know the story of the Babel fish... until now! I concur with your LOL. It reminds me of my marriage. My wife, who is maybe a little insecure, used to have a habit of asking me what I was thinking. I kept telling her, "Honey, you don't want to know everything I'm thinking." She finally got the point and quit asking. I guess the point being the only thing worse than understanding everything someone said would be to know everything they were thinking!!!


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## Thomsen

Whatever language the EU picks finally or Mandarin. Spanish could take off, but only if technological development in Latin America really takes off.

Based on its popularity today, I would say English has at least another 100 years to go.
---------

Just to explain my reasons, right now the US and the EU each make up about 20% of the world GDP as calculated for PPP.    China is around 15% and growing.  Japan, India etc and all other countries are under 7% each.  Therefore I think it is fair to say that linguistic preferences will follow economic incentives.  The main prospects for overtaking English as such would be Mandarin or a language other than English chosen by the EU as its official language.


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## Pedro y La Torre

I don't really think Spanish will become the next universal language if there is to be one.

1) Spanish is spoken in a variety of _relatively_ small countries, not ONE single large powerhouse like the United States. Thus while Spanish will always be a very big language in number terms, it lacks the unified power to dominate.

2) The movement of many Spanish speakers is TOWARDS English and English speaking countries. While there is a huge Spanish speaking speaking population in the U.S., like most immigrant populations by 3rd and 4th generations they eventually become monoglot English speakers or least have English as their first language.

Also let's not forgot English is also the primary language in many rising African and Asian economies, look at Japan for example, they are an Asian powerhouse but is Japanese a world language? They, like most, use English in business circles. The same, I think, will be true of the Chinese.

But if English is to be replaced at all, I think it will be by Portugese. It's the most spoken language (in sheer numbers) in South America, Brazil is the biggest country in that region, has the biggest economy and the most potential to grow to be a "superpower" in cultural and economic terms.


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## Miguelillo 87

Pedro y La Torre said:


> I don't really think Spanish will become the next universal language if there is to be one.
> 
> 1) Spanish is spoken in a variety of _relatively_ small countries, not ONE single large powerhouse like the United States. Thus while Spanish will always be a very big language in number terms, it lacks the unified power to dominate.
> 
> 2) The movement of many Spanish speakers is TOWARDS English and English speaking countries. While there is a huge Spanish speaking speaking population in the U.S., like most immigrant populations by 3rd and 4th generations they eventually become monoglot English speakers or least have English as their first language.
> 
> Also let's not forgot English is also the primary language in many rising African and Asian economies, look at Japan for example, they are an Asian powerhouse but is Japanese a world language? They, like most, use English in business circles. The same, I think, will be true of the Chinese.
> 
> But if English is to be replaced at all, I think it will be by Portugese. It's the most spoken language (in sheer numbers) in South America, Brazil is the biggest country in that region, has the biggest economy and the most potential to grow to be a "superpower" in cultural and economic terms.


I have to disagree with you, You say spanish is spoken in very small countries, I mean if you joint Mexico, all centroamerica, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, cHLE, uRIGUAY AND pARAGUAY, AND ALSO THE CARIBBEAN, I mean it's bigger than all Europe toghether (without count Russia) So Brasil looks smaller if you see it in this way, Also also it's more common that a brasilian learn spanish than a spanishspeaker lern portugese.

Also you're counting the generation who lives in USA but those who lives in his bhirt countryes, They will always be more than those who speak english. 
Don't you think so?


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

Miguelillo 87 said:


> I have to disagree with you, You say spanish is spoken in very small countries, I mean if you joint Mexico, all centroamerica, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, cHLE, uRIGUAY AND pARAGUAY, AND ALSO THE CARIBBEAN, I mean it's bigger than all Europe toghether (without count Russia) So Brasil looks smaller if you see it in this way, Also also it's more common that a brasilian learn spanish than a spanishspeaker lern portugese.



Yes, but if you join Canada, Australia, the UK and all the other English speaking countries around the world you would also have a massive area. But that's not going to happen, so you're point is rather irrelevant.

Also, I don't know how you come to the conclusion that more Brazilians learn Spanish than vice-versa. If anything I'd say at least close to parity considering the amount of Spanish speakers emigrating _to_ Brazil.



Miguelillo 87 said:


> Also you're counting the generation who lives in USA but those who lives in his bhirt countryes, They will always be more than those who speak english.
> Don't you think so?



I'm sorry I don't really understand what you're trying to say. If you're suggesting there will always be more Spanish speakers in their birth countries than those who emigrate to the United States, that's probably correct. However that dosen't detract from the fact that Spanish speakers are being pulled _towards_ the US and so learning English rather than the other way around. Thus, while Spanish will always be big in numerical terms I don't really see much chance of it becoming a universal language.


----------



## BlueWolf

Vladislav said:


> I agree with those who think that English could remain the universal language for good.
> 
> In my point of view, the only threats to this dominance could be:
> 
> 1. Very poor economic performance of English-speaking countries durning a long period of time, combined with an excellent economic performance of countries with "language-comepetitors" (Arabic world, Russia, China, India, Francophonie, Latin world).
> 
> Is it likely to happen? I'd say not. Probably SOME of this things could happen, but not in a sufficient degree.
> 
> Rule out this possibility.
> 
> 2. Demography: all of a sudden the English- speaking countries will stop having children. And the "competitors" will throw out all the condoms and contribute together with their wifes to the replacement of English.  And do so every 9 months during decades ....
> 
> I think that's another unlikely scenario. First, unlike Europe, the English-speaking countries (except G.Britain) have their population INCREASING. They have a more healthy demography that Europe. This means, that countries like France, Russia or Germany wont' be able to carry it out.
> 
> What about Arabs, Latins, India and China?
> 
> Latin America has a better demography than the English world, but I don't think too much. Many African countries speak English, and the rate of birth in Latin America is going down.
> 
> China's birth rate is not so high as many people think. It is just a bit higer than in the US now. And it's DECREASING. China has already lived it's "demographic boom". Is being the most-populated country in the word sufficient to make Chinese replace English. As we can see, it's not, although, it's sufficient to make Chinese one of the universal languages.
> 
> The same thing will happen in India but 50 years later than in China.
> 
> And in Arabic world even later than in India.
> 
> Will it be sufficient in case of Hindi and Arabic? The time will show, but I think ONLY a high demography will not be enough to replace English, although will be enough to make of them an important languages. Something needs to happen, like ... : point 3
> 
> 3. Assimilation of the English-speakers into another cultures.
> 
> I mean, that the immigrants that are not English-speakers will replace the natives in their countries.
> 
> It is closely related to the previous point. Indian, Arab or Latin immigrants if they are allowed to immigrate massively to UK, US, Canada, Australia, etc, will probably not integrate, or will do it untill they are demanded by the environment.
> 
> But in the very moment they will replace the English-speaking majority, and become the "new majority" in some region ...
> 
> We can see something like this in the South of the US where the arrival of Latin immigrants threatens the English dominance it that region. What if the same thing happens in the rest of the US? Of course the Latin demography must be sufficient, that's why this point is very related to the previous one.
> 
> Another example is the growing influence of Arabs in Europe. But, except for UK, it is not a threat for English itself, although it's a negative factor. If Arabic is imposed in Europe, 1)English would be less studied 2) A big language and culture, suported by economic power of Europe and resources of Middle East, would appear.
> 
> Apart of Arabic and Spanish, Chinese (Chinese towns are present in the countries all over the world) and Hindi could probably carry out this scenario.
> 
> Wheather is likely or not depends on:
> 
> 1) Demography in USA, UK, Australia, English Africa, etc
> 
> 2) Demography in Latin America, India, China, Arabic world.
> 
> 3) Willingness of Europe, USA and others to receive more and more immigrants form those countries.
> 
> 4) The policy towards the immigrants:
> - Simply integration or assimilation?
> - Citizenship after 5-10 years in the county or not?
> - Allow them to live together in big communities or disperse
> 
> I think, this posibility is the most likely of all to happen.
> 
> 4. There is another scenario: English will be split.
> 
> As well as Latin lost its power after it was split into separate Romance languages, English could follow the same path after it splits into "American", "Asutralian","British","Cameroonian", "Hinduglish" , etc.
> 
> Of course, such a process is very unlikely and will take ages ... especially now when everyting is connected and globalized. In fact Latin was split because of lost connection between the regions of the Empire.
> 
> 5. A destructive war, meteorite shower, floodings, nuclear explosions, alien invasion, Russian colonization of the universe and the imposition of Russian to the Martians (as I said before), massive suicide (this last, rather in Japan) ... that will only affect the English-world and destroy it or al least damage it so severely, that will end its supremacy.
> 
> 
> I think no comments are needed. VERY, VERY unlikely.
> 
> 
> To sum up (it's my and only my modest opinion of course):
> 
> - English will remain the universal language for many years.
> 
> - Probably it will be universal for ages ... why not forever.
> 
> - Chinese, Spanish are the most likely to replace it, but very far in the future.
> 
> - French, Russian   , German, Japonese, Portuguese will never become "universal" languages.
> 
> Despite Japan and Germany have prestige and economic power and means, they are not sufficienty widely-spoken. There's no good demography.
> 
> The same thing for French, although it's more likely to keep on being important (more speakers, more prestige, more tradition of being important, growing population in Eastern Africa, etc).
> 
> Russian and also Portuguese in fewer degree, have got the demography required, but neither economic power, nor prestige. And, in addition, Russian is loosing quickly its demography.
> 
> Neither of these five languages is capable of carring out the replacement of English.



You are forgetting the most likely hypothesis about the end of English as the most dominant language (it's not universal at the moment). In order to change universal language we don't have to wait for the destruction or the decline of USA, we have to wait for the birth of a new power. No one could immagine the expansion of the English language without the modern technology. Computers, Internet, all these things were unexpected, no one could immagine. Same with us. You can't suppose everything will stay in this situation forever. Sure, if one sees the fantascientific films, laser-swords are the only news of the future. But reality is different.

And when one says that English is the language used to comunicate universally in Internet, it's true, but if you are non-native, you see that learning to _write_ English is very different from learning to _speak_ it. I know lots of words in the written forms, but I've not the foggiest idea of their pronunciation. The absurd English spelling makes learning both to write and to speak this language as difficult as learning two different languages.

In the end, demography isn't important to determinate a universal language. If you look at the past universal languages, they have one (or both) of these characteristic: they are a powerful/important country's languages or they have a great prestige (usually because they were universal in the past or for cultural reasons).


----------



## Vladislav

1. I don't think technology is so important for linguistic dominance. If you look at the most spoken and prestigious languages (English, French, Spanish, Chenese, Russian, Arabic, etc) you can easily see that: only some of them are technologically developed countries.

2. English is not only used universally to write in the Internet. 
 Music, news (BBC; CNN; etc), TV in general (serials, movies), documentaries (NatGeographic,Discovery), newspapers, at work, etc. 

3. Demography + immigration + political domination IS EVERYTHING. (it's better when there's also a political support, technolgy, assimilation unwillingness, prestige, etc because ONLY demography, despite being the most important factor by far, may not be enough, as I said in my previous post)

 ALL of the most popular languages are dominant basically for their demography. You want examples? Ok:

*- English*: would NEVER dominate if it weren't for English colonists (good demography in G.Britain) arriving to Australia, Africa, Nothern America, India...supported by the military, political and commercial force of the British Empire. Before that English had very few prestige and spread as far as I know. 

(do you think that if it had not happen, and G.Britain were very VERY technologically advanced but the only place with native English-speaking population, English would have made the universal language?)

 English is spoken where the settlers arrived.

*- Chinese*: is there need to demonstrate that great demography together with immigration made Chinese one of the world's languages? 

Chinese is spoken where the settlers or immigrants arrived.

*- Hini*: I'm sure, the only reasons it's not like Chinese are because:

a) They speak English, thus are domitated by other culture
b) There's no massive immigration from India (compared to China)

 In the very moment, the b) changes Hindi will become the same thing as the Chinese.

Hindi is spoken where the settlers or immigrants arrived.

*- French*: is the only case when demography is not so important. 
 Political domination in Europe, but of course also demographic power in the Middle Ages. Also colonization of Northen America (demography) and Africa (political).

 For French demography also played a very important role, but I think politics even more. 

 (by the way, here is the reason of why French lost its dominant role and will be loosing it in the future - no adecuate demographic support for French) 

 French is spoken where the settlers arrived

*- Spanish:* as with Chinese, I think it's very clear that political domination + demographic colonization made of Spanish an important language. 

Or probably you think Latin America learned it in mass bacause of Cervantes or the high technology of Spanish caravels and cannons? (well, I wont' discuss that the technology and especially the caravels and cannons themselves played a big role but ... not in the way you suggest)

 Spanish is spoken where the colonists or immigrants (south of the US) arrived

*- Latin:* political, military and technological domination of Rome + massive arrival of Latin-speaking colonists. Latin was spoken where the colonists arrived.

*- Greek:* cultural and technological domination +massive arrival of Greek-speaking colonists. Greek was spoken where the colonists arrived.

- *Portuguese:* see previous posts
- *Russian:* see previous posts
- *Turkish:* see previous posts
- *Arabic:* see previous posts

  I'm sure many romantic people, who think that the people learn a language because of philosophs, writers, etc won't agree, but I think in this post I've only told you facts.


----------



## maxiogee

Vladislav said:


> *- English*:
> English is spoken where the settlers arrived.
> *- Chinese*:
> Chinese is spoken where the settlers or immigrants arrived.
> *- Hini*:
> Hindi is spoken where the settlers or immigrants arrived.
> *- French*:
> French is spoken where the settlers arrived
> *- Spanish:*
> Spanish is spoken where the colonists or immigrants (south of the US) arrived
> *- Latin:*
> Latin was spoken where the colonists arrived.
> *- Greek:*
> Greek was spoken where the colonists arrived.
> - *Portuguese:* see previous posts
> - *Russian:* see previous posts
> - *Turkish:* see previous posts
> - *Arabic:* see previous posts


 
You neglect the fact that these languages came to be spoken in their 'homelands' without colonisation - French is spoken all over France. The Spaniards didn't colonise themselves and yet they all speak Spanish.



> *- English*: would NEVER dominate if it weren't for English colonists


What proof have you of this?
English is dominating in places where the English didn't colonise. It is becoming the language of choice for many non-native-speakers.


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

maxiogee said:


> You neglect the fact that these languages came to be spoken in their 'homelands' without colonisation - French is spoken all over France. The Spaniards didn't colonise themselves and yet they all speak Spanish.



You could argue that. French became the dominant language in France (at  the expense of Gaulish) through firstly Roman colonization and the subsequent development of the French language.

Indeed, French has only recently gained absolute dominance over languages like Occitan, Breton or Alsatian thanks to the policies of the French government.

The same could be said of Spanish, although that has changed since Franco left power.




maxiogee said:


> What proof have you of this?
> English is dominating in places where the English didn't colonise. It is becoming the language of choice for many non-native-speakers.



I would say that's mainly due to the predominance of English in business and cultural circles, which is a direct result of English colonization. Without wide-spread colonization would English have become the power it is today? Highly unlikely.


----------



## BlueWolf

Vladislav said:


> 1. I don't think technology is so important for linguistic dominance. If you look at the most spoken and prestigious languages (English, French, Spanish, Chenese, Russian, Arabic, etc) you can easily see that: only some of them are technologically developed countries.
> 
> 2. English is not only used universally to write in the Internet.
> Music, news (BBC; CNN; etc), TV in general (serials, movies), documentaries (NatGeographic,Discovery), newspapers, at work, etc.
> 
> 3. Demography + immigration + political domination IS EVERYTHING. (it's better when there's also a political support, technolgy, assimilation unwillingness, prestige, etc because ONLY demography, despite being the most important factor by far, may not be enough, as I said in my previous post)
> 
> ALL of the most popular languages are dominant basically for their demography. You want examples? Ok:
> 
> *- English*: would NEVER dominate if it weren't for English colonists (good demography in G.Britain) arriving to Australia, Africa, Nothern America, India...supported by the military, political and commercial force of the British Empire. Before that English had very few prestige and spread as far as I know.
> 
> (do you think that if it had not happen, and G.Britain were very VERY technologically advanced but the only place with native English-speaking population, English would have made the universal language?)
> 
> English is spoken where the settlers arrived.
> 
> *- Chinese*: is there need to demonstrate that great demography together with immigration made Chinese one of the world's languages?
> 
> Chinese is spoken where the settlers or immigrants arrived.
> 
> *- Hini*: I'm sure, the only reasons it's not like Chinese are because:
> 
> a) They speak English, thus are domitated by other culture
> b) There's no massive immigration from India (compared to China)
> 
> In the very moment, the b) changes Hindi will become the same thing as the Chinese.
> 
> Hindi is spoken where the settlers or immigrants arrived.
> 
> *- French*: is the only case when demography is not so important.
> Political domination in Europe, but of course also demographic power in the Middle Ages. Also colonization of Northen America (demography) and Africa (political).
> 
> For French demography also played a very important role, but I think politics even more.
> 
> (by the way, here is the reason of why French lost its dominant role and will be loosing it in the future - no adecuate demographic support for French)
> 
> French is spoken where the settlers arrived
> 
> *- Spanish:* as with Chinese, I think it's very clear that political domination + demographic colonization made of Spanish an important language.
> 
> Or probably you think Latin America learned it in mass bacause of Cervantes or the high technology of Spanish caravels and cannons? (well, I wont' discuss that the technology and especially the caravels and cannons themselves played a big role but ... not in the way you suggest)
> 
> Spanish is spoken where the colonists or immigrants (south of the US) arrived
> 
> *- Latin:* political, military and technological domination of Rome + massive arrival of Latin-speaking colonists. Latin was spoken where the colonists arrived.
> 
> *- Greek:* cultural and technological domination +massive arrival of Greek-speaking colonists. Greek was spoken where the colonists arrived.
> 
> - *Portuguese:* see previous posts
> - *Russian:* see previous posts
> - *Turkish:* see previous posts
> - *Arabic:* see previous posts
> 
> I'm sure many romantic people, who think that the people learn a language because of philosophs, writers, etc won't agree, but I think in this post I've only told you facts.



English has been a dominant language for less than a century. English colonies have existed for very longer time...
Demography doesn't count. Do you want to say a list of the most spoken language? http://www.krysstal.com/spoken.html
Why aren't Hindi,  Bengali, Indonesian, Persian, Urdu, etc. so known and important if demography is so vital? Moreover notice that Cinese is only recently an important language outside Asia, because China is going to be an important and developed country. But Chinese people were so numerous years ago too.
And yes, English isn't important only because of the technology, it is important because after the Second World War USA have been the most powerful country in the world.
I don't want to offend the people who speak Spanish, but Spanish isn't actually so studied outside the USA and Brazil. American study it because they live in a continent where it is the most spoken language, but in Europe French and German are more known and studied and in Africa French is more important.
The example of Latin is only a prove of what I said. Even after the end of the Roman Empire Latin has been the most important and universal language. Why? Because there weren't other languages more important (politically or culturally). In order to change universal language we don't need the end of USA, we need the birth of a new power.
An other example: Portuguese is 7th in this list, French is 10th and Italian is 24th. However French and Italian are more studied than Portuguese.


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

BlueWolf said:


> English has been a dominant language for less than a century. English colonies have existed for very longer time...
> Demography doesn't count.



Of course it does. Without a relatively large population your chances of becoming a power-player are next to zero. But demography alone is not the major factor.

However, demography _combined _with technological advances and economic expansion amongst other things necessitate the rise of a new power.

But on the topic of new powers, why could it not be another English speaking country? Australia or Canada are pretty underpopulated for their size and already have highly developed growing economies. That's why I think the talk of English being replaced, in the near future at least, is highly premature.


----------



## BlueWolf

Pedro y La Torre said:


> Of course it does. Without a relatively large population your chances of becoming a power-player are next to zero. But demography alone is not the major factor.



Why? Why are you so sure? Who spoke French as native language when it was the most important language? Were they so many compared with the other languages?

EDIT: Oh, and how many people spoke Latin as native language when it was the universal language? 



> But on the topic of new powers, why could it not be another English speaking country? Australia or Canada are pretty underpopulated for their size and already have highly developed growing economies. That's why I think the talk of English being replaced, in the near future at least, is highly premature.


Canada is affluent, but nothing more. I don't see why it should be the next power. Quite the same with Australia.


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

BlueWolf said:


> Why? Why are you so sure? Who spoke French as native language when it was the most important language? Were they so many compared with the other languages?



France, Wallonia and parts of Switzerland. One should also remember France was the largest country in Western Europe in population and economic terms when French was the predominant language.



BlueWolf said:


> EDIT: Oh, and how many people spoke Latin as native language when it was the universal language?



Like English, Latin colonized and _became _the native language of the Western half of the Roman Empire, which was almost all of Western Europe and North Africa (a lot of the known world at the time).

Which again reinforces my point, you cannot become a superpower _without _a large population base, but a large demography alone is useless. If this were the case then surely somewhere like Ireland could be a superpower, which is completely ridiculous.



BlueWolf said:


> Canada is affluent, but nothing more. I don't see why it should be the next power. Quite the same with Australia.



Before the expansion of the railroad and widespread immigration to the United States in the late 19th century, one would've said the exact same thing about the U.S. What I'm looking at is their _potential _to grow, which is at least as big as any other major country


----------



## panjabigator

BlueWolf said:


> I don't want to offend the people who speak Spanish, but Spanish isn't actually so studied outside the USA and Brazil. American study it because they live in a continent where it is the most spoken language, but in Europe French and German are more known and studied and in Africa French is more important.



Interesting point.  So people is Spanish not studied much in Europe at all?  This makes me rethink the importance of Spanish outside the Americas...perhaps it won't be the next universal language at all.


----------



## Athaulf

panjabigator said:


> Interesting point.  So people is Spanish not studied much in Europe at all?  This makes me rethink the importance of Spanish outside the Americas...perhaps it won't be the next universal language at all.



In Europe, Spanish isn't spoken anywhere outside Spain, and although it is a large country by European standards, Spain isn't among the greatest economic powers of Europe, at least when it comes to its foreign trade. It also hasn't had a large political, military, cultural, and economic influence on the other European countries in the last few centuries that would result in a continuous tradition of learning the language there (such as, say, Germany or Russia have). 

Thus, I think that in any European country, except perhaps Portugal and Andorra, Spanish is well below English and German, and possibly even French, Russian, and Italian on the list of priorities for most people (English of course dwarfs all others). Many people still do learn it, of course, but it certainly doesn't have the status of a universal language anywhere outside of Spain. (I think the only languages except English that can claim such status in large parts of Europe nowadays are German and perhaps Russian -- French has definitely lost this status in recent decades.)


----------



## Vladislav

As I've said:



> The time will show, but I think ONLY a high demography will not be enough to replace English, although will be enough to make of them an important languages
> 
> because ONLY demography, despite being the most important factor by far, may not be enough, as I said in my previous post


 
ONLY NOT, but the most important (for me) or at least in the top 3 for sure. 

Let's see:



> Originally Posted by *maxiogee*
> You neglect the fact that these languages came to be spoken in their 'homelands' without colonisation - French is spoken all over France. The Spaniards didn't colonise themselves and yet they all speak Spanish.




You know what: they DID!! The CASTILIAN SETTLERS from the North (Cantabria,Burgos,La Rioja) imposed Spanish in the rest of territory. Was it because of the new Spanish power? Absolutely not, Spain wasn't power at all at that time. It was because of demography...

By the way, the same thing with Catalan that was spread to the South (Valencia) and East (Baleares, Sicilia, Italy). Whereas in Valencia and Baleares it was supproted by DEMOGRAPHY (catalan settlers), in Sicilia and Italy it wasn't so. Is there need to expain that it is the reason why it remained in Valencia and Baleares but it's lost in Sicilia and Italy?

The same thing for France. French wasn't imposed in all France (or most part of it) utill the arrival of French settlers, supported by the strict linguistic policy. Demography again.




> Originally Posted by *BlueWolf*
> English has been a dominant language for less than a century. English colonies have existed for very longer time...


 
You're completely right. But the demography of those colonies was not enough. Have a look: 
*                                                                     1790 *3,929,214
​*1810 *7,239,881
*1850 *23,191,876
*1880 *49,371,340
*1900 *76,212,168
*1910 *92,228,496
*1930 *123,202,624

*1950 *151,325,798


*1970 *203,211,926​*1990 *248,709,873
*2006 *299,845,946​
Do you think till middle of the 19th century demography was something special? There were colonies of course, but they were not important demographically. In the very moment they had enough population, they became an important factor of English domination. 



> Originally Posted by *BlueWolf*
> Demography doesn't count. Do you want to say a list of the most spoken language? http://www.krysstal.com/spoken.html




Yes I want to say it: here it is according to your link: 
1 Mandarin​2 English
3 Hindi
4 Spanish
5 Arabic
6Russian
7Portuguese




And it's just another prove of what I've said: demography is the most important thing. The most important languages are the ones that have enough demography supported by another factors (technology,prestige,economy...)​ 


> Originally Posted by *BlueWolf*
> Cinese is only recently an important language outside Asia, because China is going to be an important and developed country. But Chinese people were so numerous years ago too.


 
Chinese was an important language years ago too. It's one the UN official languages since the WW2. 
And they weren't so much a time ago. It was after Mao's reforms. And as I've said many times before: ONLY demography could not be enough to be the first language in the world, although more than enough to become an important laguage. Chinese is a prove.
​


----------



## Vladislav

> Originally Posted by *BlueWolf*
> And yes, English isn't important only because of the technology, it is important because after the Second World War USA have been the most powerful country in the world.



 
And no. English was becoming an important language much before the WW2 and the new technologic revolution. 
 
http://www.askoxford.com/worldofwords/history/
 
Quote:
 During the medieval and early modern periods the influence of English spread throughout the British Isles, and from *the early seventeenth century** onwards its influence began to be felt throughout the world*. The complex processes of *exploration, colonization and overseas trade* that characterized Britain’s external relations for several centuries became agents for change in the English language. 
 
 



> Originally Posted by *BlueWolf*
> The example of Latin is only a prove of what I said. Even after the end of the Roman Empire Latin has been the most important and universal language. Why? Because there weren't other languages more important (politically or culturally). In order to change universal language we don't need the end of USA, we need the birth of a new power.



 
 Or rather because other languages were assimilated by Latin settlers (demography!!) supported by military,economical and political influence of Rome. After its end, Latin would not loose its power if it were not for the split of Latin. The people (demography again) in ex-Empire began to speak other languages, derived from Latin. 
 I've talked about this option in case of English in my first post.


----------



## ampurdan

Your assertions regarding Spanish in Europe do not fit with my own impressions, Athaulf and Bluewolf. 

I went to southern France last Easter and I saw a bullfighting fever amongst those people and an infatuation with everything which may have the faintest connection with Spain, including language. Somebody told me that it was the most common second foreign language teenage French pick at le Lycée. 

I went to Northern Italy last August and I found that not only hotel receptionists, but also newspaper sellers speak some Spanish, for instance. We would go into a bakery or a souvenir shop discussing in Spanish about what we would buy. The beauty of the Italian language came out of it quite well, for, even though I was dying to speak it, I had no chance. To be honest, I must say that in two out of three times that this situation took place, the shop assistants happened to be immigrant Spanish speakers in fact.

I spoke to a Czech girl last week. She didn’t speak Spanish, but she said that young people have lost interest in German as a second foreign language in favour of Spanish.

Nevertheless, as I’ve stated before, I don’t think that Spanish will be the next universal language. In my opinion, English will keep its first position for a long while. Spanish is but fashionable.


----------



## BlueWolf

Pedro y La Torre said:


> France, Wallonia and parts of Switzerland. One should also remember France was the largest country in Western Europe in population and economic terms when French was the predominant language.



French was so important for the economical and cultural power of France, not for the area where it was spoken (that is mainly France, since Switzerland is multilingual and the main language is German).

[/quote]Like English, Latin colonized and _became _the native language of the Western half of the Roman Empire, which was almost all of Western Europe and North Africa (a lot of the known world at the time).[/quote]

First of all, Latin wasn't the native language of all the Empire, second, I was talking about the Middle Age, when the native speakers of Latin was the same number as today (0).



> Before the expansion of the railroad and widespread immigration to the United States in the late 19th century, one would've said the exact same thing about the U.S. What I'm looking at is their _potential _to grow, which is at least as big as any other major country


If you reason in this way, a lot of countries can works.



Vladislav said:


> You're completely right. But the demography of those colonies was not enough. Have a look:
> *                                                                     1790 *3,929,214
> *1810 *7,239,881
> *1850 *23,191,876
> *1880 *49,371,340
> *1900 *76,212,168
> *1910 *92,228,496
> *1930 *123,202,624
> 
> *1950 *151,325,798
> 
> 
> *1970 *203,211,926​*1990 *248,709,873
> *2006 *299,845,946​
> Do you think till middle of the 19th century demography was something special? There were colonies of course, but they were not important demographically. In the very moment they had enough population, they became an important factor of English domination. ​




Demography has changed everywhere in the time. Once a city with a million of inhabitants was a metropolis, today it's nothing.​ 


> Yes I want to say it: here it is according to your link:





> 1 Mandarin​2 English
> 3 Hindi
> 4 Spanish
> 5 Arabic
> 6Russian
> 7Portuguese
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And it's just another prove of what I've said: demography is the most important thing. The most important languages are the ones that have enough demography supported by another factors (technology,prestige,economy...)​




If you want to talk, please answer my objections, do not ignore them. My question was:  _Why aren't Hindi,  Bengali, Indonesian, Persian, Urdu, etc. so known and important if demography is so vital?_ (many of them are just after the languages that you quoted...)​ 



> Chinese was an important language years ago too. It's one the UN official languages since the WW2.





> And they weren't so much a time ago. It was after Mao's reforms. And as I've said many times before: ONLY demography could not be enough to be the first language in the world, although more than enough to become an important laguage. Chinese is a prove.


Since WW2, that means recently. Moreover I wanna make you notice that the people who speak Chinese outside Asia and without being a Chinese immigrant are very few. While it could surely be in the future, Chinese isn't currently a universal language at all.​ 


Vladislav said:


> And no. English was becoming an important language much before the WW2 and the new technologic revolution.
> 
> http://www.askoxford.com/worldofwords/history/
> 
> Quote:
> During the medieval and early modern periods the influence of English spread throughout the British Isles, and from *the early seventeenth century** onwards its influence began to be felt throughout the world*. The complex processes of *exploration, colonization and overseas trade* that characterized Britain’s external relations for several centuries became agents for change in the English language.




The same is possible to say of a lt of European languages. Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish, French, Italian did have a great influence around the world. Moreover your own article says: _*More recently* still, English has become a __lingua    franca, a global language, regularly used and understood by many nations    for whom English is not their first language._ Only recently English can be defined a lingua franca.




> Or rather because other languages were assimilated by Latin settlers (demography!!) supported by military,economical and political influence of Rome. After its end, Latin would not loose its power if it were not for the split of Latin. The people (demography again) in ex-Empire began to speak other languages, derived from Latin.





> I've talked about this option in case of English in my first post.


Or rather because other languages were assimilated by Latin settlers (demography!!) supported by *military,economical and political* influence of Rome. 
Where is the demography in your sentence outside the parenthesis? The point is that Rome was the militar, economical and political centre of universe.



ampurdan said:


> Your assertions regarding Spanish in Europe do not fit with my own impressions, Athaulf and Bluewolf.
> 
> I went to southern France last Easter and I saw a bullfighting fever amongst those people and an infatuation with everything which may have the faintest connection with Spain, including language. Somebody told me that it was the most common second foreign language teenage French pick at le Lycée.
> 
> I went to Northern Italy last August and I found that not only hotel receptionists, but also newspaper sellers speak some Spanish, for instance. We would go into a bakery or a souvenir shop discussing in Spanish about what we would buy. The beauty of the Italian language came out of it quite well, for, even though I was dying to speak it, I had no chance. To be honest, I must say that in two out of three times that this situation took place, the shop assistants happened to be immigrant Spanish speakers in fact.
> 
> I spoke to a Czech girl last week. She didn’t speak Spanish, but she said that young people have lost interest in German as a second foreign language in favour of Spanish.
> 
> Nevertheless, as I’ve stated before, I don’t think that Spanish will be the next universal language. In my opinion, English will keep its first position for a long while. Spanish is but fashionable.



I have nothing against Spanish, I like this language, but it can't be considered a largely known language in Europe. According the Eurobarometer of 2006 (see the link below), Spanish is known as second language by 6% of Europeans (the same level of Russian), while French and German by 14% (each of them) and English by 38%. This is why I say that in Europe French and German are very more known.

http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_243_en.pdf


----------



## Athaulf

ampurdan said:


> Your assertions regarding Spanish in Europe do not fit with my own impressions, Athaulf and Bluewolf.
> 
> I went to southern France last Easter and I saw a bullfighting fever amongst those people and an infatuation with everything which may have the faintest connection with Spain, including language. Somebody told me that it was the most common second foreign language teenage French pick at le Lycée.
> 
> I went to Northern Italy last August and I found that not only hotel receptionists, but also newspaper sellers speak some Spanish, for instance. We would go into a bakery or a souvenir shop discussing in Spanish about what we would buy. The beauty of the Italian language came out of it quite well, for, even though I was dying to speak it, I had no chance. To be honest, I must say that in two out of three times that this situation took place, the shop assistants happened to be immigrant Spanish speakers in fact.
> 
> I spoke to a Czech girl last week. She didn’t speak Spanish, but she said that young people have lost interest in German as a second foreign language in favour of Spanish.
> 
> Nevertheless, as I’ve stated before, I don’t think that Spanish will be the next universal language. In my opinion, English will keep its first position for a long while. Spanish is but fashionable.




True, Spanish is indeed fashionable to a certain extent, although it should be taken into account that it's probably the easiest foreign language to learn for the speakers of other Romance languages. Still, in other parts of Europe, I can hardly imagine foreigners ignorant of the local language trying to use Spanish for everyday communication with the locals, except perhaps as the last desperate attempt after having failed with English and German (and possibly also Russian or French).

I'm surprised, however, that Spanish culture is so much appreciated in southern France. Could you specify in which particular places in France you've observed this? 

As for the Czech Republic, my impression is that German is objectively far more important for an educated Czech person than Spanish, considering the economic ties with Germany. Generally, in Eastern European countries, proficiency in German can be an asset offering great employment opportunities in the local branches of German companies. Considering the geographical proximity and the large German investments in the Czech Republic (e.g. Škoda), I would expect this to be especially true there. Thus, I find it hard to believe that young people have massively lost interest in German there.

I guess I should also add that I certainly have nothing against Spanish; in fact, I'm actively trying to dabble in it .


----------



## ampurdan

Athaulf said:


> True, Spanish is indeed fashionable to a certain extent, although it should be taken into account that it's probably the easiest foreign language to learn for the speakers of other Romance languages. Still, in other parts of Europe, I can hardly imagine foreigners ignorant of the local language trying to use Spanish for everyday communication with the locals, except perhaps as the last desperate attempt after having failed with English and German (and possibly also Russian or French).


 
Well, Bluewolf has contributed the figures, which obviuosly contradict my impression.



Athaulf said:


> I'm surprised, however, that Spanish culture is so much appreciated in southern France. Could you specify in which particular places in France you've observed this?


 
Mainly in Nîmes and Arles. Specially in Arles, where they celebrate a week of corridas with all the Spanish ingredients: paella, "sevillanas", tapas, etc. I was probably more surprised than you are, for in Catalonia bullfighting is on its way to being banned. 



Athaulf said:


> As for the Czech Republic, my impression is that German is objectively far more important for an educated Czech person than Spanish, considering the economic ties with Germany. Generally, in Eastern European countries, proficiency in German can be an asset offering great employment opportunities in the local branches of German companies. Considering the geographical proximity and the large German investments in the Czech Republic (e.g. Škoda), I would expect this to be especially true there. Thus, I find it hard to believe that young people have massively lost interest in German there.


 
Yes, that's what I thought too. In fact, I don't remember ever speaking Spanish to locals in Prague, except for an Argentinean Jewish woman at a synagogue. However, one of my fellow travelers' German was not that useful over there either. English is what they all learn (however, I would be surprised to know that Volkswagen big shots speak English with their Czech partners). Anyway, what I've stated before is just what that Czech girl had said to me.


----------



## Athaulf

BlueWolf said:


> I have nothing against Spanish, I like this language, but it can't be considered a largely known language in Europe. According the Eurobarometer of 2006 (see the link below), Spanish is known as second language by 6% of Europeans (the same level of Russian), while French and German by 14% (each of them) and English by 38%. This is why I say that in Europe French and German are very more known.
> 
> http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_243_en.pdf



Thanks for this extremely interesting link! I'm certainly glad to see that Croatian still beats English as the most widely known foreign language in Slovenia! 

It seems like I was wrong to assume that Italian is spoken more widely than Spanish in Europe; my view was obviously distorted from my Croatian perspective. Still, Spanish is among the three most spoken foreign languages only in the UK, France, and Portugal -- and even there, it's spoken only by ~10% of people. (I guess in Portugal they counted only the really good Spanish speakers; I'm sure everyone knows at least _some_ Spanish there.) 

Overall, Spanish is certainly nowhere near French and (especially) German, and in Eastern Europe, it's also spoken far less than Russian (in fact, German and Russian together beat even English there).


----------



## Athaulf

ampurdan said:


> Mainly in Nîmes and Arles. Specially in Arles, where they celebrate a week of corridas with all the Spanish ingredients: paella, "sevillanas", tapas, etc. I was probably more surprised than you are, for in Catalonia bullfighting is on its way to being banned.



I'm just guessing, but could this perhaps have something to do with their Provençal identity? My (maybe mistaken) understanding is that the Provençal language is somewhat close to Catalan. Could this make them feel like the Catalan folks across the border are their compatriots, perhaps even more so than the French from Paris?

This is just a question from an entirely ignorant perspective -- I hope nobody will take offense if I've just suggested something outrageously stupid.


----------



## ampurdan

Athaulf said:


> I'm just guessing, but could this perhaps have something to do with their Provençal identity? My (maybe mistaken) understanding is that the Provençal language is somewhat close to Catalan. Could this make them feel like the Catalan folks across the border are their compatriots, perhaps even more so than the French from Paris?
> 
> This is just a question from an entirely ignorant perspective -- I hope nobody will take offense if I've just suggested something outrageously stupid.


 
No, I don't think what you've said is in anyway outrageously stupid (just a little off-topic, and that's my fault). In fact, what shocked me more was that between all those "sevillanas" and bullfighter lovers, we could find many Occitan and Catalan flags (well, some sort of French-Catalan flag). I don't know if in the mind of those people, everything that comes from South-West makes them think of their Occitan or Provençal past. Now they all speak French and there's no trace of Occitan, except for some bilingual street plate. To me, it looked as a very interesting cultural melting pot. While people in Catalonia tend to separate what's Andalusian or Castillian from what's Catalan, Southern French mix them all and adore everything.


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

BlueWolf said:


> French was so important for the economical and cultural power of France, not for the area where it was spoken (that is mainly France, since Switzerland is multilingual and the main language is German).



I don't think you understand what I'm saying. France, at the time, was the _biggest _ecnomic and cultural power, much like the U.S. is today. It was also the largest country in western Europe in terms of population.



			
				Pedro y La Torre said:
			
		

> Like English, Latin colonized and _became _the native language of the Western half of the Roman Empire, which was almost all of Western Europe and North Africa (a lot of the known world at the time).





BlueWolf said:


> First of all, Latin wasn't the native language of all the Empire



I never said it was.



			
				Pedro y La Torre said:
			
		

> Like English, Latin colonized and _became _the native language of the *Western* half of the Roman Empire.





BlueWolf said:


> Second, I was talking about the Middle Age, when the native speakers of Latin was the same number as today



In the Middle Ages, Latin was not the universal language. It may have been the premier language for state to state communication but this was not the case amongst the general population. In fact, Latin is a poor example as the situation with Latin is highly irregular in world history.




BlueWolf said:


> If you reason in this way, a lot of countries can works *work*.



Exactly. That's the point I've been attempting to make to you.


----------



## Athaulf

Pedro y La Torre said:


> In the Middle Ages, Latin was not the universal language. It may have been the premier language for state to state communication but this was not the case amongst the general population. In fact, Latin is a poor example as the situation with Latin is highly irregular in world history.



Your first point is very good -- the medieval Church Latin was never a universal language in the sense in which English is today. One certainly wouldn't use it to ask for directions in the street of a foreign town, or expect to communicate in it with a foreign business partner, like one normally does in English nowadays. It was a universal language only for a small intellectual elite. But I think you're wrong to assume that it's somehow unique in world history. My understanding is that, for example, Sanskrit had a similar historical role in India.


----------



## Vladislav

Completely agree with Pedro de la Torre and Athaulf about French and Latin. I'd like to add some comments on that:

If we look at the numer of native speakers of each language in the Middle Ages, French would be the first, at least in the Western Europe.

Latin was loosing its importance in the Middle Ages exactly bacause of lack of native speakers. No demographical support --> lost of importance



> Originally Posted by *BlueWolf*
> Demography has changed everywhere in the time. Once a city with a million of inhabitants was a metropolis, today it's nothing.


 
Ok, let's have a look on percentages:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population

The main competitors of English were in Europe, Asia (although I'll have to exclude India and some others), half of Africa and Latin America. And the "allies" in Oceania, North America and half of Africa (I think about 40%).

Of course I'm simplifying quite a lot, but you can understand I can't study more in detail.

So let's look at the proportion of Oceania, N.America and 40% Africa in the world's population (call it English colonies). 
Data in millions.

1750: 
World --> 791 
English colonies --> 46 (5,8%)

Only a 5,8%, of course it wasn't sufficient. In fact as you say here: 



> Originally Posted by *BlueWolf*
> Only recently English can be defined a lingua franca.




...in that time, English was becoming an important laguage, but a 5,8% wasn't sufficient for "lingua franca"

1800:
World --> 978 
English colonies --> 52 (5,3%)

Even less (although if I count India it would had grown)

1850:
World --> 1262 
English colonies --> 72 (5,7%)

At that time, French was still the first, but from now on English will be getting more and more important all over the world. 

1900:
World --> 1650 
English colonies --> 141 (8,5%)

1950:
World --> 2519 
English colonies --> 223 (8,9%)

1980:
World --> 4435 
English colonies --> 467 (10,5%)

2000:
World --> 6071 
English colonies --> 665 (11%)


So, as you can see, the native English-speaking population has been growing since 1800. And it's growing now. Without that, technology or US power would be nothing to make it truely universal (however it would be important of course, like Japanese because of technology). 



> Originally Posted by *BlueWolf*
> If you want to talk, please answer my objections, do not ignore them. My question was: _Why aren't Hindi, Bengali, Indonesian, Persian, Urdu, etc. so known and important if demography is so vital?_ (many of them are just after the languages that you quoted...)




Well, I thought the answer was clear in my previous post. 
 If you look at the top (demographically talking) languages: English, Franch, Russian, Arabic, Chinese, Portuguese, Hindi all of them are very important.

You doubt about Hindi. Ok:



> According to SIL International's Ethnologue,[4] about 180 million people in India regard standard (_Khari Boli_) Hindi as their mother tongue, and another 300 million use it as a second language..


 
Only 180 millions of natives!!! Less then Portuguese. So not all, the huge population of India is "Hindi". If it were so ... 

However Hindi is an important language. More and more TV channels, radio stations, web pages, etc get a Hindi version. Ex:



> Seeing the popularity of Hindi, BBC World Service started News in Hindi in 1940. (from Wikipedia)


 
Why would it be? Because of high Indian technology or probably The super-Indian power?

Then, you also mentioned: _Bengali, Indonesian, Persian, Urdu._

_- _First, I repeat: I've never said that ONLY demography is enough. It's better when it is combined with another factors. 

- Second: do you think that languages ranked 8th (Bengali), 9th (Malay), 13th (Urgu with only 61 million of native speakers) and 14th (Farsi) have enough demography?



> Originally Posted by *BlueWolf*
> Since WW2, that means recently.




Since when China's population is something *SO* special? And, as I have said many times: demography is the most important factor, but it can't act alone. 
What is for sure is that if it were not for Chinese demography, Chinese would never be so importat whatever China would have done or whatever technology it had (as Japan or Korea). 




> Originally Posted by *BlueWolf*
> Moreover I wanna make you notice that the people who speak Chinese outside Asia and without being a Chinese immigrant are very few. While it could surely be in the future, Chinese isn't currently a universal language at all.




And the practical difference in the long-term between an Italian boy who learnt Chinese at the university or a sun of a Chinese immigrant who learnt it at home (and much better than the Italian one) is ... 

If this situation is massive it would lead to the replacement of Italian by Chinese it that region. What is much better (for Chinese) that if the Italian-speaking population learnes it as foreign language.



> Originally Posted by *BlueWolf*
> Where is the demography in your sentence outside the parenthesis?




because other languages were assimilated by *Latin settlers* (demography!!).




> Originally Posted by *BlueWolf*
> The point is that Rome was the militar, economical and political centre of universe.


 
 That of course helped the Latin settlers to impose Latin.


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

Athaulf said:


> But I think you're wrong to assume that it's somehow unique in world history. My understanding is that, for example, Sanskrit had a similar historical role in India.



You may very well be correct. But I think Latin is, in a sense, one of a possible number highly irregular cases due to the factors I have aforementioned. While other languages may have played a similar role in the ancient past, I don't think there were very many, and I don't really think they can be considered analogous to today's situation.


----------



## BlueWolf

Athaulf said:


> (I guess in Portugal they counted only the really good Spanish speakers; I'm sure everyone knows at least _some_ Spanish there.)



Sorry to disappoint you, but they did these statistics simply asking questions.  I do think in fact they are very optimistic, since many people overestimate their linguistic skills.


Pedro y La Torre and Vladislav, sorry today I don't have the time to quote all your sentences, so I'll reassume.
About Latin, you have to consider that only today we have a global world. Once, only a little _élite_ had occasions to have reports with the "world". Of course the tipical peasant didn't learn Latin, but it's true that the peasant never left his village, or if he did, he moved only for few kilometres. On the other hand, the part of the world who had to contacts with the different nations knew one universal language: Latin. So it was a lingua franca.
The other point, the fact of demography. Maybe Americans don't have this perception because they feel learning an other language as something optional, but the question of the major part of the boys who learn an other language, if they don't live or travel in the region where it's spoken, is one: _Which language is going to be the most useful when I will work?_ It's not _Let's see the statistics to find out which the languages with more speakers are._ Demography only can help to have a powerful country, but it's economy and politics that makes a language a lingua franca. In fact, when they say that Chinese is going to replace English, they say that because China will become a very important economical centre, not because the population is going to grow.

Just quick quote:



> because other languages were assimilated by Latin settlers (demography!!) (power!!).


----------



## ireney

How about Ancient Greek then? Small country demographically speaking but Koine (the form of Greek used after Hellenistic times) was a veritable lingua franca. In fact in continued to be so (at least in the East Mediterranean) even after the Roman conquest (see the language of the Gospels).


----------



## Athaulf

Vladislav said:


> Latin was loosing its importance in the Middle Ages exactly bacause of lack of native speakers. No demographical support --> lost of importance



Actually, you're probably wrong about that. Admittedly, I don't have the education necessary to proclaim an authoritative judgment on that matter, but my strong impression is that the greatest days of Latin after the Classical Antiquity were during the early modern ages, at the time of the Scientific Revolution. At the time, the intellectual life of Europe was bursting with unprecedented creativity, and most of its output was still published in Latin (though not all -- for example, Galileo wrote mostly in Italian). But Copernicus, Kepler,  Brahe, Leibniz, and Newton, to name only a few, wrote their greatest contributions in Latin.

But still, of course, Latin was nothing like a true universal language even at this time, since it was of little, if any use outside of these lofty intellectual circles and the Church business.


----------



## Vladislav

> Originally Posted by *BlueWolf*
> Of course the tipical peasant didn't learn Latin, but it's true that the peasant never left his village, or if he did, he moved only for few kilometres. On the other hand, the part of the world who had to contacts with the different nations knew one universal language: Latin. So it was a lingua franca.



 
 You are wrong here. Do you know how the Latin was spread over the mainstream barbarian population? As in many other countries: throuh the towns.
 
 The towns were attracting the barbarian population: the peasents to sell their production or to establish there, the merchants, the barbarian nobility, etc. Of course they had to study it. 
 
 This way, the towns built and populated by the Latin setlllers (demography) made it possible.



> Originally Posted by *BlueWolf*
> In fact, when they say that Chinese is going to replace English, they say that because China will become a very important economical centre, not because the population is going to grow.


 Ok, maybe I'll convince you more if I argue from the oppisite point:
 
- Japanese: very important economy, very high technology, is it a global language? 
 
- German: very important economy and high technology, the firts world's exporter by far, is it a global language?
 
- French is loosing its power because of the same reason.
 
 At the same time, Russian, Arabic or Spanish, without being strong economies or countries with high technology are more widespread.



> Originally Posted by *BlueWolf*
> Just quick quote:
> Quote:
> because other languages were assimilated by Latin settlers (demography!!) (power!!).



 I think the Latin settlers are more related to the population, demography. Do you think that the power of a country is measured by the numer of settlers available? How powerful must be, according to this point of view, countries like Romania or the African states!
 



> Originally Posted by *ireney*
> How about Ancient Greek then? Small country demographically speaking but Koine (the form of Greek used after Hellenistic times) was a veritable lingua franca. In fact in continued to be so (at least in the East Mediterranean) even after the Roman conquest (see the language of the Gospels).



 
From Wikipedia
 The population estimates on the Greeks during the 5th century BC, is approximately 3 million on the Greek peninsula and 6 million in the entire Mediterranean basin (including all colonies). 
 
 Do you know which was the population of Europe at that moment?
http://members.optusnet.com.au/exponentialist/Darwin_Malthus.htm
 
 ONLY 16 MILLION!!!!!
 So 50% of all European population were Greeks! What culture, tehcnology or philosophy are you talking about? With 50% of European population they could have been illiterate!
 
 Athaulf, those books were read by a small and each time smaller groups of educated people. The history proved us that they are never able to make a language be used by the mass. Just the opposite.
 
 By the way: one of the reasons of Protestant reform was the fact that the people were not understanding the prayers in the church, that were read in Latin.


----------



## ireney

Vladislav you are forgetting that Greek and Greeks *ahem* "travelled" east.

Instead of Europe you should try the numbers for the Persian Empire, Egypt, that direction


----------



## Vengeance

vince said:


> I think that if China becomes a superpower then people will learn Mandarin no matter how difficult it is.
> 
> The only thing is, the difficulty of learning Written Chinese will present itself as a trade barrier. People overseas would have to spend lots of time and money to train people in using Chinese characters in order to trade with China, which will cut into profits. This is a pragmatic reason why China should adopt a phonetic-based writing system.


 
Hehe... being Chinese myself, I , of course, hope that Chinese will become the next universal language although I DO know that  not Chinese think it's very hard...
But the part about the trade barrier: Chinese people can be taught English,French, Spanish, German, blah blah blah, and they can still serve as "interpretor traders".
Having chinese people who already know the language (and there's a lot of them ) learn other languages (like English, schools in China mainly study English-I know: I used to attend it) shouldn't be nearly as costly or exhausting... And I disagree with the phonetic based writing system... 
i like it the way it is... why does everything have to be phonetic? (forgive me for my... stand-up-for-the-chinese-language-little-speech-thingy)


----------



## Vladislav

> Vladislav you are forgetting that Greek and Greeks *ahem* "travelled" east.
> 
> Instead of Europe you should try the numbers for the Persian Empire, Egypt, that direction


 
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/history/ralph/resource/grkcolon.htm

As you can see in the map, almost all the colonies were in Europe. The Mediterranean cost of Asia Minor or the Black Sea ... ahem ... always used to be Europe (if you want to talk about EU that's another story).  

Except Caucasus and Cyrenaica, the rest were in Europe. If you want, we could add the population of Cyrenaica and Caucasus. How much do you think it is? 2 millions more in total? Ok. 

So we have 6 million of Greeks over 18 million of total population: 6/18 = 33% The percentage of Greeks of total population goes down and is "only" 33% now. Does it change anything? 
 The Chinese are only 23% of the world's nowadays, by the way (compare it to the 33% of Greeks).


----------



## BlueWolf

Vladislav said:


> You are wrong here. Do you know how the Latin was spread over the mainstream barbarian population? As in many other countries: throuh the towns.




You keep forgetting that I am talking about Medieval world when Latin wasn't taled. Not the period after immediately after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
 



> The towns were attracting the barbarian population: the peasents to sell their production or to establish there, the merchants, the barbarian nobility, etc. Of course they had to study it.


In two words: they were forced by economical reasons, not by demographic ones.
 



> Ok, maybe I'll convince you more if I argue from the oppisite point:





> - Japanese: very important economy, very high technology, is it a global language?
> 
> - German: very important economy and high technology, the firts world's exporter by far, is it a global language?
> 
> - French is loosing its power because of the same reason.
> 
> At the same time, Russian, Arabic or Spanish, without being strong economies or countries with high technology are more widespread.




Japanese, German and French are dominant languages as Russian, Arabic and Spanish. Maybe you should define your idea of dominant language (they surely have to belong to the ufficial languages of United Nations).
 



> I think the Latin settlers are more related to the population, demography. Do you think that the power of a country is measured by the numer of settlers available? How powerful must be, according to this point of view, countries like Romania or the African states!


I'm saying exactly the opposite. Differently from you, I don't think demography is vital (even if it can help).


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

BlueWolf said:


> I'm saying exactly the opposite. Differently from you, I don't think demography is vital (even if it can help).



Name me a large power then which never had a large demography behind it.


----------



## BlueWolf

Pedro y La Torre said:


> Name me a large power then which never had a large demography behind it.



We are talking about languages so let's talk about them. You are saying that demography of native speakers is the most important thing for a language to be a universal/dominant language (choose the adjective you prefer).
I'm saying it's economy and plotics of the nations where that languages is spoken.
Now let's look at the present situation. 

Which is the universal language? English. 
Which is the most influential country? USA. 
Which is its national language? English. 
Which is the most populated country? China. 
Which is its national language? Chinese. 
Are there nations between the most densely populated whose languages aren't universal/dominant? Sure, look at some posts above. (Hindi, Bengali, Indonesian, Persian, Urdu, etc. that can't be considered dominant, unless your criteria to define a language dominant are "it must have a large demography", that makes useless the discussion)
Are there nations between the ones with the strongest and most important economies whose languages aren't universal/dominant? Let me think... I can't find any.


----------



## Poetic Device

Actually, I have to disagree with you.  The United States of America does not have a national language.  And I have a feeling that Spanish is used just as much if not moresohere (I did not check that, though.  That is just my guess.)  Also, while on that line of thinking.  Everywhere you go here bilingualism is in the highest demand.  Places of business must have English/Spanish speakers, else you will not survive.  How do you find that in your theory?


----------



## ireney

Vladislav Greek did not become a lingua franca before the conquests of Alexander the Great. Its use as an "international language" was not promoted  by the Greek colonies


----------



## maxiogee

Getting back to the topic 



Miguelillo 87 said:


> Hi everybody, Me and my friends have always discuss about wish language it’s going to be the next to be “universal” As you should know, Many languages through the history had been leader the world for many years or centuries, For example, When The Rome empire was leading the world , everybody try to speak it language, When Napoleon conquest almost all Europe was French, When was the second W W it was German , in The Aztecs time Everybody n Mesoamerica spoke nahualt (I think so I’m not sure which one was the language of the Aztecs) In the Cold War, it was Russian and English, and Nowadays English it’s the universal language.[/FONT][/SIZE]
> But we know and history has teaches us that this is not going to last forever, so My friend and I have decided the three languages that we think can be the next “universal language”



Look back to before those languages became 'universal'.
Would anyone have predicted that the language spoken by a small tribe in the middle of the Italian peninsula would spread as far as it did?
In the time of Henry VIII, would anyone have listened to someone who suggested that English would, or even could, become a global language (I prefer global to universal - even in purely earthly terms 'universal' implies the stupendous feat of every single person on earth being able to speak it)?
Would the people of South America in 1500 have imagined speaking a language they had never heard of?

I'll tell you something I believe to be true, the next 'global' language will come as a total surprise to everyone - just like all the previous ones did.


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## BlueWolf

Poetic Device said:


> Actually, I have to disagree with you.  The United States of America does not have a national language.  And I have a feeling that Spanish is used just as much if not moresohere (I did not check that, though.  That is just my guess.)



English is the only language spoken by many Americans and the language through it appear to other nations. Does it sound better? It doesn't change what I'm saying, whatever the ufficial status of English is in the USA.



> Also, while on that line of thinking.  Everywhere you go here bilingualism is in the highest demand.  Places of business must have English/Spanish speakers, else you will not survive.  How do you find that in your theory?



Places of business always require a knowledge of other languages, since "business" imply commercial changes. Americans in general have a little knowledge of non-native languages however, compared with other people of other countries, simply because they speak English, the present universal language.


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## Pedro y La Torre

BlueWolf said:


> We are talking about languages so let's talk about them. You are saying that demography of native speakers is the *most important thing* for a language to be a universal/dominant language (choose the adjective you prefer).



I never actually said that. I said it's _one of a number _of important factors_. _However without the aid of a large demography one cannot hope to become a great power. I fail to see any examples to the contrary.



Poetic Device said:


> Actually, I have to disagree with you. The United States of America does not have a national language. And I have a feeling that Spanish is used just as much if not moresohere (I did not check that, though. That is just my guess.)



Spanish used as much as English? In the U.S.? Somehow I think not.

While English may not be the official language of the country, it is the official language of many of the states.


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## Miguelillo 87

maxiogee said:


> Getting back to the topic
> 
> 
> 
> Look back to before those languages became 'universal'.
> Would anyone have predicted that the language spoken by a small tribe in the middle of the Italian peninsula would spread as far as it did?
> In the time of Henry VIII, would anyone have listened to someone who suggested that English would, or even could, become a global language (I prefer global to universal - even in purely earthly terms 'universal' implies the stupendous feat of every single person on earth being able to speak it)?
> Would the people of South America in 1500 have imagined speaking a language they had never heard of?
> 
> I'll tell you something I believe to be true, the next 'global' language will come as a total surprise to everyone - just like all the previous ones did.


I think you have understand my point, maybe tomorrow we will bw speaking arabic or russian or catalán, who knows?

Well I tried to read everything since my last post and I have to say two things.


You mention a lot that english is not only used in Internetm that is also used in music, moviesm books etc. But have you ever notice that this movies are transleted to the language of the country is going to be exibited, tha same with the tv shows and books (at least they have subtitles) About the music, I heve a lot of fi¡riend who love Eminem and Alicia Keys music without evern understand what their songs say, I mean the rytmh is the important for them.

About all your arguments, I can see tahat a lot of you say taht colonization was the factor which became global (thankd for the term maxiogee) Nowdays colonization is quite diferent now the money and corporatiuons talks, weapons are not as powerful as they used to be, (in order to conquerm for kill thay are even moe powerful) 

So as ,max said, maybe in a while we will see a new powerful country who nobody expect.

ANd the last but not the least, It's true we don't have to wait until the "death" of the US of the UK. We only have to wait for a new countrym that maybe it's in Europe or maybe in Asia.
Remeber nothing last forever, and the big empires have a long and "agonizante" death.


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## Miguelillo 87

Pedro y La Torre said:


> I never actually said that. I said it's _one of a number _of important factors_. _However without the aid of a large demography one cannot hope to become a great power. I fail to see any examples to the contrary.
> 
> 
> 
> Spanish used as much as English? In the U.S.? Somehow I think not.
> 
> While English may not be the official language of the country, it is the official language of many of the states.


Yes Pedro but I asere you taht a lot of Hispanos doesn't speak english even if the live in US. Why? They don't need to speak it, cause they live in an hiospanic comunity. as a friend of LA saidm now you have to learbn Sapanish in order to get along with your workmates!!!


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## Pedro y La Torre

Miguelillo 87 said:


> Yes Pedro but I asere you taht a lot of Hispanos doesn't speak english even if the live in US. Why? They don't need to speak it, cause they live in an hiospanic comunity. as a friend of LA saidm now you have to learbn Sapanish in order to get along with your workmates!!!



Yes many Hispanics may not but are you honestly attempting to tell me there are more Spanish speakers in America than the approx 280 million plus English speakers!? I mean come on, don't be ridiculous.



> According to the 2000 United States Census, Spanish is spoken most frequently at home by about 28.1 million people aged 5 or over. Of these, 14.3 million reported that they also spoke English "Very well"





> Although Spanish is not the most spoken language in any one U.S. state, it is the second most spoken language in 43 states.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_in_the_United_States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Spanish_USC2000_PHS.svg


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## Poetic Device

> Quote:
> Originally Posted by *Poetic Device*
> Actually, I have to disagree with you. The United States of America does not have a national language. And I have a feeling that Spanish is used just as much if not moresohere (I did not check that, though. That is just my guess.)
> 
> English is the only language spoken by many Americans and the language through it appear to other nations. Does it sound better? It doesn't change what I'm saying, whatever the ufficial status of English is in the USA. You missed the point, and I don't have the energy to repeat it.
> 
> 
> Quote:
> Also, while on that line of thinking. Everywhere you go here bilingualism is in the highest demand. Places of business must have English/Spanish speakers, else you will not survive. How do you find that in your theory?
> 
> Places of business always require a knowledge of other languages, since "business" imply commercial changes. Americans in general have a little knowledge of non-native languages however, compared with other people of other countries, simply because they speak English, the present universal language. Let's start with the first sentence. If that were the case why are they not always asking for people to know Chinese, German or Italian? How about French? The answer: They are not in as much demand by any means. Americans in general have little knowledge of non-native languages? Do you realize how that sounds? We are (sometimes I think unfortunately) a country of immigration. Do you have any idea how many families--Spanish speaking or non--come here and still use the language of their birth and teach it to the oncoming generations? Native language... I suppose that is all how you look at it. However, giong by your theory, if a child born here is the third generation to be born then he/she is an American. If that child is taught Polish as well as English, I guess they are learning a language that is not native to them, huh? Therefore, before you make a generalization like that, please think of all areas. There are less people that are mono-lingual here than you think.


 



> Quote:
> Originally Posted by *Poetic Device*
> 
> 
> Actually, I have to disagree with you. The United States of America does not have a national language. And I have a feeling that Spanish is used just as much if not moresohere (I did not check that, though. That is just my guess.)
> 
> Spanish used as much as English? In the U.S.? Somehow I think not. Like I said, Dear, it's a guess. I am still trying to find the demographics.


 



> Quote:
> According to the 2000 United States Census, Spanish is spoken most frequently at home by about 28.1 million people aged 5 or over. Of these, 14.3 million reported that they also spoke English "Very well"


 
Yeah, that was seven years ago.  Can you imagine what kind of a difference there is now?  Good grief, Charlie Brown.


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## BlueWolf

Pedro y La Torre said:


> I never actually said that. I said it's _one of a number _of important factors_. _However without the aid of a large demography one cannot hope to become a great power. I fail to see any examples to the contrary.



If demography is, as you believe, a vital factor to become a great power, thing I'm not sure about, it's not directly connected with the factors to become a universal language (that would be the power, in all its forms). If the power is born without it, the language of that nation can become a universal one. This is what I think.




> You missed the point, and I don't have the energy to repeat it.



If you want to talk, you could kindly explain what I've not understood. If you're here to say cryptal sentences, I don't see the point of the discussion is.
 


> Let's start with the first sentence. If that were the case why are they not always asking for people to know Chinese, German or Italian? How about French? The answer: They are not in as much demand by any means. Americans in general have little knowledge of non-native languages? Do you realize how that sounds? We are (sometimes I think unfortunately) a country of immigration. Do you have any idea how many families--Spanish speaking or non--come here and still use the language of their birth and teach it to the oncoming generations? Native language... I suppose that is all how you look at it. However, giong by your theory, if a child born here is the third generation to be born then he/she is an American. If that child is taught Polish as well as English, I guess they are learning a language that is not native to them, huh? Therefore, before you make a generalization like that, please think of all areas. There are less people that are mono-lingual here than you think.




When you said "Places of business must have English/Spanish speakers, else you will not survive.", were you talking about America or in general? If you were talking about the world you wrong, since in Europe the Spanish speakers are not more demanded than other speakers (quite the opposite actually, Chinese, German and Italian, the language you quoted, are more demanded here [Italian since Italy is a good market, we don't produce so much but we buy a lot ]).
I repeat what I said some posts ago, only because Spanish is most foreign language known in America, doesn't it mean it's a universal language everywhere. Here in Europe it's less studied than English, French and German, and it's not so well-known in Africa and Asia either.
About the second point, Americans do show little interest in other languages other than theirs. You say Americans know more languages than I think. Do you know that almost all the young people here study English? (Even if they could forget it after school or it could have been taught badly) Moreover immigration exists here in Europe as in America. So I still think: Americans, compared with other part of the non-English world) have a little knowledge of other languages.


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## Poetic Device

BlueWolf said:


> If you want to talk, you could kindly explain what I've not understood. If you're here to say cryptal sentences, I don't see the point of the discussion is.  In absolute no offense, I think that I have explained it as kindly as possible.  If you think that what I say is "cryptal"  then why don't you ask me what it means?  Maybe then we will get somewhere.
> 
> 
> 
> When you said "Places of business must have English/Spanish speakers, else you will not survive.", were you talking about America or in general?  America, of course.  That's what we were conversing about in the first place.  It was said that America is primarily English by far, and I disputed. If you were talking about the world you wrong, since in Europe the Spanish speakers are not more demanded than other speakers (quite the opposite actually, Chinese, German and Italian, the language you quoted, are more demanded here [Italian since Italy is a good market, we don't produce so much but we buy a lot ]).  I have never been outside the United States (other than Canada), and therefore I do not pretend to know what it is like there.  One day after I visit the other side of the world I might be able to put my two cents there.
> I repeat what I said some posts ago, only because Spanish is most foreign language known in America, doesn't it mean it's a universal language everywhere. Here in Europe it's less studied than English, French and German, and it's not so well-known in Africa and Asia either.
> About the second point, Americans do show little interest in other languages other than theirs. You say Americans know more languages than I think. Do you know that almost all the young people here study English? (Even if they could forget it after school or it could have been taught badly) Moreover immigration exists here in Europe as in America. So I still think: Americans, compared with other part of the non-English world) have a little knowledge of other languages.  Yes, immigration does still go on in Eurpe.  I'm not stupid.  I know that.  Howebver, I brought that up because unlike Europe, America is soley made up of immigrants.  The founders of this country were from your part of the world for crying out loud.  Immigrants come here 24/7 and after they come here they do what they do and teach their children whatever language they speak, and the language travels through the generations just like it would back home.
> 
> Not only that, but do you have any idea how many brats here want to learn a language like Chinese so that they can talk about anything anywhere and not have to worry about getting into trouble?  The heritage months that we celebrate help a little in that aspect, too.  I could go on, but I'm being kicked.   [/quote]
> 
> Have you ever been to the states?  How do you know what it is like here?  By word of mouth?  Don't believe everything that you here.  I don't assume to know anything that is going on in any other country...  If you have lived in the States before, my apologies


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## Vladislav

> Originally Posted by *BlueWolf*
> because other languages were assimilated by Latin settlers (demography!!) (power!!).
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Vladislav*
> I think the Latin settlers are more related to the population, demography. Do you think that the power of a country is measured by the numer of settlers available? How powerful must be, according to this point of view, countries like Romania or the African states!
> 
> Originally Posted by *BlueWolf*
> I'm saying exactly the opposite.


 
Do you? So why did you put that the Latin settlers were power, not demography, in the beginning?




> Originally Posted by *Vladislav*
> The towns were attracting the barbarian population: the peasents to sell their production or to establish there, the merchants, the barbarian nobility, etc. Of course they had to study it.
> 
> Originally Posted by *BlueWolf*
> In two words: they were forced by economical reasons, not by demographic ones.


 
Oh my God! But who built and populated those towns? Do you think it would be possible without a lot of population? Latin settlers were very noumerous and spread all across the Empire. But if the native Latins were few, NOTHING would make Latin so important (none of the other factors). First: high population à then: other factors.



> Originally Posted by *BlueWolf*
> Japanese, German and French are dominant languages as Russian, Arabic and Spanish. Maybe you should define your idea of dominant language.


 
Of course they are important. I’ve said it before. 
But the point is that French is loosing its importance, it’s a matter of fact. The reason is a low number of native speakers. 300 years ago, it wasn’t so (there were no important colonies outside Europe). 

As for German and Japanese: they will NEVER be able to become “lingua franca” (unless they make their population 4 times bigger). I think you suspect why? (at least, according to my point of view). Look: how do you explain they are not so important as English. Perhaps German or Japanese technology or economy is so much worse that the American one? 
They are smaller economies in overall? Ok, and what about German/Japanese and Arabic? German/Japanese economy is much more important then the “Arabic”, whereas we can’t say the same about German/Japanese. Because the Arab speakers are very numerous. The same for Russian or Spanish. 

At the same time, Russian, Spanish or Arabic (as well as Chinese or Hindi) have the POTENTIAL to do it. They have at least the population required. In the very moment they combine it with another factors (economy, power, prestige, etc) any of these languages could be nominated to “lingua franca”, something that will never happen to German, Korean or Japanese, despite all their economy or technology.

Demography – *necessary* and obligatory but *not sufficient* condition. 

By the way: dominant language in the world is a very useful language. You can listen songs, watch movies, communicate with many people, there are travel guides in that language, the world’s channels are broadcasting in it (like Euronews). I mean the importance of language for me is measured by its usefulness. When I choose which language to study, I think: how many people will understand me? How many Internet pages, news channels or radio stations broadcast in it? For how many firms is this language required? Do you agree with this vision? (let’s introduce some common basis for us) 



> Originally Posted by *BlueWolf*
> Which is the universal language? English.
> Which is the most influential country? USA.
> Which is its national language? English.
> Which is the most populated country? China.
> Which is its national language? Chinese.


 
It is not an argument. Ok, let me explain you more in detail what I’m trying to say from the very beginning. 

Which are the factors that make a language important? Demography, economy science, political power, culture (literature, prestige, etc).
Which is the most important one? Demography (high population of native speakers, spread over many countries)
Is demography a 100% of success? OF COURSE NOT

To make it even more clear:
Let’s appoint “points” for each one of factors. Say the demography is 45% (in the long-run)*, the economy is 35%, political+military power 10% (of couse the tree factors are highly correlated), science is within economy, culture (philosophy, literature, prestige, music, tradition) 10%. Of couse these are my subjective numbers. 
Say English (USA+UK+Australia+ …) gets 35 in demography, 40 in economy, 40 in political power and 40 in culture. And Chinese 40 in demography (note that not all China speaks Mandarin), 20 in economy, 20 in political power and 20 in culture. The points are from 0 to 40. 

In the end: 
dem econ power culture 
Englishà25*0,45+40*0,35+40*0,10+40*0,10 = 33,25
Chinese à40*0,45+18*0,35+20*0,10+15*0,10= 27,8 

Do you understand me? More examples:
Russianà10*0,45+5*0,35+20*0,10+15*0,10 = 9,75
German à 6*0,45+8*0,35+10*0,10+25*0,10 = 9
French à 9*0,45+6*0,35+15*0,10 +25*0,10 = 10,15
Arabic à12*0,45+3*0,35+5*0,10+15*0,10 = 8,45
Japaneseà6*0,45+10*0,35+10*0,10+15*0,10= 8,7
Spanish à20*0,45+10*0,35+10*0,10+20*0,10= 15,5
Italian à4*0,45+6*0,35+5*0,10+10*0,10 = 5,4

You have asked me before about Bengali, Persian, Urdu and some others. I’ve already answered you, but I could do it this way:

Bengali à10*0,45+1*0,35+1*0,10+ 2?*0,10 = 5,15
Farsi à6*0,45+3*0,35+3*0,10+10*0,10 = 5,05
Urdu à 4*0,45+2*0,35+3*0,10+ 5?*0,10 = 3,3

You can compare the overall with French, German or Spanish. 
Of course the numbers are approximate, but my … “theory” is able to explain almost everething.  It’s just a matter of putting the correct numbers. What about yours?


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## Vladislav

> Originally Posted by *BlueWolf*
> Are there nations between the most densely populated whose languages aren't universal/dominant? Sure, look at some posts above. (Hindi, Bengali, Indonesian, Persian, Urdu, etc. that can't be considered dominant, unless your criteria to define a language dominant are "it must have a large demography", that makes useless the discussion)
> Are there nations between the ones with the strongest and most important economies whose languages aren't universal/dominant?


 
See the answer above. And besides, as I’ve said, these languages are not the most spoken ones, they are not in the top.  



> Originally Posted by *BlueWolf*
> Let me think... I can't find any.


May I help you? Japanese, Italian or Korean maybe? Korean GDP is higher that Mexican. Italian is just a bit lower then the French. Japanese is the world’s 3rd.


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## maxiogee

Vladislav said:


> Oh my God! But who built and populated those towns? Do you think it would be possible without a lot of population? Latin settlers were very noumerous and spread all across the Empire. But if the native Latins were few, NOTHING would make Latin so important (none of the other factors). First: high population then: other factors.



How can you say that?
The population of Rome wasn't enough to provide populations to all the places the Roman empire conquered and settled administrations and troops into. 
These places were built and populated by locals, working to the instructions of the Roman 'invaders'.


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## Pedro y La Torre

Poetic Device said:


> Yeah, that was seven years ago.  Can you imagine what kind of a difference there is now?  Good grief, Charlie Brown.



A 200 million plus difference? Umm, I think not.


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## Poetic Device

Pedro y La Torre said:


> A 200 million plus difference? Umm, I think not.


 
Did I give a number?  I don't think that I did.


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## Vladislav

maxiogee said:


> How can you say that?
> The population of Rome wasn't enough to provide populations to all the places the Roman empire conquered and settled administrations and troops into.
> These places were built and populated by locals, working to the instructions of the Roman 'invaders'.


 
The population of Rome of course wasn't enough. But the point is that "the Romans" were spreading across all Italia and then the Roman empire, assimilating the native population, making them feel Romans. So, of course there were not only colonists from Rome. 

From http://www.answers.com/topic/colonization:


> Colonization was an integral part of Roman policy, providing land for the poor, supporting Roman garrisons, and again spreading Roman culture. In their colonization the Romans sought to assimilate the native culture into their own, and in some cases they bestowed Roman citizenship upon natives of the colony.


 
The ones who colonized the empire were those who were already assimilated before, basically in Italy. 

From: http://wolvesnotsheep.resist.ca/movement_history/colonization_and_decolonization/07b_rome.shtml


> Tribal chiefs and high-ranking families were targeted for systematic assimilation; often, their children were taken and taught how to speak and read Latin (the language of Rome ). Roman clothing and overall culture were imposed. After several generations, these peoples were effectively Romanized or Latinized, with some gaining citizenship and high ranking positions in the Roman military or political system.
> 
> Perhaps more than any other region, Europe stands as a stark example of the effects of colonization & assimilation. Today, very little remains of the European tribal cultures, which were destroyed & assimilated into the Roman imperial system (which explains why European civilization is essentially fascist in nature).


 
Do you understand it? It means: the population of Rome colonized and assimilated Lacium. So, in Lacium from now on live "Romans". Then, those Romans from not only Rome, but also Lacium, colinized Etruria and assimilated its population. Now all those regions were more or less Latin and could be used for the further colonizations. At last, all Italy became partially Latin-speaking. And this Latin-speaking population was colonizing the rest of the Empire. In every Roman colony the Latin-speaking population was dominant. 

In fact, those colonies were the mean to assimilate the barbarians, attracted by those colonies and towns as all the web pages and sources say. Once asimilated, the surpluses of this new Latin colony were used for the further colonization and assimilation. 

In fact, all the big Empires made the same. 

By the way: using the combination of all the factors that have influence on the importance of a language, we could try to predict which ones would be the dominant in the future. We just have to forecast the growth of each one of them.


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## don maico

I agree that mandarin as the Chinese are set to become the next superpower


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## BlueWolf

Poetic Device said:


> BlueWolf said:
> 
> 
> 
> If you want to talk, you could kindly explain what I've not understood. If you're here to say cryptal sentences, I don't see the point of the discussion is.  In absolute no offense, I think that I have explained it as kindly as possible.  If you think that what I say is "cryptal"  then why don't you ask me what it means?  Maybe then we will get somewhere.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> My comment about cryptal sentences was because you didn't explain what you meant to say and what I misunderstood, not for your sentence (that, it seems, I've not understood). So yes, that's precisely what I'm asking to you: could you re-explain it?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, immigration does still go on in Eurpe.  I'm not stupid.  I know that.  Howebver, I brought that up because unlike Europe, America is soley made up of immigrants.  The founders of this country were from your part of the world for crying out loud.  Immigrants come here 24/7 and after they come here they do what they do and teach their children whatever language they speak, and the language travels through the generations just like it would back home.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Not only that, but do you have any idea how many brats here want to learn a language like Chinese so that they can talk about anything anywhere and not have to worry about getting into trouble?  The heritage months that we celebrate help a little in that aspect, too.  I could go on, but I'm being kicked.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Have you ever been to the states?  How do you know what it is like here?  By word of mouth?  Don't believe everything that you here.  I don't assume to know anything that is going on in any other country...  If you have lived in the States before, my apologies
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> No, not by word of mounth, but by word of statistics. You can look by your own: http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-29.pdf
> According to those statistics 215,423,557 people on a total of 262,375,152 could only speak English in 2000. I don't think things have changed so much in six years.
> 
> 
> 
> Vladislav said:
> 
> 
> 
> Do you? So why did you put that the Latin settlers were power, not demography, in the beginning?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> For their military power, of course.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Oh my God! But who built and populated those towns? Do you think it would be possible without a lot of population? Latin settlers were very noumerous and spread all across the Empire. But if the native Latins were few, NOTHING would make Latin so important (none of the other factors). First: high population
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> à then: other factors.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> Do you think that when a city was conquered, thousands of Romans left their houses and invaded demographily it? The city was conquered because Romans ordered there, not because they were more numerous than the defeated people.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> all the rest (I don't quote it because it's too long  )
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> I think the problem that causes our misunderstanding is that you're not talking about the universal languages. You're talking about the most spoken ones, and you say they are the same thing. A universal language doesn't become that when it becomes the most spoken one. It becomes it when it becomes the most largely known by those who don't already speak it. One language can be the one of a country with the most numerous population but once you've left that country almost no one knows it. Or a language can be spoken by a relatively little part of the human population, but it's known as non-native language by a large number of people around the world. What is the universal language between them? I say the latter. If you say the former, apparently we're not speaking about the same thing.
Click to expand...


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## Vladislav

> For their military power, of course.


 
Military power of settlers, of immigrants?   The only agressive thing they could do is to burn cars in their own country (like in France). 



> Do you think that when a city was conquered, thousands of Romans left their houses and invaded demographily it?


 
I don't think, I know.    Ancient Rome had excess of population, as you know. The demography was much better than nowadays. 
Besides, the settlers were given land and privileges in the new lands. 
It was a kind of G.Britain, Holland or Spain in 16-18 centuries. 
The city was conquered because Romans ordered there, not because they were more numerous than the defeated people. Did thousands (millions, in fact) of British, Dutch or Spanish left their homeland and went to the new colonies?



> Originally Posted by *Vladislav*
> In fact, all the big Empires made the same.


 
That's the point. 



> I think the problem that causes our misunderstanding is that you're not talking about the universal languages....


 
BlueWolf, I don't understand whereas you agree or not with this view:



> By the way: dominant language in the world is a very useful language. You can listen songs, watch movies, communicate with many people, there are travel guides in that language, the world’s channels are broadcasting in it (like Euronews). I mean the importance of language for me is measured by its usefulness. When I choose which language to study, I think: how many people will understand me? How many Internet pages, news channels or radio stations broadcast in it? For how many firms is this language required? Do you agree with this vision? (let’s introduce some common basis for us)


----------



## Poetic Device

BlueWolf said:


> My comment about cryptal sentences was because you didn't explain what you meant to say and what I misunderstood, not for your sentence (that, it seems, I've not understood). So yes, that's precisely what I'm asking to you: could you re-explain it? All right. However, I unfortunately don't have the time to read everything all over again. What was it that I said that confused you?
> 
> 
> 
> No, not by word of mounth, but by word of statistics. You can look by your own: http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-29.pdf
> According to those statistics 215,423,557 people on a total of 262,375,152 could only speak English in 2000. I don't think things have changed so much in six years. I love my statistics just as much as the next person, however, do you have any idea how biased most of those sstatistics are? They never ask *every* person, and not everyone answers that national census (i.e. illegal immigrants, not to be one sided but it's the easiest example). Let me put it this way: I was never given the census and I was not told anything about it. How can they count me in that statistic? How do they know what I speak? I guess unless they lie, they can't/don't.
> 
> 
> I really don't mean to sound nasty; please excuse me if I have done so.


----------



## Prinsesse

I don't think any new language will revolutionize the world and make all schools and universities incorporate courses, programs etc in that language instead of english... However it could be kind of cool.

I once joined a lecture by a professor who was British who suggested some really interesting ideas. He believed that the use of esperanto would increase rapidly since it should be very logic.

However the best way to spread a language seems to be through the TV - therefore we need more international tv if english as a universal language is to be challenged...


----------



## BlueWolf

Vladislav said:


> Military power of settlers, of immigrants?  The only agressive thing they could do is to burn cars in their own country (like in France).


 
We were talking about Romans. Of course they had a great military power in the lands they just conquered.



> BlueWolf, I don't understand whereas you agree or not with this view:
> By the way: dominant language in the world is a very useful language. You can listen songs, watch movies, communicate with many people, there are travel guides in that language, the world’s channels are broadcasting in it (like Euronews). I mean the importance of language for me is measured by its usefulness. When I choose which language to study, I think: how many people will understand me? How many Internet pages, news channels or radio stations broadcast in it? For how many firms is this language required? Do you agree with this vision? (let’s introduce some common basis for us)


 
I think it's too much dispersive. I think a universal language should deal with international comunication. How many people will understand me? I think the number is not so important, because the speakers could be all in the same area. If there's a percentage of speakers, even small, but in every place on the Earth, I think that language is more universal than the other. 
Reassuming I think that what shows the universality of a language is its use as international language in the world. By now it is only English, other languages are used but in smaller regions.




> All





> right. However, I unfortunately don't have the time to read everything all over again. What was it that I said that confused you?


 
I don't know.  You told me I didn't understand your sentence because of my answer.



			
				Poetic Device said:
			
		

> I love my statistics just as much as the next person, however, do you have any idea how biased most of those sstatistics are? They never ask *every* person, and not everyone answers that national census (i.e. illegal immigrants, not to be one sided but it's the easiest example). Let me put it this way: I was never given the census and I was not told anything about it. How can they count me in that statistic? How do they know what I speak? I guess unless they lie, they can't/don't.
> I really don't mean to sound nasty; please excuse me if I have done so.


 
No, you're not nasty, but I don't really see where the problem is. Statistics aren't the same thing as a census, otherwise they would have the same name. But statistics aren't unfounded just because they don't ask every single person. And moreover they aren't unfounded because they don't ask illegal immigrants, who, no offence for them, aren't to be considered in this kind of statistics. "America doesn't accept them as citizens, so it can't say to speak their langueges." Otherwise we should maybe consider tourists too (I know the difference between a illegal immigrant and a tourist, but they both aren't part of the American community).
And not to sound nasty (I'm afraid the following sentence does, but it's because of my limited knowledge of English), but those statistics are surely more well-founded than your opinions over Americans' language skills.


----------



## Amerikaner508

I hope that the next universal language is German because... That is the language I am studying at home. =)


----------



## Poetic Device

BlueWolf said:


> I don't know.  You told me I didn't understand your sentence because of my answer.  Well, that's good.  The two of us were real productive with this, weren't we?  LOL
> 
> 
> 
> No, you're not nasty, but I don't really see where the problem is. Statistics aren't the same thing as a census, otherwise they would have the same name. But statistics aren't unfounded just because they don't ask every single person. And moreover they aren't unfounded because they don't ask illegal immigrants, who, no offence for them, aren't to be considered in this kind of statistics. I thought that the statistics that we were talking about dealt with this country as a total whole.  Meaning, whomever lived here and was going to remail living here for at least several years.  "America doesn't accept them as citizens, so it can't say to speak their langueges." Who said that?  Otherwise we should maybe consider tourists too (I know the difference between a illegal immigrant and a tourist, but they both aren't part of the American community).  Here is where I respectfully half disagree with you:  if you work here you're part of the community (exchange students are questionable because of the basic idea of a foriegn exchange student).
> And not to sound nasty (I'm afraid the following sentence does, but it's because of my limited knowledge of English), but those statistics are surely more well-founded than your opinions over Americans' language skills.  You're probably right, nice man.


 
I know that statistics and censuses are not the same.  That was a bad example on my part (if it makes sense in my head I don't pay attention to other's way of thinking.  A bad habit I'm afraid.)


----------



## Lombard Beige

Has anybody considered the possibility of English written in Chinese characters?

I found an article on the Internet on the subject, but it seemed rather complicated. If the Japanese can write their language in Kanji, why not English?

I realize that Chinese characters take a long time to learn, but they allow the speakers of the so-called Chinese dialects, which are really languages, to understand each other, so?

regards


----------



## Poetic Device

That would be an interseting thing, however, just because the beautiful writing is so hard to learn and most people have some form of laziness in them I doubt it.  Then again, I'm probably wrong.


----------



## BlueWolf

> Well, that's good. The two of us were real productive with this, weren't we? LOL


 
It seems so!  




> I thought that the statistics that we were talking about dealt with this country as a total whole. Meaning, whomever lived here and was going to remail living here for at least several years.





> Here is where I respectfully half disagree with you: if you work here you're part of the community (exchange students are questionable because of the basic idea of a foriegn exchange student).
> 
> Well, yes, the statistics were about Americans, but I do see your point about immigrants.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> "America doesn't accept them as citizens, so it can't say to speak their langueges." Who said that?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Me.  I mean, the community doesn't accept them, they aren't American citizens, so why America should count their language skills as hers?
> 
> 
> 
> Poetic Device said:
> 
> 
> 
> I know that statistics and censuses are not the same. That was a bad example on my part (if it makes sense in my head I don't pay attention to other's way of thinking. A bad habit I'm afraid.)
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Don't worry, it's a habit of mankind.
Click to expand...


----------



## mbrlr

For the foreseeable future, English will be that language.  Despite our dreadful spelling problems --- our words are spelled with letters, but the pronunciation of those words oftentimes is more akin to Chinese; it's merely a symbol of the word and the pronunciation may have very little to do with the spelling that was fixed 500 years ago.  English does have a gift, though, for adapting to circumstances and I imagine we'll do that for some time to come.  Chinese, whether it's the next great power or tries to become the next great power in what was supposed to be, post-Cold War, a virtual cultural and political empire for the US, simply can't adapt that well if only because of its lack of an adaptable alphabet.

The fear of Spanish in the US and the whole anti-immigrant idiocy plays into the fear that English is somehow on the way out.  I'm married to a Latina and our children are little anglatinos, but I'm ashamed to say they don't speak Spanish and my wife and I don't speak it to each other.  My in-laws still speak Spanish, but my wife's siblings all speak English to one another and that tracks perfectly with immigrants from times past.


----------



## Poetic Device

mbrlr said:


> For the foreseeable future, English will be that language. Despite our dreadful spelling problems --- our words are spelled with letters, but the pronunciation of those words oftentimes is more akin to Chinese; it's merely a symbol of the word and the pronunciation may have very little to do with the spelling that was fixed 500 years ago. English does have a gift, though, for adapting to circumstances and I imagine we'll do that for some time to come. Chinese, whether it's the next great power or tries to become the next great power in what was supposed to be, post-Cold War, a virtual cultural and political empire for the US, simply can't adapt that well if only because of its lack of an adaptable alphabet.
> 
> The fear of Spanish in the US and the whole anti-immigrant idiocy plays into the fear that English is somehow on the way out. I'm married to a Latina and our children are little anglatinos, but I'm ashamed to say they don't speak Spanish and my wife and I don't speak it to each other. My in-laws still speak Spanish, but my wife's siblings all speak English to one another and that tracks perfectly with immigrants from times past.


 
I don't think that wanting to be a little more selective with who is allowed in constitutes as idiocy.  It's more like protecting an investment.  You don't want the country that you are investing your life and the future of your family in to go down the drain, and with the way that America is going, I am afraid that is exactly what is going on.  If not for any other reasin then because they do not screen for criminals and diseases like they used to.  I am not saying that all of Spanish of Latino decent are evil.  I am part Saniard and a little (ever so slightly) Puerto Rican, and my uncle married an Ecuadorian.  For me to be anti-Latino/Spanish would be to be anti me.  I just feel that w2hen you are in America, and you are not talking to someone that you know for sure is fluent in your language, don't try to talk to them in anything other than English.  That goes for when you are cursing at them, too.
I will continue with this, but the baby finaly decided to stop playing football.


----------



## Porteño

Quite honestly, I can not see any living language other than English ever being the lingua franca. It is the universal language of computer technology which itself is what most heavily influences our everyday lives. Furthermore it is already a pretty universal language and, as others have pointed out, is the easiest language to learn from a grammatical standpoint (let's not go into pronunciation and spelling!). 

In many countries today, learning English is an obligation under the education curriculum. I don't know, but suspect that this might be the case in China. They are very pragmatic and are undoubtedly well aware that the rest of the world is not going to learn any of their multitude of languages and if they are going to be the economic superpower of the future, they will need to conquer the markets using English.

Lastly, to make sure this happens, this is the opportunity for all of us English teachers to move in on that distant land and make a fortune. After all there are more than one and a half billion Chinese, so it's a pretty big market in which we can all get a nice chunk. How about it, everyone?


----------



## Vladislav

> Originally Posted by *BlueWolf*
> We were talking about Romans. Of course they had a great military power in the lands they just conquered.


 
I don’t think the settlers had a big military power as you say. Demographic indeed, though.



> Originally Posted by *BlueWolf*
> I think a universal language should deal with international comunication. How many people will understand me? I think the number is not so important, because the speakers could be all in the same area. If there's a percentage of speakers, even small, but in every place on the Earth, I think that language is more universal than the other.


 

You’re saying that I’m right, do you see it? You’re saying that the number of the people that can understand me measures the “universality” of a language. This means that a large quantity (demography) is a basic factor and it doesn’t matter is they learnt this language or it’s just their native language.



> Originally Posted by *mbrlr*
> Despite our dreadful spelling problems --- our words are spelled with letters, but the pronunciation of those words oftentimes is more akin to Chinese


 
Haha, you can’t imagine how right you are!    





> Originally Posted by *mbrlr*
> simply can't adapt that well if only because of its lack of an adaptable alphabet.


 
Very interesting point. And very important. I think when I was making a system to measure the “universality” of the languages this factor would be something negative. 
Moreover, I think, probably it’s not only the alphabet, but also the general difficulty to learn a language, in this case Chinese. But the same thing happens to Russian, Arabic or Hindi.
For example, after English, I probably will be studing French, not Chinese. It’s easier, although less useful.


----------



## BlueWolf

Vladislav said:


> I don’t think the settlers had a big military power as you say. Demographic indeed, though.




You are joking, I hope. Romans conquered so many territories with their armies. They didn't go in a land, say to the people "We are more than you" and after that those people were conquered.
 



> You’re saying that I’m right, do you see it? You’re saying that the number of the people that can understand me measures the “universality” of a language. This means that a large quantity (demography) is a basic factor and it doesn’t matter is they learnt this language or it’s just their native language.



Maybe it wasn't clear, but the sentence "How many people will understand me?" was a quotation from your post. If you read carefully what I'm saying in the quote, you'll see I'm saying exactly the opposite. It doesn't matter _how many_ people speak that language in the world, the problem is _where_ the language is known in the world. A language spoken by millions of people, but who live all in a single nation, isn't a universal language.


----------



## BlueWolf

Porteño said:


> Furthermore it is already a pretty universal language and, as others have pointed out, is the easiest language to learn from a grammatical standpoint (let's not go into pronunciation and spelling!).



English isn't at all the easiest language to learn from a grammatical standpoint, even if we don't go into pronunciation and spelling. English has two kinds of articles that are difficult to learn even for those speakers whose languages use them, asphyxiating and harsh rules about the words order, a lot of words coming from different languages that makes difficult to know which using in every context, three different ways to express the future, a not little number of irregularities, both grammatical (_tooth_ --> _teeth_) and lexical (_tooth_ --> _dentist_) and so on.


----------



## Poetic Device

Why English will never be the universal language.


----------



## Vladislav

> You are joking, I hope. Romans conquered so many territories with their armies. They didn't go in a land, say to the people "We are more than you" and after that those people were conquered.


 
 Of course not. I'm just answering to you. 
 A simple conquest usually doesn't make the people change their language. 

Russia conquered Poland, Caucasus or Finland but they were not populated with Russian settlers. So now, they are not speaking Russian (generally). 
 Just the opposite happened in Baltic states, Ukraine, Moldavia or Belarus and that's why most of them are Russian-speaking and many of them are native-speakers (they even don't want to study Ukrainian, Latvian or Belarusian -  the reason is that, in fact, they are Russians living in those countries or native population assimilated by those Russian settlers, we could name them Russians as well).

 Aragon-Catalonia conquered Balears, Sicilia, Sardinia, Valencian territories, South of Italy and Eastern Pyrenees.
 Nowadays, Catalan is spoken in major or smaller degree ONLY AND EXCLUSIVELY in those regions that were populated with native-speaking Catalan settlers. Neither in Sicilia, Sardinia or Italy.

 If you want more examples I could give more, but I hope with these two it must be enough.




> It doesn't matter _how many_ people speak that language in the world, the problem is _where_ the language is known in the world. A language spoken by millions of people, but who live all in a single nation, isn't a universal language


 
  I've said in my very first post that demography alone is not enough, haven't I? And I've said that it's much more "effective" when it's acting along whith military occupation, technological superiority, TV channels, strong economy, IMMIGRATION (that what make languages like Chinsese, Spanish or Arabic more important - they are spoken in some single territories, but by means of immigration are spread over more and more countries and terriotries).

 So, in the answer for this particular post of yours is immigration.


----------



## Vladislav

I agree with BlueWolf in his last post. Paradoxically one of the main problems in learning English is its richness.  (leaving aside the pronunciation)


----------



## BlueWolf

Vladislav said:


> Of course not. I'm just answering to you.
> A simple conquest usually doesn't make the people change their language.



I asked if you were joking because you actually said an other thing. You said "I don’t think the settlers had a big military power". Now you're saying that they had but it's not important to make the people change language.



> Russia conquered Poland, Caucasus or Finland but they were not populated with Russian settlers. So now, they are not speaking Russian (generally).


 
 I will take this example because I'm not well-informed about the other one. First of all, could you please write the period you're talking to when you write these examples? About the example, the language of the settlers will be largely known by the conquered people if the settlers actually have an impact on their lives. A short conquest where moreover the settlers do not controll the country, of course, won't make the people change language.



> I've said in my very first post that demography alone is not enough, haven't I? And I've said that it's much more "effective" when it's acting along whith military occupation, technological superiority, TV channels, strong economy, IMMIGRATION (that what make languages like Chinsese, Spanish or Arabic more important - they are spoken in some single territories, but by means of immigration are spread over more and more countries and terriotries).



Everytime I write an example, you say demography alone is not enough. You can't justify it only by saying it. If demography doesn't make a language become universal, maybe it means that demography only help to bring to the conditions that are the real reasons which make a language become universal. (I hope this sentence is understandable)



> So, in the answer for this particular post of yours is immigration.



Eh? What do you mean?


----------



## uchi.m

The next universal language will be: no language.

Long before the Chinese, Indians or any developing country people reach a life standard comparable to that of the Americans or of any developed country people, or long before they manage to overthrow the US economical or military hegemony, the world will completely run out of natural resources, and people will probably be rather struggling or battling for survival than be yearning to learn a second language.

I just hope that Nature will manage to give birth to a new civilization after mankind passes away, and that this new civilization finds the remainder of our history useful for their life on Earth.

I would better stop watching sci fi movies.


----------



## karuna

Vladislav said:


> Just the opposite happened in Baltic states, Ukraine, Moldavia or Belarus and that's why most of them are Russian-speaking and many of them are native-speakers (they even don't want to study Ukrainian, Latvian or Belarusian -  the reason is that, in fact, they are Russians living in those countries or native population assimilated by those Russian settlers, we could name them Russians as well).



Despite large influx of Russian immigrants (up to 40% of population) into Latvia during the occupation period, the Latvian population was never assimilated by them. The same is even more true for other Baltic countries. It simply created two linguistic communities. That is also a reason why many those immigrants don't try learn Latvian – because they can get by living and working in their own communities, not because there is no need for speaking Latvian to fully function in the society. It is very similar to the first generation of Spanish speaking immigrant workers in the USA who are often unable to learn English. But their children will probably be speaking English, as well as Spanish and the third generation will most likely be speaking only English.


----------



## Holden1979

I'd find it a terrible shame if one language ever became the worlds 'lingua franca'.  How many languages are there in the world now, 10,000?  100,000?  Words and language are not just signifiers, they begin in myth and evolve like the humans who created them.  When a language dies its ideas become extinct.  English has become prolific because it's managed to absorb lots of other words/ideas (veranda, croissant, algebra, avocado etc.).  It's convenient, reasonably easy and widely used.  How many ideas would die out if we only had one language?


----------



## BlueWolf

Holden1979 said:


> I'd find it a terrible shame if one language ever became the worlds 'lingua franca'.  How many languages are there in the world now, 10,000?  100,000?  Words and language are not just signifiers, they begin in myth and evolve like the humans who created them.  When a language dies its ideas become extinct.  English has become prolific because it's managed to absorb lots of other words/ideas (veranda, croissant, algebra, avocado etc.).  It's convenient, reasonably easy and widely used.  How many ideas would die out if we only had one language?



When one talks about linguae francae, it doesn't mean the other languages have to die. A lingua franca is simply a language used when two people don't share the same native language. That's all.


----------



## Holden1979

I see what you mean.  It helps if cultures can communicate between themselves, but I do worry globalisation brings a uniformity that wipes out the differences that make life so varied.


----------



## Vladislav

Karuna, to be honest, you are right. I shouldn't have mentioned the Baltic countries. Nevertheless for Ukraine, Belarus and partially Moldavia it's true. Probably even for Latvia and Estonia sometimes, but very rarely (of course you know it better than me). 





> You said "I don’t think the settlers had a big military power".


 

And I'm saying it now. Without preparation, weapons, generals, provisions, etc they are just cannon fodder at best.

Finland was part of Russia during 1809-1917. More than enough as you can see. 

Poland (what we nowadays know as "Poland" was divided between Russia, Austria and Prussia in 1795, although afterwards, in the Congress of Vien in 1814 Russia took possesion over major part of Poland (including Warsaw). Only in 1918 Poland recovered its independence. More than enough again.



> maybe it means that demography only help to bring to the conditions that are the real reasons which make a language become universal.


 
Isn't it what I'm saying? Necessary but insufficient condition - I've said it many times. And one of the major, perhaps the major factor.




> Quote:
> So, in the answer for this particular post of yours is immigration.
> Eh? What do you mean?


 
Oh,  hahahaha.    Sorry, see what a person can write in a hurry. I meant to say: "So, the answer for this particular post of yours is immigration" (high population, demograhy, that goes outside the country).


----------



## karuna

Vladislav said:


> Karuna, to be honest, you are right. I shouldn't have mentioned the Baltic countries. Nevertheless for Ukraine, Belarus and partially Moldavia it's true. Probably even for Latvia and Estonia sometimes, but very rarely (of course you know it better than me).



 It would be true only for certain regions in the country. But not so much due to assimilation but merely displacement. I don't see how Moldova has been assimilated by Russian speaking immigrants. The separatistic Transdnipria region is a proof of existance of two national communities. Also in Ukraine also the East part are mostly Russian speaking and the West part are mostly Ukrainian speaking population, that also creates certain linguistic conflict.


----------



## Vladislav

I mean, the traditional Ukraine (Malorossiya, Novorossiya, etc). Not Galicia. And there the people with Ukranian ancestors and Ukrainian names and surnames prefer Russian to Ukrainian and many cases. 
  In fact, my father is from Ukraine and he has problems speaking Ukrainian. 

 As far as I'm informed, many native people in Moldavia and not only in Transdnestria, have switched to Russian during the last decades. And don't forget: native Moldavians also live in Transdnestria, in fact they are about a third of its population. Notice that I've said "partially Moldavia".


----------



## karuna

Vladislav said:


> As far as I'm informed, many native people in Moldavia and not only in Transdnestria, have switched to Russian during the last decades. And don't forget: native Moldavians also live in Transdnestria, in fact they are about a third of its population. Notice that I've said "partially Moldavia".



I don't really believe that after the breakup of the USSR Moldavians are switching to Russian language. Sounds like a Russian propaganda to me. On the contrary, they have abondoned cyrillic script and switched to Latin alphabet. And just because there are native Moldavians in Transnistria, doesn't mean that they all speak Russian. Being minority in the region they are forced to use Russian in business but at home majority would be still speaking Moldovan.


----------



## Vladislav

Well after the breakup of the USSR of course not or not so much. Besides, the Russians have never been the majority in the whole Moldavia. 

In Transdnestr they are and that's why the Moldavians are switching to Russian and being assimilated in that region. That means the massive immigration of Russian-speakers in that region made the native population partially assimilate themselves. Or, al least, made the language of the immigrants dominant in that region.  
 If Russians were majority in the whole Moldavia, the same thing would happen there as well. 
 It proves how important is the combination "demography+immigration".


----------



## BlueWolf

Vladislav said:


> And I'm saying it now. Without preparation, weapons, generals, provisions, etc they are just cannon fodder at best.




Rome was the first military power during its Empire. I don't see proofs against this, sorry.
 



> Finland was part of Russia during 1809-1917. More than enough as you can see.


It's not a case that Russian is so studied in the East Europe. To change language however Russia should have had a cultural and social impact. Has it had?




> Poland (what we nowadays know as "Poland" was divided between Russia, Austria and Prussia in 1795, although afterwards, in the Congress of Vien in 1814 Russia took possesion over major part of Poland (including Warsaw). Only in 1918 Poland recovered its independence. More than enough again.


It's not even a generation. Of course it's not enough to make a population change language.




> Isn't it what I'm saying? Necessary but insufficient condition - I've said it many times. And one of the major, perhaps the major factor.


I think you don't understand what I say. I try to say it the easier I can. If A causes B and B causes C, B is still the cause of C. Of course A can help to cause C, ut it's B the cause.
 


> Oh,  hahahaha.    Sorry, see what a person can write in a hurry. I meant to say: "So, the answer for this particular post of yours is immigration" (high population, demograhy, that goes outside the country).


I don't understand yet!


----------



## karuna

Vladislav said:


> In Transdnestr they are and that's why the Moldavians are switching to Russian and being assimilated in that region. That means the massive immigration of Russian-speakers in that region made the native population partially assimilate themselves. Or, al least, made the language of the immigrants dominant in that region.
> If Russians were majority in the whole Moldavia, the same thing would happen there as well.
> It proves how important is the combination "demography+immigration".



It probably has less to do with immigration than political situation there. The same applies to Ukraine. In other words, language with more political, economic or cultural potential will dominate. Your examples only show that for immigration to work, the immigrants need to become more than 50% of population and then it is only becomes natural that the majority wins. But that is rarely the case. More often it is a smaller percentage of immigrants who are backed by political or economic power. 

 Wait a generation or two and all those Russian speaking Ukrainians together with Russian immigrants will be again speaking Ukrainian again if their current language policy remains unchanged. And even today in Latvia more students are learning English than Russian despite having very large Russian speaking population as neighbors. 

India has English as lingua franca despite that there has not been considerable immigration of English speaking people there. It was enough that rulers spoke that language and it was internationally important when they left. 

Another example is that Latvians genetically are more similar to Estonians and Finns than Western Europeans. The question that has not been answered is if these were Baltic tribes that emmigrated to Estonia but took their language or the other way around. In other words genetics cannot establish what language(s) our blood ancestors spoke.


----------



## Poetic Device

You know...  I was not understanding why people were saying that they thought that Chineese would be the next uni language, but I was talking to my step mother about it and she said something that I did not think about it:  the sheer population of the Chinese perple would render it close to dominating the rest of the languages.

However, I do not know if that would constiture as reason for beating English in the rat race there.


----------



## Vladislav

Let’s make the point about the settlers clear one and for all.



> Originally Posted by *Vladislav*
> Do you? So why did you put that the Latin settlers were power, not demography, in the beginning?


 
And you answered:


> Originally Posted by *BlueWolf*
> For their military power, of course.


 


> Originally Posted by *Vladislav*
> Without preparation, weapons, generals, provisions, etc they are just cannon fodder at best.


 


> Originally Posted by *BlueWolf*
> Now you're saying that they had (military power) but it's not important to make the people change language.


 
Me???? Where?  I think you are twisting everything.

I’m saying that the settlers have no power, but the massive immigration of those is an important factor to increase the importance of a language. 
You’re saying it’s not. What you say (I guess) is that the settlers (population) have military power and, therefore, make a country more important and thereby its language as well. 

I think, high population make a county more important, but its military or political power hardly is so important for the language. 



> Originally Posted by *BlueWolf*
> Rome was the first military power during its Empire. I don't see proofs against this, sorry.


 
Neither see I. Am I saying it wasn’t? I’m just saying that is wasn’t because of the settlers. And that the military power of a nation is not so important for the extension of a language. 


Originally Posted by *Vladislav*
Finland was part of Russia during 1809-1917. More than enough as you can see. 



> Originally Posted by *BlueWolf*
> It's not a case that Russian is so studied in the East Europe. To change language however Russia should have had a cultural and social impact. Has it had?


 

Ehhm, ehm, it has nothing to do with Poland, Finland or the Russian Empire. If it wasn’t for the Soviet occupation, Russian wouldn’t be studied in the Eastern Europe.
It had social impact. As well as in other conquered countries. But Russian prevailed and remains nowadays only in those regions that where populated with Russian settlers: Eastern&Southern Ukraine, Belarus, Abhazija, Osetija, Lativa, Estonia, Kazahstan, Kirguiziya. 
The Baltic states, by the way is an interesting case, and I think very easy to understand. They were conquered in the same time, but as in Estonia and Latvia there are so many Russian settlers, Russian is very important there, whereas in Lithuania it is not so.
Like in Lithuania, neither in Poland, nor in Finland there was a massive Russian immigration. 

Originally Posted by *Vladislav*
Poland (what we nowadays know as "Poland" was divided between Russia, Austria and Prussia in 1795, although afterwards, in the Congress of Vien in 1814 Russia took possesion over major part of Poland (including Warsaw). Only in 1918 Poland recovered its independence. More than enough again. 



> Originally Posted by *BlueWolf*
> It's not even a generation. Of course it's not enough to make a population change language.


 
What are you saying???  The life expectancy was 40-50 years. More then enough. Look at Latvia, in 50 years, Russian became the second, if not the first, language of this country because of immigration (unlike in Lithuania as I’ve already said).  
If immigration had taken place in Poland or Finland, the same thing would happen there. 



> Originally Posted by *BlueWolf*
> I think you don't understand what I say. I try to say it the easier I can.


 
So do I.  



> Originally Posted by *BlueWolf*
> If A causes B and B causes C, B is still the cause of C. Of course A can help to cause C, ut it's B the cause.


 
You are saying: if demography (A) causes power (B) and power (B) “causes” importance to the language (C), is the power (B) what makes a language important (C). The demography (A) can help, but it’s the power (B) the main cause.

Now I will repeat what I’ve already said TONS of times. Probably you haven’t read it because of the lack of time. If it’s more easy for you to do it with letters, I’ll do it this way, although I’ve done it before with numbers.

L (language importance) could be caused by different factors, ehm … letters: D (demography), I (immigration), P (power), E (economy), M (military power), C (cultural dominance), A (and so on) … Of course, each one of them has a different impact on L. Whereas A (and so on) has little, D has a huge impact on L. 

Moreover, the different letters not only have impact on L, but also on other letters. 

“D” proves to be historically the most important one or at least one of the most important factors, with a major impact on L, especially when combined with “I”. I’ve given a lot of examples. 

I also tried to give some numbers in my previous posts and calculate some estimations of the importance of the different languages, based on this “system”. 

One of the reasons I’ve done it is that it may help us to predict the future of each one of the languages (L) if we estimate the evolution of each factor (A,E,I,D,etc). 

I think it’s impossible to make this idea more clear.


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## Vladislav

> Originally Posted by *BlueWolf*
> I don't understand yet!


 
Never mind. It’s wasn’t something important, to be honest.


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## Vladislav

Karuna, in Western Ukraine, Russians have never been the majority. That's why they have changed back so quickly. 

Just the opposite happens in Eastern Ukraine. As you know, their leader, Yanukovich generally speaks Russian and more and more Eastern regions make Russian cooficial with Ukrainian. Defacto, it would mean that Russian will continue dominating in that regions because if its population is allowed to choose ... you can imagine which one will they choose.  




> And even today in Latvia more students are learning English than Russian despite having very large Russian speaking population as neighbors.


 
They could learn whatever they want. As far as I know, when looking for a job, Russian is something almost indispensable either in Latvia or Estonia.  

Is' not a rare case that the immigrants prevail. I could give you many historical examples if you want.

Well, in India the immigration wasn't important, you are right. It's an interesting case, ideed. In some African countries also happened something similar. But what is rare are such cases.

Now, let me tell some jokes about it:
The Latvian students learn English more than Russian because they already know the latter.   
They learn English more than Russian because they don't want to work in Latvia, but in Western Europe.    




Poetic Device said:


> the sheer population of the Chinese perple would render it close to dominating the rest of the languages.





Poetic Device said:


> However, I do not know if that would constiture as reason for beating English in the rat race there.


 
Looks like I've got a follower.   Population: important but may not be sufficient.


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## karuna

Vladislav said:


> The Latvian students learn English more than Russian because they already know the latter.




It is a misconception. We are not automatically able to speak Russian just by being born in Latvia. I couldn't speak any Russian even after studying it for 12 years at school. And most of my nephews who don't study it at school, have practially zero knowledge of Russian.


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## Vladislav

Well, you neither are automatically able to speak Latvian, do you?

And the Russian comunity, 40% of the population of your country, call them Ruslats, many of them have a zero knowledge of Latvian as well as your relatives of Russian. 

Anyway, it was a joke.


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## karuna

> As far as I know, when looking for a job, Russian is something almost indispensable either in Latvia or Estonia.



Actually in my job the knowledge of Russian has never had any use. As I said at another thread, for low paid customer service jobs like shop attendents or waitress, it is indispensable. But for any sufficiently skilled job it is rarely needed. For example, my younger brother doesn't speak Russian and works as an IT administrator. He never had any problem. Of course, there are some areas like import/export business where Russian would be a great asset but such jobs are rare.


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## karuna

Vladislav said:


> Well, you neither are automatically able to speak Latvian, do you?
> 
> And the Russian comunity, 40% of the population of your country, call them Ruslats, many of them have a zero knowledge of Latvian as well as your relatives of Russian.



Most of them speak Latvian at some level. It is more problematic for elder people but young people have no problems.

But I have never heard such a term "Ruslat". They are called "Russian speaking" (ruskoyazichnie) because not all of them are Russians. They could also be Ukrainians, Kazakhs, Georgians etc.


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## Poetic Device

Vladislav said:


> Looks like I've got a follower.  Population: important but may not be sufficient.


 

Yeah, I agree with you.  I feel that you have to think about a plethora of different aspects when considering the future of our language(s).  The popularity of a language does count, but you also have to think about if the language is easy to learn; how long does it take to learn it; *where are the majority of the ones that speak it geographically*?  That last part is especially important.  if 3/4 of the speaking population lives in between two mountains or on a far away island then the chances of it spreading are less likely.


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## Vladislav

> Actually in my job the knowledge of Russian has never had any use. As I said at another thread, for low paid customer service jobs like shop attendents or waitress, it is indispensable. But for any sufficiently skilled job it is rarely needed. For example, my younger brother doesn't speak Russian and works as an IT administrator. He never had any problem. Of course, there are some areas like import/export business where Russian would be a great asset but such jobs are rare.


 
Well, I've got a different idea of it. The high-skilled jobs are minority. The most part of the population of any country works at normal, mainstream jobs. And these jobs, as you yoursalef have said, often require Russian.

Besides, if the proportion of Russians were not 35-40%, but 50-55%, the things would have changed greatly.

I think we are going a bit of course of the thread, now. 



> But I have never heard such a term "Ruslat". They are called "Russian speaking" (ruskoyazichnie) because not all of them are Russians. They could also be Ukrainians, Kazakhs, Georgians etc.


 
"Ruslats" is my invention. Just to call them somehow in English  ("russkoyazychnye" is understandable only for two of us).  
For all I know, most part of Latvians also can speak Russian at some level.


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## Vladislav

> Yeah, I agree with you. I feel that you have to think about a plethora of different aspects when considering the future of our language(s). The popularity of a language does count, but you also have to think about if the language is easy to learn; how long does it take to learn it; *where are the majority of the ones that speak it geographically*? That last part is especially important. if 3/4 of the speaking population lives in between two mountains or on a far away island then the chances of it spreading are less likely.


 
That's the point! Now, the question is, of course, how much impact does each one of the factors have on the general importance of a language. And how will these factors will be changing in the future. So, we could try to predict the next universal language.

"Just"   doing it.


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## karuna

I have different experience regarding Estonia and Lithuania. When I go to Estonia I can rarely get service in Russian and most of the time we need to use English. Whereas in Lithuania I was always able to use Russian, even though they have much less Russian population there. I lived and worked in Lithuania for a year and never met an adult Lithuanian who couldn't speak Russian.


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## karuna

Vladislav said:


> Besides, if the proportion of Russians were not 35-40%, but 50-55%, the things would have changed greatly.



Possibly, but not guaranteed. The statistics was that Latvians constituted 52% of population in 1990. The political situation counts very much in such situations.


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## Vladislav

I think I know why. 

The major part of the population of the three Baltic countries knows Russian. Some of them are native speakers. 

But in Lithuania there's no fear of being assimilated by Russians. So, they don't have problems in using it. While in Lativa and Estonia there is quite a lot of native Latvian/Estonian speakers that know Russian, but never use it, because they hate it. Many of them even don't recognize in the polls that they know it.

This idea came to me mind because something similar happens to me with Catalonian. I know it, but I almost never use it. 

Of course it's only my guess.



> Possibly, but not guaranteed. The statistics was that Latvians constituted 52% of population in 1990. The political situation counts very much in such situations.


 
 Do you beleive in the polls of that period? The same people that in 1990 said they were Russians, could perfectly say in 1994 that they are Latvians from now on.


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## BlueWolf

Vladislav said:


> Now I will repeat what I’ve already said TONS of times. Probably you haven’t read it because of the lack of time.



No, I can assure you I have read carefully all your post. If I've not understood some parts, probably it's because this discussion lasts days, English isn't my native language and we switched topic a lot of times. However I think now we can only agree that we disagree. At least, it seems we finally understood what our different opinions are, didn't we?


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## karuna

Vladislav said:


> Do you beleive in the polls of that period? The same people that in 1990 said they were Russians, could perfectly say in 1994 that they are Latvians from now on.



I don't think it was a poll but rather statistics from population registry offices. At that time the ethnicity was recorded on birth certificates and passports and people rarely changed it. It was inherited, so to speak.  Of course, they could be officially Latvians but speak only Russian or vice versa. And children from mixed families could probably choose their ethnicity. But I believe that 52% is correct but it does not represent the regional distribution. For example, in Daugavpils about 90% are Russian speaking, in Riga about 60%, yet Russian language doesn't have any official status in these places.


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## Cache

Which language is stronger in Europe? French or German? To my mind, one of these will be the lingua franca. They both are spoken in economically strong countries.


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## Chaska Ñawi

Cache said:


> Which language is stronger in Europe? French or German? To my mind, one of these will be the lingua franca. They both are spoken in economically strong countries.



This opens up a whole can of worms as to how you define a strong language.  The number of speakers?  Their economic power?  Their literature?  Film?  Where do you draw the line?


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## Vladislav

> No, I can assure you I have read carefully all your post. If I've not understood some parts, probably it's because this discussion lasts days, English isn't my native language and we switched topic a lot of times. However I think now we can only agree that we disagree. At least, it seems we finally understood what our different opinions are, didn't we?


 
Hehe, ok: we agree that we disagree. Of course I get your point and who knows, maybe you are right. Who can know for sure?  

What is interesting is that the results are in many cases very similar in both our versions (call them "demographic" and "political") because a highly populated country/countries in many cases is powerful (or a powerful country in many cases is highly populated) and its language is important.  



Karuna, I can't believe that in Latvia there were only 52% of Latvians. If it were so Russian would be more important there than it is. 

What I guess was happening is what happens in many other similar situations: the neutral people among the minorities are what is better for them at that particular moment: if in 1990, in the USSR it was better to be Russian a part of Latvians or mixed population was choosing to be Russian (to call themselves "Russians" oficially).

In the very moment the USSR exists no more, the people say what they really are. 

Conclusion: I believe more in the Latvian polls than the Soviet ones (polls or whatever).

Talking about the regional distribution: what happens in Daugavpils or Riga is shameful in my opinion. 
Something 





> (Native of: Latvian, Latvia)


 tells me that probably you won't agree. 



Chaska Ñawi said:


> This opens up a whole can of worms as to how you define a strong language. The number of speakers? Their economic power? Their literature? Film? Where do you draw the line?


 
That is exactly what we've been discussing.


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## karuna

Vladislav said:


> Karuna, I can't believe that in Latvia there were only 52% of Latvians. If it were so Russian would be more important there than it is.



While your nationality was registered on your papers it practically had no meaning. I have never heard anyone changing his nationality from Latvian to Russian or otherwise. The only exception were Jews or Gypsies who sometimes complained about this record in their documents as discriminatory and had it changed to Russian or Latvian. But their numbers are small. 

The numbers match. 8% difference from today is due to emmigration. Many Russians had only moved there relatively recently and they couldn't get Latvian citizenship and in economically unstable times they had no interest to learn Latvian language, so they moved back to Russia or Ukraine or other places. All in all in Latvia the population has decreased quite a lot during this time.

Another thing that shows very clear trend in that growth due to birth in Russian speaking families is lower than among Latvian population. 



> Talking about the regional distribution: what happens in Daugavpils or Riga is shameful in my opinion.
> Something  tells me that probably you won't agree.


 
That's probably a discussion for another thread. I just wanted to illustrate with examples that sometimes demographics won't be enough to guarantee language rule. I have been reading about Puerto Rico recently and that they have made English an official language despite being mostly Spanish speaking teritory. If they become the US state, then it is very probable that in a few generations they might become English only environment like Hawaii.


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## Vladislav

If the data of 1990 about the nationality has no importance, don't cite it. It cannot be a proof of anything.
The immigration CAN make things change. In fact, the example with Daugavpils or Riga is a proof. Could you go to Daugavpils and feel yourself comfortable without Russian?  



> I just wanted to illustrate with examples that sometimes demographics won't be enough to guarantee language rule.


 
But that's exactly what I've said many times!!! Ask it to BlueWolf  



> Another thing that shows very clear trend in that growth due to birth in Russian speaking families is lower than among Latvian population.


 
Are you saying that the birth rate of Russian-speakers is lower than that of Latvian-speakers?


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## karuna

Vladislav said:


> If the data of 1990 about the nationality has no importance, don't cite it. It cannot be a proof of anything.



Why not? It is the most important data about demographics we are discussing about. 



> Are you saying that the birth rate of Russian-speakers is lower than that of Latvian-speakers?



Probably the difference is not very considerable but I have read such statistics.


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## ireney

Moderator's note: While I can see the usefulness of the debate about the Latvian and the Russian language in Latvia as a real world example of whether or not a language can become universal in given circumstances, such a discussion can go a bit too far and become off-topic. Please keep in mind that we are talking about the next "universal" language and getting caught up into a discussion about a particular case can be counter -productive


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## MarX

Miguelillo 87 said:


> My friend and I have decided the three languages that we think can be the next “universal language”
> 
> - Chinese ( mandarin), Why? Because We think China it’s one of the nation which it’s taking more advantages of the globalisation, and it’s becoming really powerful and could be a nation with a big economical power in order to take the power to USA and in a few years.
> 
> - German.- We believe Germany it’s one of the most important nations on EU, and one of the most developed, also Germany it’s one of the leaders on technology, medicine and science.
> 
> 
> - Spanish.- It’s one of the most spoken languages all around the world, Also Latin-America (Spanish it’s the first language on America)it’s growing and it’s a important target for many investor of all the world.
> 
> 
> So what it’s your opinion 4 you which languages could be and why?


To be honest, none of them.

Those languages you mentioned are big, but they are geographically limited.

Mandarin is practically useful only in China and Taiwan.
The Chinese in other countries prefer either English or the language of the country they're living in.

German, only in Europe.

Spanish only in Spain, Latin America, and some parts of Africa.
You may want to add the Philippines, but just like Portuguese in East Timor, the extent of the presence of Spanish in the Philippines is often exaggerated.


I'm not saying that English won't be replaced by any other language in the future, but for the extent English has reached today, I don't see any other language that come even close. At least not in the near future.


Salam,


MarX


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## balasang

I think Spanish will annex English. But English might stay for a very long time


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