One official "World" language?

[ChrisFL]

This was inspired by the previous thread a few weeks back about one world currency.

So the questions are:

Will we ever have one global language, or at least global for most nations that have international "presence"
Is that a good thing?
Do you think that English is slowly becoming that worldwide language?

There's a few things that I found to be interesting, I was watching some theme park pictures from some rural parts of China...even in these places they probably don't get many western tourists, many of the signs were in english anyway.

English is already the main language of the internet and it seems like it's being adopted by countries more and more for teaching.

 

[suejai]

This was inspired by the previous thread a few weeks back about one world currency.

So the questions are:

Will we ever have one global language, or at least global for most nations that have international "presence"
Is that a good thing?
Do you think that English is slowly becoming that worldwide language?

There's a few things that I found to be interesting, I was watching some theme park pictures from some rural parts of China...even in these places they probably don't get many western tourists, many of the signs were in english anyway.

English is already the main language of the internet and it seems like it's being adopted by countries more and more for teaching.

Yes I think it would make sense for there to be a global language, it would make global trade etc so much easier.

And I do agree that English seems to be moving in that direction. Isn't it already the standard language for air traffic?

 

[minkydog]

There used to be global language. It was Latin. And then it was French. I guess it's time to give English a try before we all start speaking Chinese.

 

[redlight]

English has become the language of the elite across the world, but a large fraction of the world has no facility with English. I doubt things will change much in this century.

 

[pogo791]

No, there will never be an official world language, but we will probably have endless debates on this - all with expensive interpretation into I don't know how many languages!

English will probably remain the default international working language for sometime to come. It's been said that the most widely spoken language in the world is bad English. And as Suejai mentioned, it's used internationally in traffic control. Take a look at just about any international congress or meeting, on just about any topic, and you will tend to find the people both in the meeting rooms and in the corridors (where the really important deals are made!) speaking in English.

Chinese will grow in importance, due to China's growing economic clout. I'm sure quite a few companies that want their share of the Chinese pie (or should I say rice bowl?) will want their senior and middle management to learn Chinese. But given that Chinese is so very different from all other languages, there would seem to be a huge hurdle to overcome before you start running across Chinese language programs in different parts of the world, in the same way that today you can find English speakers just about everywhere.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

In the near future? No.

 

[Cheshire Figment]

At the current time English is the largest second language in the world. But maybe eventually we will go to Spanglish.

 

[bubie2.5]

At the current time English is the largest second language in the world. But maybe eventually we will go to Spanglish.

I think Mandarin, Spanish and Hindi are the first three.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

I think Mandarin, Spanish and Hindi are the first three.

I would have thought that before I moved to TX. However alot of the friends of my dd's who were hispanic and indian, did not speak their language fluently as a first language. And certainly could not read or write it.

Interesting my dd's roommate in college is Korean-American, grew up in USA and cannot speak her language fluently either.

I used to believe that "Spanglish" was going to take over and now I am not so sure.

 

[NHdisneylover]

Yes I think English is slowly going that way. DH works for a GERMAN comapny which does most their business in English. This is a huge company with 80,000 people working at headquarters alone. They are MUCH more liekly to hire someone who does not speak German (like DH--we are learnign as fast as we can though; he has actaully worked for the American division for a while but we did not know we would be comming to ehadquarters until the month before we came) than to hire someone who does not speak English--even here in Germany. He is often in meetings with people from 5 or more countries and hte default language is always English. We find it when we travel too. Always overhearing people from two or more countries speaking English even though neither person speaks English as a first language.
I am in a German class right now. The other people are from Brazil, Turkey, Vietnam, Egypt and Pakistan. The only person in the room who does not speak English is the lady from Turkey. She is in her 60s and says the younger generation speaks English. Few, if any of these people are the "elite."
We even notice it at the movies! I took the kdis to see a showing of Harry Potter which was run in English. Even though there a lot of Americans in tehis area we seemed to be the only ones at the movie (lots of local Americans have abse access and see movies there). The kids and I counted 6 other languages in the lobby during the intermission though
I have acutally been stunned in my 6 months here in Europe at how often we find people speaking/using English when no antive English speakers are involved.

 

[Golf4food]

Sure there will - right before (almost) everyone dies in The End...


In Firefly everyone speaks English and Chinese.

 

[Zuzu03]

A lot of my students say, "Why can't everyone just speak English?" when they're struggling with French grammar - I tell them that there are probably French students struggling with English grammar and complaining to their English teachers, "Why can't everyone just speak French?"

Being from Quebec and living through the Revolution Tranquille - Quiet Revolution, I'm very proud of our French heritage and I worry that a homogenic language would be subtractive when it comes to people's cultural identity - I'm not a big fan of the "melting pot" idea either.