Unlikely to change in the near future. English has a lot of momentum with a lot of people around the world being proficient in it, and it’s also relatively easy to learn. I do expect that as China becomes increasingly more important partner for countries around the world, we’ll see the use of Mandarin increase. More countries are going to start offering Mandarin as an option in schools, and students will want to learn it because it will open up opportunities for them.
We might see a bifurcation between the West and the Global South here as well. I imagine countries that remain under US vassalage will continue to favor English, while the rest of the world will move on.
Many learners have trouble with English pronunciation if they come from rhotic languages or don’t know the TH sound, and it has a number of difficult constructions which you need to internalise. In parts of the global south, it might be replaced by Spandarin, which would be Spanish with Mandarin grammar
Every language has some aspects that are tricky and require memorization though. In my experience, English was easier to learn than other languages I know. I do think that the more important factor will be how useful learning the language is for people. If the global south ends up partnering more with China, which is what we see happening, then Mandarin will be the more important language there.
Isn’t Mandarin harder to pronounce, since it’s a tonal language?
Spandarin, which would be Spanish with Mandarin grammar
I don’t see how this benefits Spanish or Mandarin speakers
The pronunciation of Mandarin is hard, the grammar is easy. The pronunciation of Spanish is easy, the grammar is hard. Why not take only the easy parts from both?
The rolling R in Spanish is not easy for a lot of people, for example, me, a native speaker of a Chinese language.
Because then you get a conlang that is intuitive for neither Spanish nor Mandarin speakers.
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We might see a bifurcation between the West and the Global South here as well.
Won’t happen, and it’d be bad if it did
Global South has 8 billion people (and rising) while the West has barely 1literally all you have to do is nothing, and assuming 100% English proficiency and worldwide communication, the voices of the former will drown out and/or convert the voices of the latter
THE FIREWALL (of english non-fluency) IS FOR YOUR OWN PROTECTION
in other words: IMPEACH THIS
I’m just expecting that the west is going to become increasingly xenophobic and insular as the global south starts to become the dominant force in the world. In the long run, I completely agree, but in the short term I expect the west to act in the most reactionary way possible.
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I don’t think there will be another international language, because AI translation develops rapidly.In fifteen years, we will be able to chat like in Star Trek
Yeah, language translation is getting to the point where we might not need to have a standard international language at all.
I wouldn’t be too surprised if English will end up a bit like Latin did, being used as an international language long after the empire that made it the dominant language has disappeared. The reason people wants to learn English is that so many other people speak it, there’s a lot of inertia to those kind of things.
Are you saying English will split into a bunch of mutually unintelligible languages around the world?
Language plays an important role in who we are. English’s status as the current international language results in giving its native speakers a cultural edge over the rest of the world. I don’t see it as a good thing, it is harmful to people who are sometimes mislead into thinking that English is therefore a superior language, and Anglo culture is to be emulated. Which is why I am happy that Saudi Arabia is introducing Standard Mandarin education, and also with the spread of Chinese culture and media. The existence of an alternative international language can go a long way towards removing the fake shine of English. It is just another human language that got lucky through historical circumstances.
good to hear.
I wish we could replace it with a truly international interlang, something as easy as toki pona. Globasa looked decent the last time I checked. But any proposal there needs adoption by at least one country as a second language.
But for now, practically, English Mandarin and Spanish will let you communicate with the majority of the world.
I had some thoughts on it here and here.
“Nobody cares enough to read your back-catalogue Vampire”
Oh ok, I think it sucks. It’s indisputably a result of Anglo-American imperialism.
Having said that, politics is practical and real. I do get kinda upset about the fact that the world is the way it is (first post linked), but facts don’t care about my feelings, we have to deal with practical politics and accomplish accomplishable things. The status of English isn’t going soon.
I don’t know who that person you’re quoting is, but I strongly disagree. Citing our previous thoughts on a topic can be very useful to a discussion.
Particularly these two posts. Short and relevent!
aw thanks
If wasn’t a tool of imperialist oppression and was more open to incorporating foreign words, it might actually be fine. But I’m no linguist, so perhaps there’s a better option for a universal second language.
If wasn’t a tool of imperialist oppression and was more open to incorporating foreign words
The more Global Southerners speak this, the less this becomes true
Everyone must learn English (as a second language)
BILLIONS OF TAXA WILL BE RENAMED
I think it’s not good. I made a post about this as well, and my feeling is that English as the main language strengthens the American hegemony and gives them a heads up to the rest of the world. It’s hard spreading communism when people consume a lot of American media, since English is the only foreign language they know.
Lingua Franca comes and goes, faster than anyone realizes, and faster than anyone in this thread realizes.
Utterly and unfathomably based and the only thing I’d prefer is if Mandarin phased it out in the future
French and German can suck my dick, useless languages that nobody in the 3rd world should ever learn
French should be deleted overnight from every African country and replaced with Englishmore POC speaking English increases revolutionary thought as they inevitably get exposed to
hypocrisy and tantrums3rd world citizens speaking English makes 3rd worldist communication, cooperation, and JDPON even remotely possible
POC need to (and inevitably will) colonize the English language and mass vandalize Wiggapedia
Every species name in taxonomy needs to be renamed from english/greek to its actual Indigenous name that’s been in use for 2000+ years, instead of “Parlomantotremius xylospongiumidae”, or some rich brit who had the time to vacation there 150 years ago – WE WILL HAVE 1 BILLION MOUNT DENALISEnglish is already heavily influenced, maybe even disproportionately, by Black American culture
English-as-a-global-language is why youtube comments don’t completely suck shit, it’s because Non-White people actually comment on youtube (but not reddit)
Global English-fluency would (and is in the process of) ABSOLUTELY CRUSHING the stranglehold that white anglos have on media and pop culture
A one-world-second-language preserves language diversity because it’s easy to be bilingual, and so languages like Wolof and Pitjantjatjara and Cherokee actually have a shot at surviving as native languages (I’m fluidly bilingual in a non-European language despite being born in the US and never even actively trying to learn it)
It will always be infinitely amusing that people from 3rd world countries speak better English than half the population of actual England, if oi do say so me self
French and German can suck my dick, useless languages that nobody in the 3rd world should ever learn
French should be deleted overnight from every African country and replaced with English
These points are only true because English is the current international language instead of French, German, or whatever. It doesn’t say anything about the quality of English, German or French as languages (if you can speak of such a thing). I hope you realize this instead of regurgitating the “French bad amirite” meme from reddit. I don’t even like French that much, just tired seeing the same joke over and over.
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Were they previously colonized by the French? Or maybe they switched to French because of their proximity to Madagascar?
If I had to guess, I’d say this is jointly studied by linguists, historians and sociologists
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I hope you realize this instead of regurgitating the “French bad amirite” meme from reddit
Don’t care and not our problem
The powers that be recently decided to change the common names of birds to descriptions instead of names. Thick-billed Longspur instead of McCown’s Longspur as one example of the many birds named after confederate fucking generals.
They agreed the names made it hard to identify the actual species based on appearance, plus the amount of species named after terrible racists (Audubon included) was incredibly high.
I’d rather we use the indigenous name for the birds, but removing references to colonizers from their names is a good start.
Utterly and unfathomably based and the only thing I’d prefer is if Mandarin phased it out in the future
Chinese is a stupid language, if English gets phased out it needs to be replaced by something with an actual alphabet
nah I think it’s fine if ur bigbrained enough
Practically, it helps international communication.
But I guess so does mandarin.
while the reasons throughout history suck… it’s too entrenched and too late to try to make the world learn some other second language together…
besides, it’s definitely the best language for rapguessing you haven’t heard rap in many languages
I would love it if one of a conlang could make it as a lingua franca, but really it is what it is right now. We need some form of lingua franca to effectively communicate, and English has deeply embedded itself in fields that easily cross borders, like aviation and programming. Changes would take a substantial effort, or some sort of paradigm shift that renders all of this old English content to not be needed.
There have been many universal languages that change with the times over centuries. It’s never been a conlang though. That could happen theoretically if the internet meme culture could somehow propagandize people to learn new languages. It be funny if everyone had international business meetings in Toki Pona.
Unfortunate but it’s the reality we live in with no signs of changing any time soon. On a long enough timescale the language of the next economic hegemon (almost certainly china) would supersede it but the climate apocalypse will come first.
I don’t think there should be a predominant language on Earth. Ideally everyone would be able to speak the same universal language but that would destroy so many languages and jokes specific to certain languages. And inevitably if there was a SINGULAR UNIVERSAL language, people would still study the “dead” languages. As we do with Latin.
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