Should English stay the lingua franca of Europe?
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A common language serves common communication. As a happenstance of history that turned out to be English. Changing it would be enormously costly and hinder cooperation. Aside from that, learning English is useful as it's more or less commonly understood in almost every country in the world.
It's not a happenstance, the British colonized half the planet and refused to conduct government business in anything other than English. Then the US decided to play world police and economic hegemon. Europe followed as a matter of financial necessity duo to globalization.
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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?
It never was
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It never was
You realise you wrote this in English don't you?
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It's not a happenstance, the British colonized half the planet and refused to conduct government business in anything other than English. Then the US decided to play world police and economic hegemon. Europe followed as a matter of financial necessity duo to globalization.
But it could've easily been French (or some other language) that ended up in the same position.
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It even existed in Old and Middle english, upto the 1500s.
Some nouns still have genders in english. But this is more an exception than a rule. Ie. a ship/boat is female (called āsheā), while nature is also feminine (often personified as āMother natureā).
a ship/boat is female (called āsheā), while nature is also feminine (often personified as āMother natureā).
This isn't gender though, this is just personification. The thing about grammatical gender is that it is *not* personification. For instance, Germans don't view a table has having some kind of male quality, nor do the French view a table as being somehow female.
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But it could've easily been French (or some other language) that ended up in the same position.
Thank god it's not French
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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.
Ireland has English and Irish.
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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.Ā 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.Ā Similarly, several long land borders made an effective domestic army imperative for any French ruler.Ā 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.Ā 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,Ā e.g., theĀ Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-LayeĀ and theĀ 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 theĀ 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 inĀ BengalĀ and the defection ofĀ HyderabadĀ to the British as a result of the war, this effectively brought French power in India to an end, making way forĀ British hegemonyĀ 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. Itās 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.
