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crocadoodledoo
Joined: 26 Nov 2008
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 Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 2:24 am Post subject: How did English become a/the global language? |
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Ahoy!
I've been thinking about this quite a bit these days and might be using this question for an assignment...
did English become a global language through:
- economic and political successes of Britain and US?
- linguistic superiority?
- some kind of abosrption mechanism while other languages are more strict about their structure?
- any other factors?
It makes for quite an interesting topic since we are all making our living off of English..
Cheers  |
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Straphanger
Joined: 09 Oct 2008
Location: Chilgok, Korea
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| Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 2:27 am Post subject: Re: How did English become a/the global language? |
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| crocadoodledoo wrote: |
did English become a global language through:
- economic and political successes of Britain and US? |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca
When I was learning to fly, my father taught me French, since all the control towers in South America spoke French when he was flying down there. |
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PeteJB
Joined: 06 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 2:30 am Post subject: |
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| England ruled half of the world with it's flag. Something to do with that perhaps? |
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crocadoodledoo
Joined: 26 Nov 2008
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| Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 2:34 am Post subject: Re: How did English become a/the global language? |
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| Straphanger wrote: |
| crocadoodledoo wrote: |
did English become a global language through:
- economic and political successes of Britain and US? |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca
When I was learning to fly, my father taught me French, since all the control towers in South America spoke French when he was flying down there. |
Yeah I'm from Quebec so I speak French and was SHOCKED when I lived in rural China and went to send a letter to Canada and the form (used for everybody) was in chinese and french |
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Yesterday
Joined: 15 Aug 2003
Location: Land of the Morning DongChim (Kancho)
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| Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 2:42 am Post subject: |
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English is TODAYS Global language - because it is a major language that is widely used across several continents.
There are more speakers of Chinese - however it is not yet widely used across several continents - although that is changing.
Although English has inarguably achieved some sort of global status, English isn't managing to sweep all else before it -- and if it ever does become the universal language, many of those who speak it won't understand one another .
PEOPLE who expect English to triumph over all other languages are sometimes surprised to learn that the world today holds three times as many native speakers of Chinese as native speakers of English.
"Native speaker" is no easier to define with any precision than "Chinese" or "English," although it means roughly what you'd think: a person who grew up using the language as his or her first.
In any case, the numerical gap is impressive: about 1,113 million people speak Chinese as their mother tongue, whereas about 372 million speak English.
And yet English is still the world's second most common native language, though it is likely to cede second place within fifty years to the South Asian linguistic group whose leading members are Hindi and Urdu.
In 2050, according to a model of language use that The "ENGCO" English Company developed the world will hold -
1,384 million native speakers of Chinese,
556 million of Hindi and Urdu, and
508 million of English.
As native languages Spanish and Arabic will be almost as common as English, with 486 million and 482 million speakers respectively.
And among young people aged fifteen to twenty-four English is expected to be in fourth place, behind not only Chinese and the Hindi-Urdu languages but also Arabic, and just ahead of Spanish. |
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Forward Observer
Joined: 13 Jan 2009
Location: FOB Gloria
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| Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 2:50 am Post subject: |
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| Money + Power |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 2:57 am Post subject: |
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| Yesterday wrote: |
English is TODAYS Global language - because it is a major language that is widely used across several continents.
There are more speakers of Chinese - however it is not yet widely used across several continents - although that is changing.
Although English has inarguably achieved some sort of global status, English isn't managing to sweep all else before it -- and if it ever does become the universal language, many of those who speak it won't understand one another .
PEOPLE who expect English to triumph over all other languages are sometimes surprised to learn that the world today holds three times as many native speakers of Chinese as native speakers of English.
"Native speaker" is no easier to define with any precision than "Chinese" or "English," although it means roughly what you'd think: a person who grew up using the language as his or her first.
In any case, the numerical gap is impressive: about 1,113 million people speak Chinese as their mother tongue, whereas about 372 million speak English.
And yet English is still the world's second most common native language, though it is likely to cede second place within fifty years to the South Asian linguistic group whose leading members are Hindi and Urdu.
In 2050, according to a model of language use that The "ENGCO" English Company developed the world will hold -
1,384 million native speakers of Chinese,
556 million of Hindi and Urdu, and
508 million of English.
As native languages Spanish and Arabic will be almost as common as English, with 486 million and 482 million speakers respectively.
And among young people aged fifteen to twenty-four English is expected to be in fourth place, behind not only Chinese and the Hindi-Urdu languages but also Arabic, and just ahead of Spanish. |
welll #s can be deceiving. For instance Arabic. Sure, on paper hundreds of millions speak it BUT there are many dialects that are very different from each other. Moroccan arabic vs. saudi arabic is like French vs. Spanish.
And from what i've heard, Chinese is somewhat similar. On the other hand, the Chinese speaking world is more integrated than the Arab one, so one "common" dialect will probably come to dominate eventually. |
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the_beaver
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 2:58 am Post subject: |
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| Yesterday wrote: |
English is TODAYS Global language - because it is a major language that is widely used across several continents.
There are more speakers of Chinese - however it is not yet widely used across several continents - although that is changing.
Although English has inarguably achieved some sort of global status, English isn't managing to sweep all else before it -- and if it ever does become the universal language, many of those who speak it won't understand one another .
PEOPLE who expect English to triumph over all other languages are sometimes surprised to learn that the world today holds three times as many native speakers of Chinese as native speakers of English.
"Native speaker" is no easier to define with any precision than "Chinese" or "English," although it means roughly what you'd think: a person who grew up using the language as his or her first.
In any case, the numerical gap is impressive: about 1,113 million people speak Chinese as their mother tongue, whereas about 372 million speak English.
And yet English is still the world's second most common native language, though it is likely to cede second place within fifty years to the South Asian linguistic group whose leading members are Hindi and Urdu.
In 2050, according to a model of language use that The "ENGCO" English Company developed the world will hold -
1,384 million native speakers of Chinese,
556 million of Hindi and Urdu, and
508 million of English.
As native languages Spanish and Arabic will be almost as common as English, with 486 million and 482 million speakers respectively.
And among young people aged fifteen to twenty-four English is expected to be in fourth place, behind not only Chinese and the Hindi-Urdu languages but also Arabic, and just ahead of Spanish. |
Misleading.
As a native language, Mandarin Chinese kicks ass over English.
As a spoken language, Mandarin Chinese is in second.
As the second language of choice in the vast majority of the world is English and all projections indicate that Chinese will soon be in a very distant second place. |
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12bme
Joined: 20 Jan 2009
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| Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 3:02 am Post subject: Re: How did English become a/the global language? |
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...
Last edited by 12bme on Sat May 23, 2009 5:18 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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crocadoodledoo
Joined: 26 Nov 2008
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| Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 3:02 am Post subject: |
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| Yesterday wrote: |
English is TODAYS Global language - because it is a major language that is widely used across several continents.
There are more speakers of Chinese - however it is not yet widely used across several continents - although that is changing.
Although English has inarguably achieved some sort of global status, English isn't managing to sweep all else before it -- and if it ever does become the universal language, many of those who speak it won't understand one another .
PEOPLE who expect English to triumph over all other languages are sometimes surprised to learn that the world today holds three times as many native speakers of Chinese as native speakers of English.
"Native speaker" is no easier to define with any precision than "Chinese" or "English," although it means roughly what you'd think: a person who grew up using the language as his or her first.
In any case, the numerical gap is impressive: about 1,113 million people speak Chinese as their mother tongue, whereas about 372 million speak English.
And yet English is still the world's second most common native language, though it is likely to cede second place within fifty years to the South Asian linguistic group whose leading members are Hindi and Urdu.
In 2050, according to a model of language use that The "ENGCO" English Company developed the world will hold -
1,384 million native speakers of Chinese,
556 million of Hindi and Urdu, and
508 million of English.
As native languages Spanish and Arabic will be almost as common as English, with 486 million and 482 million speakers respectively.
And among young people aged fifteen to twenty-four English is expected to be in fourth place, behind not only Chinese and the Hindi-Urdu languages but also Arabic, and just ahead of Spanish. |
Great post yesterday
Yes, it appears the beauty of english will also be its demise - its absorption of othe rlanguages will eventually get to the point where several dialects of English will become languages of their own - much like the origins of the romance languages
However, the problem with defining 'Chinese speakers' as 1,384 million (unless they speak standard) is that from province to province, people dont understand each other (though i think the writing is the same) while in English, in most cases, people from different English speaking countries will understand each other - I think |
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seoulsucker
Joined: 05 Mar 2006
Location: The Land of the Hesitant Cutoff
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| Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 3:08 am Post subject: |
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| Yesterday wrote: |
PEOPLE who expect English to triumph over all other languages are sometimes surprised to learn that the world today holds three times as many native speakers of Chinese as native speakers of English. |
This is just a guess, but I'd say that a big chunk of those native Chinese speakers aren't well-educated folks involved in any kind of globalized commerce or communication. |
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Yesterday
Joined: 15 Aug 2003
Location: Land of the Morning DongChim (Kancho)
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| Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 3:14 am Post subject: |
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| the_beaver wrote: |
Misleading.
As a native language, Mandarin Chinese kicks ass over English.
As a spoken language, Mandarin Chinese is in second.
As the second language of choice in the vast majority of the world is English and all projections indicate that Chinese will soon be in a very distant second place. |
Misleading
English-speakers now have lower birth rates, on average, than speakers of Chinese, Hindi and Urdu and Arabic and Spanish.
Native speakers of English are already outnumbered by second-language and foreign-language speakers, and will be more heavily outnumbered as time goes on.
Chinese, Hindi, Urdu, Arab and Spanish (Hispanics) are starting to migrate to the USA and are taking their languages with them.
According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, ten years ago about one in seven people in the USA spoke a language other than English at home -- and since then the proportion of immigrants in the population has grown and grown.
Ever-wider swaths of Florida, California, and the Southwest are heavily Spanish-speaking. Hispanic people make up 30 percent of the population of New York City.
According to the census, from 1980 to 1990 the number of Spanish-speakers in the United States grew by 50 percent.
Over the same decade the number of speakers of Chinese in the United States grew by 98 percent. Today approximately 2.4 million Chinese-speakers live in America, and more than four out of five of them prefer to speak Chinese at home.
If you want English to continue to flourish - then native-English speakers have to start having more babies!!
| seoulsucker wrote: |
| This is just a guess, but I'd say that a big chunk of those native Chinese speakers aren't well-educated folks involved in any kind of globalized commerce or communication. |
similar to George W Bush? his English was shocking - (I would guess second language?)
p.s. - I know, I know - I was just teasing the OP as his original post needed to be played with.. |
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the_beaver
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 3:25 am Post subject: |
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| Yesterday wrote: |
| the_beaver wrote: |
Misleading.
As a native language, Mandarin Chinese kicks ass over English.
As a spoken language, Mandarin Chinese is in second.
As the second language of choice in the vast majority of the world is English and all projections indicate that Chinese will soon be in a very distant second place. |
Misleading
English-speakers now have lower birth rates, on average, than speakers of Chinese, Hindi and Urdu and Arabic and Spanish.
Native speakers of English are already outnumbered by second-language and foreign-language speakers, and will be more heavily outnumbered as time goes on.
Chinese, Hindi, Urdu, Arab and Spanish (Hispanics) are starting to migrate to the USA and are taking their languages with them.
According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, ten years ago about one in seven people in this country spoke a language other than English at home -- and since then the proportion of immigrants in the population has grown and grown.
Ever-wider swaths of Florida, California, and the Southwest are heavily Spanish-speaking. Hispanic people make up 30 percent of the population of New York City.
Even Sioux City, Iowa, now has a Spanish-language newspaper. According to the census, from 1980 to 1990 the number of Spanish-speakers in the United States grew by 50 percent.
Over the same decade the number of speakers of Chinese in the United States grew by 98 percent. Today approximately 2.4 million Chinese-speakers live in America, and more than four out of five of them prefer to speak Chinese at home.
If you want English to continue to flourish - then native-English speakers have to start having more babies!! |
Nope.
The force of English doesn't rely on native speakers anymore.
All indications are that English has hit critical mass. There are more Chinese people studying English than ever before as it is the foreign language of choice. All the different cultures in India prefer to communicate with each other in English because of rivalry between groups (Gandhi had it wrong when he said that English would disappear in India).
Many countries such as Japan are adopting the increasingly more popular international English. All of the varieties of second language English such as Singlish and Manglish and Hinglish and Tamlish and even Franglais and Spanglish, when used in the international community, move into international English. International English has developed into the English which is the most comprehensible to the greatest number of English speakers. The greatest number of English speakers are non-native, and they will continue to grow the language regardless of the low birthrate in English native-speaking societies. |
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roknroll
Joined: 29 Dec 2007
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| Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 3:31 am Post subject: Re: How did English become a/the global language? |
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| crocadoodledoo wrote: |
Ahoy!
I've been thinking about this quite a bit these days and might be using this question for an assignment...
did English become a global language through:
- economic and political successes of Britain and US?
- linguistic superiority?
- some kind of abosrption mechanism while other languages are more strict about their structure?
- any other factors?
It makes for quite an interesting topic since we are all making our living off of English..
Cheers |
success of Britain/US-->Imperialism definitely was an impetus/catalyst. that's why some countries in Africa still speak French/English, Brazil is Portugese, etc.
Britain/US-->economic success, yes and willingness/desire to conduct business internationally. In contrast, SK is only beginning to promote its language on a global basis and historically was a hermit kingdom. Also, both countries remain English speaking only, despite the wide diversity of speakers. Not to say that other languages aren't spoken or learned, just not officialized. Canada recognizes French and this obviously helps the French language. If the US were to recognize another language, obviously it would give that language a huge boost. I'd guess the economic success/power of the US is the current vanguard.
linguistic superiority--> i doubt it but any educational success helps in spreading a language (Shakespeare, Scientists, Philosophers, etc.). Also, the tendency for English to assimilate foreign words into its vocabulary, one measly example out of thousands: Tsunami. |
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aka Dave
Joined: 02 May 2008
Location: Down by the river
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| Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 3:46 am Post subject: Re: How did English become a/the global language? |
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| 12bme wrote: |
| crocadoodledoo wrote: |
Ahoy!
I've been thinking about this quite a bit these days and might be using this question for an assignment...
did English become a global language through:
- economic and political successes of Britain and US?
- linguistic superiority?
- some kind of abosrption mechanism while other languages are more strict about their structure?
- any other factors?
It makes for quite an interesting topic since we are all making our living off of English..
Cheers |
the British imperialism + the American capitalism
linguistic superiority? all languages are equal. there is no superior language, except KOREAN  |
I disagree. I've studied five languages (though 4 were Romance, so it's cheating), and you can definitely prefer one to another. That doesn't mean the language is "superior", exactly. More like the language is like a food - some people prefer lasagna, others might prefer sushi. I prefer spoken French and Italian to Spanish, by a long way. I prefer Parisian French to Quebecois French - hmm, the words cannot be expressed. I'd lived in France for 2 years before I ever heard that accent, and my jaw dropped.
Further, you can definitely assert a given language's literature as superior, though again it's a subjective argument ( to some extent; ancient Greek and Latin liteterature are inarguably the greatest in the ancient Western world, simply because of their influence and the number of texts that were preserved). I prefer French and Russian literature to American (and even English) literature. That's my own personal taste. But taste is everything.
As for Chinese or another Asian language becoming a "world" language, I'm very dubious about that, because of the Roman alphabet. Americans aren't going to learn Chinese, ever (I've taught both French and Spanish in America, and it's a miracle if an American can learn one of those). And if you want to bet me that in 20 years more than a million Europeans would speak Chinese, if possible, I'd make that bet.
In the 1980s Japan bought the Rockefeller Center and some other big buildings and roared on to the scene. Everyone was going to be speaking Japanese come 2000. Didn't happen. |
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