@J4J: When Rome declined the internet didn’t exist nor was it as omnipresent and influential as English is right now. You go to Mongolia, Chile, or the northern expanses of Canada and a lot of peeps probably speak English. Latin? It was not very widespread in comparison to English.
A lot of respected figures in the linguistic community believe that English will be part of a linguistic multipolar society in which French, Spanish, Arabic, Mandarin, and other languages are also very influential languages. That is, many believe that English will not be absolutely dominant but also not disappear and fracture into many languages, partly because technology helps us keep in contact and teach “standard” English. Or standard enough so that we don’t all these creole languages.
@julz611 I live in Latvia, spend most of my time in Europe and hear lots of excellent, accented English. But if I hear a faux Julia Gillard or something akin to Meryl Streep in Evil Angels I really will have to ask…“Why?!”
I don’t get home very often, but it’s always a blast hearing the Aussie accent turned right up to 11 at Sydney airport
Of course you’re both right. But my point was simply this: up to now it has never been the case that one single language has gained final dominance over all others.
Maybe modern media such as the internet are new factors which will change all of that - but personally I rather doubt it. There is absolutely nothing to stop another language from gaining ground on the internet (unless I’m missing something?)
If the global ‘centre of gravity’ shifts away from the West and towards China (as many people predict) I can see Mandarin being very much stronger in 50 or 100 years than it is now. However, I can also see Russian and Portuguese being stronger in the future.
@J4J: I don’t think English will ever completely push out other languages in science, research, and the like. However, its grip is pretty strong, almost complete. German used to be a big player in medicine, for example, but now apparently not so much.
I think Mandarin will definitely become much more influential but English has a big advantage because it is already WIDELY used and American/Western culture is pretty omnipresent, I think. I don’t see Asian culture becoming very popular in the world. (Study a lot, play piano, violin, don’t play sports, bring honor to your family. Actually, this is pretty true. Our childhoods are the same as the “Tiger Mom” described in the New York Times. No joke)
Yes, I also see Russian, Portuguese, Arabic, and Chinese gaining a lot. Conversely, I see French, Japanese, and German going down a bit. For French, it is all about Africa. It depends on the everyday people in the Francophone–if they all start becoming literate and functionally fluent in French, English, or their native tongues. In the case of Germany and Japan, their demographic weight will decrease a lot due to an aging population and considerably decreased population. Japan is projected to go from its current ~130 million to like 110 million and Germany from ~80 to 70 million.
If you look at the 19th century German literature, you would find lots of French words in their French forms. Now those are germanised, but English neologism stand out.
Neither Russian, nor German, let alone English have ever been especially puristic and absorb foreign vocabulary quite easy. On the other hand, Icelandic and, from what I know, Chinese have extremely few loan-words. Both approaches are fine and traditional for those languages.
Agreed. But there are some reasons for thinking French (and perhaps German?) could actually become stronger within Europe than they are now.
At the moment English is the de facto main operating language of the EU. But (as I mentioned in an earlier post) it is now looking pretty likely that the UK will have some kind of looser relationship with the EU in future. It is even possible that we will leave completely. If this happens, it would be politically difficult for them to keep using English as their main working language - so this could give a kind of ‘boost’ to French and/or German as an alternative.
When Rome declined the internet didn’t exist nor was it as omnipresent and influential as English is right now
Most of the books in Europe are now written in national languages. Laws are in national languages. Education is in national languages. Well above half of scientific works are in national languages.
350 years ago almost all books in Europe were in Latin. Laws were in Latin. Scientific discussions? Latin!
Those who couldn’t read Latin were in the majority, but just because they couldn’t read at all!
Eastern Asia was a separate world then, but Classical Chinese played the same role there as Latin in Europe.
There was no single global world, but these languages were much more influential in their worlds, then English is in our and for a much longer time period.
@J_4_J
@ Steve
Even as the influence of Rome declines, the usefullness of Latin may remain. What could replace it?
Even as the influence of the US and Britain declines, the usefullness of English may remain. What could replace it?
This analogy deserves attention, but it’s difficult to say whether it is going to be the case with English.
Rome was a common lofty ideal for Europeans. It’s hard to judge on the emotional connection with the US/Britain in the world. Especially to last for a thousand years.
Even if the role of the US diminishes, the English language would be unlikely seen as a neutral one.
Moreover, we now have countries with proactive cultural policies: Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation didn’t bother if anyone knew German. Modern Germany does. (I would love if Russia strived more for its cultural appeal and promotion of the language)
So…when Latin was in its heyday it had a lot of speakers in all continents of the world? And when two people, let’s say randomly a Russian person and a Mexican person meet, what language do they choose as a lingua franca? If you are hypothetically put in a random part of the world, what language would you use so that somebody would understand you? English? German? Esperanto? American Sign Language? When latin was dominant, were tens of millions of people learning it in Chile, China, or Mexico?
Keep in mind that English is not just coming from the US or Great Britain, but other very influential and wealthy countries like Canada, Australia, the elite of India, South Africa…
And why is English by far the dominant language that people learn as a foreign tongue?
I don’t have the link for it anymore, but scientific research published in English was like 90%; it was very high.
In the HTLAL site there are non-English forums but there is very little posting in non-English languages.
I don’t care if English isn’t as influential in 100 years as it is now. Partly because I won’t be here, but I know that it will be extremely influential in 100 years relative to other languages.
let’s say randomly a Russian person and a Mexican person meet, what language do they choose as a lingua franca?
People from America and Eastern Europe just could not meet at that time.
Now they would use English as a lingua franca, but not as the language of science, law and education at home, as it was the case with Latin for Western Europeans at the time. It’s not what I would call deep penetration, not to mention absorption (that is what we [forum members] started with here).
So…when Latin was in its heyday it had a lot of speakers in all continents of the world?
The world where Latin was spoken was not spread over different continents. But it was a world - not a part of it for the matter, since it had very limited connections to other worlds.
Keep in mind that English is not just coming from the US or Great Britain
Doesn’t seem to be a strong argument, even though I don’t get what it should argue about. Spanish, Russian, Arabic are the languages of majorities in more countries if just that counts.
And why is English by far the dominant language that people learn as a foreign tongue?
I am loosing your point. Before we compared the influence of English with the influences of lingua francas of the past and talking about for how long the dominance of English as a lingua franca could last.
I don’t care if English isn’t as influential in 100 years as it is now.
Not that I care really much, but it is what the discussion had been about from some point.
I know that it will be extremely influential in 100 years
Most likely so on the global scale, but it’s harder to predict when we are talking about any single region. Europe or India, for instance. It’s unlikely to be as influential as Latin on the territory and in the spheres where Latin was influential. The whole thing on the forum has begun with “whether English would absorb certain territories”. Latin had absorbed huge spheres of life in Europe, that English didn’t. On the other hand, we can buy food in English anywhere in Europe, while most medieval salesmen were not likely to know Latin - yes.
Top Ten Internet Languages in The World - Internet Statistics
It’s just showing how many NATIVE speakers of whatever have access to Internet. Give everyone in the Middle East a LAN (wait some 10 years, in other words) and Arabic is going to be #3 on that list (while Chinese is going to be #1 by that useless criteria). But it is not going to make other countries use Arabic and even not necessarily going to put Arabic on #3 by the number of websites in it.
It sounds like you are describing Latin as the current United States of America. English is omnipresent here except for a few cities where Spanish is actually the majority language, and the US is a very wide area of land. You could apply the same example for China and Brazil, for example. The Roman empire at its peak encompassed 6,500,000 km². The US is 9,826,675 km2 in area. You could think of the “English” empire as the Roman Empire +50% of its size + all the other areas where English is dominant or influential.
The reason that I think that English is much more influential than Latin ever was is because of the decreased barriers to communication. Since planes and a fast method of travel didn’t exist back then, Latin couldn’t become as important as English is.
Spanish is very widely spoken but the global influence of a lot of the countries with Spanish as the official language is fairly low compared to English. (And it hurts me to say that as a big hispanophile)
Russian is very large, but very sparsely populated as you obviously know and Russian has been trying to push its citizens to have more kids to keep its population from decreasing like Japan’s will. And Russian is, I’m pretty sure, the most important foreign language or 2nd language in the former Warsaw Pact countries. However, Russia’s reach is definitely regional in comparison to English’s world influence. Same with Spanish, Arabic, French.
English is by far the most learned foreign language since it is much more influential than other languages.
It was not hard for Latin to be influential when its area was much smaller than that of the entire world, much smaller than the area that English covers in its spheres of influence.
I doubt that the internet stats are just native speakers; Ethnologue estimated roughly 320 million native English speakers in its most recent edition and not all natives are connected online. Those stats are just the languages used by internet users.
You see that English was estimated as having 565 million users online and that was only 43.4% of the total number of “proficient” English speakers, 1.3 billion. So if all the other English speakers get online, the number of English speakers also blows up.
Regardless, look at other charts for the percentage of webpages in English. This is probably a better way of measuring a language’s influence. China has a lot of people connected but a comparatively minuscule percentage of webpages are even in Chinese; not as much of a market for pages in Chinese, apparently. 54.9% of webpages in English, Russian 6.1%…
Sounds like you are describing Latin as the current United States of America.
Nope. Since Latin was not a native language for anyone in the Medieval Europe, but still reserved huge spheres of life for it. The language’s influence is much about how deep it can penetrate into non-native environments. You are going to have no problem buying a burrito in English in Mexico, but it is not the language of science and education in Mexico. So, there is going to be no hassle when Mexico will learn how to sell buritos in Chinese instead of English, 'cause the level of penetration is superficial. Replacing Latin in Europe in its spheres of life, on the other hand, was a long journey due to deep emotional connection, connection with some social institutions and how its appeal was seen.
German is actually doing well now in part thanks to the dominance of English. Knowing English impresses nobody, and the obvious second language to learn in Europe to emigrate and get a job is German.
Ebert erinnert sich an eine Umfrage in Moskau in seiner Zeit als Leiter des dortigen Goethe-Instituts. Heraus kam: Ein Drittel lernte bei Goethe Deutsch aus beruflichem, ein weiteres Drittel aus kulturellem Interesse. Das letzte Drittel gab persönliche Motive an. Heute nehme das berufliche Interesse zu. “Man braucht heute Englisch, das ist klar. Aber Englisch kann jeder. Wer sich absetzen will, lernt eine weitere Sprache – Deutsch zum Beispiel. Wir erarbeiten darum spezielle Curricula für Lehrer, für Ärzte, für Ingenieure, die die entsprechende deutsche Fachsprache lernen wollen.”
and:
Von 2010 bis 2012 wuchs die Teilnehmerzahl an den Deutsch-Kursen des Goethe-Instituts in Barcelona um fast 50 Prozent, in Madrid um fast 60 Prozent, in Lissabon um 33 Prozent, in Porto, ebenfalls Portugal, um 66 Prozent und selbst in Chicago, USA, um 17 Prozent.
Von 2010 bis 2012 wuchs die Teilnehmerzahl an den Deutsch-Kursen des Goethe-Instituts in Barcelona um fast 50 Prozent, in Madrid um fast 60 Prozent
@Mithridates That is fun, tragic and optimistic at the same time! And since there has never been a considerable knowledge of in English in Spain, I would be laughing out loud if German actually outruns English in Spain in some 15 years!
P.S. I don’t say all those things 'case I dislike English. I love it!
You do know that the Roman Empire was a lot smaller (33% smaller in area and much smaller in population) than even the US currently is, right? So…are you saying that the US would be as influential as Latin if English were something that people in North America learned as a secondary language to communicate and not a native one? For me, the number of secondary speakers speaks about the influence of a language but I would sure want a large native speaker base in addition to that!
You’ll have a tough time making a living in Mexico without Spanish, yes. But is English influential in many parts of Africa and across oceans? Was Latin spoken all over the world? No, because communication between continents was fairly primitive back then…another reason why English is so much more influential. Due to the internet, more interconnected business between distance countries, the telephone, etc.
“Nope. Since Latin was not a native language for anyone in the Medieval Europe, but still reserved huge spheres of life for it. The language’s influence is much about how deep it can penetrate into non-native environments. You are going to have no problem buying a burrito in English in Mexico, but it is not the language of science and education in Mexico. So, there is going to be no hassle when Mexico will learn how to sell buritos in Chinese instead of English, 'cause the level of penetration is superficial. Replacing Latin in Europe in its spheres of life, on the other hand, was a long journey due to deep emotional connection, connection with some social institutions and how its appeal was seen.”
At the end of the day, we are just talking about what aspect of the language’s dominance is more important. So, let’s just agree to disagree. It has been a nice discussion!
There is no doubt that English is the most important lingua franca for most people now, but comparing it with those of the past and looking into the future is interesting!
@ Ernie, With respect sir, I’m not offended by English, I’m just indifferent to reading and hearing it at this point. English doesn’t give me that blank canvas feeling of viewing a new world within a world.
“(I would love if Russia strived more for its cultural appeal and promotion of the language)”
Thanks for making this point, eugrus. I would love to see languages such as Russian with more influence on the huge western social-networking platforms or communities like this one that are connected them (the four icons at the bottom right of this page). That is all I really wanted to say, and I think many would agree.
thanks for the replies everyone, I’m out of ideas now. :)))
“In the Western world in the Middle Ages, students used to move around from one university to another; they all felt at home in each university. This was easy because, in the Middle Ages, Latin was the common language of Western higher education. Everybody who had any education could speak some kind of Latin. It might have been a Latin that would have set on edge the teeth of a classical Latin writer, but it was a means of communication, and a very effective one. As a matter of fact, colloquial Latin went on being spoken in Eastern Europe, in Poland and Hungary, right into the nineteenth century. I once met an old Polish nobleman who could still speak colloquial Latin. I met a Hungarian cardinal who could do the same. I think 1846 was the year in which Latin ceased to be the language spoken in the Hungarian Parliament.” found on the web.
The populations of the Roman Empire at its peak and of Han Dynasty China were about the same, 60-70 million people, I believe. 2000 years ago the population of the world was less then 250 million people, or less than the population of the US today (about 330 million I believe).
I would also like to see Russia do more to promote Russian. This would require a change in their approach to PR, a move to a lighter, less propagandistic approach.
I see English maintaining its position as the most useful international language in the world, i.e. language spoken by native speakers of other languages. However I see more regional languages taking hold. German, not Russian, in Eastern and Central Europe; Russian and Chinese in Central Asia; maybe Spanish in the Americas, meaning the US and Brazil. French and English will dominate in Africa, and English in Asia, for quite some time to come.
I agree with pretty much all of your points Steve.
I’ve read that Brazil doesn’t speak much Spanish (they don’t, nor much English) because the major population centers are on the East side of the country and far from the bordering Spanish-speaking countries. However, you think that Spanish will be much more prominent in Brazil than it currently is? They passed the “Spanish Law” in 2005, I believe, but it just makes Spanish offered in schools and the level of proficiency reached in most language schools is fairly low, sadly.
Do you think French will have the same relatively influence as it does now in the Arabic speaking countries? It’s interesting what will happen in Africa, what with its economic and linguistic futures yet to be decided.
And why German instead of Russian in Eastern and Central Europe?
From what I have heard, English is not that widespread amongst the general population in Brazil, but amongst top level businessmen, and academics it is widely used . It is probably used more as an international language than Spanish. I don’t know much about this, but I would imagine that it is in Brazil’s interest to develop more Spanish capability in order to expand relationships with its neighbours.
The population in Africa is growing and French will only grow in importance as a lingua franca since there are so many local languages. On the other hand, in the Arabic world, I don’t see French growing beyond its base in North Africa.
To the people in the former Warsaw Pact countries, Russian has some not so positive associations because of the recent past. English, and to a lesser extent German, is seen as more prestigious, and a door to more opportunities. As Germany’s economic influence increases, with increasing trade and investment, and as there appear to be more and more opportunities to work in Germany, I see the importance of German growing.
