Job Discussion Forums

[dove]

We can all agree that English is the lingua franca of the world. But do you think--hypothetically-- another language would be a better choice? Do you think there are other languages that would be easier for non-native speakers to learn? What are the advantages of English as a lingua franca?

For example, one advantage of English is there isn't a polite "you" form. I think that makes the langauge easier to use in a vast number of situations. There also aren't so many humble or honorific forms....but maybe this a disadvantage?

I'm not an expert on languages, so I'd like your insight.

Thanks!
Dove

[Mark]

I think that the best choice currently available would be Esperanto. Yes, Esperanto still exists. It's been around for over 100 years so it's had most of the kinks worked out, so to speak. It's a completely functional language and nobody has the native speaker advantage. It has an extensive technical vocabulary and can be used by professionals in pretty much any field.

If adopted, virtually anyone could become functionally fluent in less than one year. Currently, a majority of the vocabulary roots come from Romance languages, which gives Romance speakers (and English speakers) an unfair advantage, but the vocabulary could be altered to include words from a wider variety of languages which would further level what is already a pretty level playing field. Anyway, even though many roots come from Romance, most Esperanto words are made from combining existing roots rather than introducing new words.

Mi pensas ke Esperanto estas la plej bona lingvo internacia.

But, most people can't believe that a constructed language could be a completely functional language.

But imagine if it were adopted. Everyone on the planet would be able to speak together with relative ease.

[JimDunlop2]

The problem with Esperanto (other than by definition being a dead language from the get-go) is that it discriminates heavily against non-European languages.

Perhaps we should also consider Euro English as a possible solution.

Euro English

The European Union Commissioners have announced that agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for European communications, rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phased plan for what will be known as EuroEnglish (Euro for short).

In the first year, "s" will be used instead of the soft "c". Sertainly, sivil servants will reseive this news with joy. Also, the hard "c" will be replaced with "k". Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced by "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20 per sent shorter.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be Expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent "e"s in the languag is disgrasful, and they would go.

By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" by "z" and "w" by " v".

During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou", and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer.

Ze drem vil finali kum tru.

(Yes, I know it's an old Internet gag... But it's still a good one. Funny too! )

[earthmonkey]

[Mark]

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

The language that gets adopted is often based on power. Standard Japanese is the dialect from the Tokyo area, but it is just as valid as the dialect from Osaka. But Tokyo is the capital ans so it has power.

The people who brought English to the world (the British and the Americans) managed it through power as well (trade-including technology- and 'colonization').

English itself is pretty good as an international language for Western Europeans because it is a Germanic language that has a lot of elements from Romance languages (grammatical order, loan words). It's also written in a writing system that is common in western Europe and it is written without accents (but the writing is very very far removed from the actual pronounciation). English Reduceds non-stressed vowels to schwa, this also makes it a lot easier to understand foreign accents than it might otherwise be. As far as Asian languages go, it's not so great, except that many borrow words from English rapidly- Japanese people who really can't remember the English that they learned can still communicate at some level with English people by using only katakana words (although some Japanese people don't actually know which words are not English loans and somehow assume that all of them are), but it only works so long as the English speaker has at least a clue about Japanese.

There is a polite 'you' form, but it's archaic. The English way of expressing keigo is very, very complicated and is not just in the words we use, but in body posture, tone, etc. A lot of Japanese English teachers ust sort of seem to assume we don't actually have polite language (other than 'would you' instead of 'will you') because they don't really understand it.

I think the fact that English is recognized as a very important world language has had a huge effect on English speaking cultures. Many English-speaking people are much more used to hearing English spoken with heavy foreign accents and even gramatically abnormal (read 'prescriptively, just wrong) phrasing and for many people it isn't a problem. People who live in cities are expected to be used to that type of thing. People from rural areas with less exposure to other cultures are often thought of as backwards.

[zorro (3)]

There are ideas for using English as a lingua franca with a phonological core that non-native speakers can easily use to communicate with one another rather than imitating native speakers.
In other words, native speakers would no longer 'own' the language. It would be considered a truly international language.

I don't know too much about the development or proposed implementation of this, but I think that it's a better model than Esperanto for the simple reason that the ground work is already in place for those (internationally) who have a rudimentary knowledge of English.

[gaijinalways]

Yes, native speakers of English have not owned English for some time now, especially with us being minority speakers (maybe outnumbered at least 4 to 1 by non-native speakers of English). As to Esperanto overtaking English, very little chance, the numbers speak worlds aganist it (Esperanto is still pretty much a minority language, no matter how you look at it). More likely Esperanto will continue to exist as a linguistic oddity until better translation chips can be planted in our brains!

[G Cthulhu]

[diderot]

I vote for Lojban.

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

http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=Home+Page&bl

[womblingfree]

[zorro (3)]

I think that you may have missed the point womblingfree. I am aware that English is a lingua franca (but thanks for pointing it out to me anyway).

The work that I was referring to is by Jennifer Jenkins and she is establishing a phonological core to be used as an international lingua franca. For example, is it necessary to say this or can we just say dis? Can this be generalised across all /th/ (sorry I haven't got a phonological transcribing piece of software) sounds?

There are some 'Englishes' out there which are unintelligible.

[Brooks]

I think Mark has been smoking something in Saitama.
Esperanto can`t work. Who would learn it?
Where are the native speakers to teach it?

[womblingfree]

[womblingfree]