Should English stay the lingua franca of Europe?
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Don't kid yourself, if you would speak English over there, how come I barely understood this Australian who told me he's been "leggin' it barefoot since he stacked it near the servo and now he's flat out like a lizard drinkin' and tryin' to find a dunny before he cops a fair dinkum blue".
This is clearly fabricated, you're missing way too many swear words.
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There were many lingua francas of which French was supposedly the first global lingua franca. That changed and it became English (from what I understand). We will probably see another language become the lingua franca, so my question is: should it be English? Are there better candidates out there? Why / why not?
Given how western society is doing, Mandarin might not be a terrible call.
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But it could've easily been French (or some other language) that ended up in the same position.
I think that what started that snowball rolling was the Seven Years War. That started the Brits on the path of being the bigger global empire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Years'_War
For much of the eighteenth century, France approached its wars in the same way. It would let colonies defend themselves or would offer only minimal help (sending them limited numbers of troops or inexperienced soldiers), anticipating that fights for the colonies would most likely be lost anyway. This strategy was to a degree forced upon France: geography, coupled with the superiority of the British navy, made it difficult for the French navy to provide significant supplies and support to overseas colonies. Similarly, several long land borders made an effective domestic army imperative for any French ruler. Given these military necessities, the French government, unsurprisingly, based its strategy overwhelmingly on the army in Europe: it would keep most of its army on the continent, hoping for victories closer to home. The plan was to fight to the end of hostilities and then, in treaty negotiations, to trade territorial acquisitions in Europe to regain lost overseas possessions (as had happened in, e.g., the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye and the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle). This approach did not serve France well in the war, as the colonies were indeed lost, and although much of the European war went well, by its end France had few counterbalancing European successes.
In India, the British retained the Northern Circars, but returned all the French trading ports. The treaty, however, required that the fortifications of these settlements be destroyed and never rebuilt, while only minimal garrisons could be maintained there, thus rendering them worthless as military bases. Combined with the loss of France's ally in Bengal and the defection of Hyderabad to the British as a result of the war, this effectively brought French power in India to an end, making way for British hegemony and eventual control of the subcontinent.
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English is a global lingua franca, not just european. And it's not just because of the american and british influence, but because it's a relatively easy language.
Also the translator programs are better and better, this is actually a good and fitting usecase of current LLMs. I think we are not far away from the babel fish.
a relatively easy language.
Counterpoint:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJ69ny57pR0 -
It's super easy to learn, but extremely hard to express stuff with.
To say "I love bricks" you'd say "poki loje lon sinpin li poki tawa" which translates directly to "red box on wall is lovely to me".
A vid by Half as Interesting on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d6bGAw5yt8
Hll, thats discouraging
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Given how western society is doing, Mandarin might not be a terrible call.
Isn't it the most difficult language to learn for Westerners?
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Ireland has English and Irish.
Irish? Isn't it called Gaelic?
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The Year of Esperanto is finally upon us! Bonan Matenon, Europe!
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The Year of Esperanto is finally upon us! Bonan Matenon, Europe!
Nia tempo venis!
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Isn't it the most difficult language to learn for Westerners?
if by westerners you mean english speakers, then yes, it's known to be one of the more difficult ones. it's ultimately subjective, but what people find hard about mandarin is 1.the writing system 2.tones
what also doesn't help is definitely lack of exposure, chinese popular media isn't very popular in the west
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Through authority over schools the Lingua Franca is controllable.
Only in the region you have control over. Example, EU decides French is the new lingua Franca. That doesn't mean China, India or the US will start learning French. If they don't then it isn't really the lingua franca.
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There were many lingua francas of which French was supposedly the first global lingua franca. That changed and it became English (from what I understand). We will probably see another language become the lingua franca, so my question is: should it be English? Are there better candidates out there? Why / why not?
Is this some kind of ragebait? I speak French but if you look at the attitude that the French have towards their language and compare that to their average commandment of the English language, why should we do that to a whole continent?
If you ask me people in the EU should be raised bilingually and learn English from kindergarten on. All administration and official stuff should be bilingual. That would be a way for the EU to remain competitive. But no, we rather go down the Nazi route, way to go.
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if by westerners you mean english speakers, then yes, it's known to be one of the more difficult ones. it's ultimately subjective, but what people find hard about mandarin is 1.the writing system 2.tones
what also doesn't help is definitely lack of exposure, chinese popular media isn't very popular in the west
Also Chinese people are confused af if you try to speak Chinese with them. I tried several times and they were just looking at me like wtf are you doing. It’s probably a combination of not really getting why a foreigner would start speaking Chinese with them and me being extraordinarily bad at doing it too.
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Again, English would make so much more sense as a common language than Arabic. There are more English speakers in Egypt alone than there are Arabic speakers in the whole EU.
Yeah but Arabic is much cooler than English.
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There were many lingua francas of which French was supposedly the first global lingua franca. That changed and it became English (from what I understand). We will probably see another language become the lingua franca, so my question is: should it be English? Are there better candidates out there? Why / why not?
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I would actually love a law that says Esperanto has to be the first foreign language taught in each EU school.
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The Lingua Franca didn't change because someone decided to change it, it slowly happened. You could argue it would be nice for EU if the (local) Lingua Franca would be the language of a large member state, but I don't see it happening by force. Probably better to just leave it to be English, even if the Irish are the only native speakers in the EU.
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There were many lingua francas of which French was supposedly the first global lingua franca. That changed and it became English (from what I understand). We will probably see another language become the lingua franca, so my question is: should it be English? Are there better candidates out there? Why / why not?
What if it remained English, but with the change that a new phonetic spelling system is used instead of the clusterfuck that is regular English spelling?
Wat if it remejnd Inglish, bat wit de chejnđ dat a nju fonetik speling sistem iz uzed insted of de klasterfak dat iz de regjular Inglish speling.
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Don't kid yourself, if you would speak English over there, how come I barely understood this Australian who told me he's been "leggin' it barefoot since he stacked it near the servo and now he's flat out like a lizard drinkin' and tryin' to find a dunny before he cops a fair dinkum blue".
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Having a big economy who's inhabitants never have to invest time into learn another language is a huge advantage for this economy. It's not a level playing field. Today there is no reason to still support English. In Europe we should use Esperanto or another easy to learn equivalent.
Today there is no reason to still support English
This forum bringing together people from different countries, is in itself proof that there is a reason. Many people are already comfortable if not fluid in the language. How many folks speak Esperanto already?
