Poll: One world language?

[8bitmaster]

I would say computer language. The future is everyone speaking 4chan and leet. (sorry 1337)

 

[gillebro]

It would suck hard balls if the world eventually only spoke one language, and honestly i don't think it will happen - there will always be at least 3 or 4 languages, I believe. Hopefully many more.
But if such a thing were to happen, the way English is going, it would have to be the world language. The only other possible contenders are Spanish - because it's spoken in a lot of different places, and Mandarin - because you've got over a billion people speaking it and the English didn't see fit to settle themselves in China the way they did in India.

Also:

I'm also a little annoyed for not seeing Spanish in the poll. I've seen your reasons for not putting it, tkioz, and... well... it just doesn't cut it.

Spanish is the second most spread language in the world, second only to English. In rough number, more people speaks Chinese, but that's because of China's insanely huge population. Even with that, Spanish would be in third position.

Spanish wasn't on there? ... well I'll be damned. Considering how it's the second-language of choice for most native-English-speaking Americans, and the main language in most of South America. I believe that there are actually more native Spanish speakers to native English speakers.

I'm actually really surprised that Japanese is on there. As a studier of Japanese, even, I'm blown. You have 120,000,000 people speaking it, but those 120,000,000 are in one country, and they all have English crammed so hard down their throats that it's a wonder they don't choke on it. It's kind of a pity, though, that languages like Japanese aren't more wide-spread, because they're bloody easy. Apart from the whole writing-in-symbols thing, they are dead easy. Even easier than simple English, I'd wager.

 

[minimacker]

French, I think It should be French.

It will automatically cause everyone to prefer retreating, resulting in world peace.

 

[gillebro]

I have to say that I'm appalled that the most chosen language is English; it only proves how egotistical we, as English-speakers, are. I voted for 'artificial', because I'm sure that as people of differing races cross over, their native languages and cultures will be taught to their children.

As long as a one-language world is inevitable, I might as well like for it to arrive in around 200 years (it'll make my upcoming story on DeviantArt more believable).

It's not egotistical at all. Frankly, I wish it was some other language so that I would be expected to learn it and have more resources with which to learn it, so I could have another language under my belt, and English would be more special. I love being Australian, but it's freaking annoying having to share my language with the rest of the world.

But you can't argue with facts. Look at the world around you. Everybody who wants to have any involvement with world affairs has to know English. English is studied everywhere. Even the French deign to learn English now. It's just the way it is.

To be fair, by the time the possibility of there only being a few languages spoken world-wide comes to pass, the English that will be spoken won't be the English that we know today. English has the most amazing ability to absorb words from other languages (which is why English has so many words), but the underlying core of the language will still be English.

No Spanish? And I don't understand why you put Japanese on there.

I imagine it's because I'm Australian and grew up in the 80s/90s when Japan was our biggest trading partner, everyone was pushed towards learning their Language and culture in school and at home (my grandfather was an importer); now days it's Mandrin and Indonesian that everyone is learning in school, Australia is located far closer to Asia (if I hear one more person call us part of Asia I'm going to smack them with an Atlas... and those things are heavy), so it's just generally something that we take for granted.

I guess that's why I left out Spanish, but if you were from North America you'd do the same for Spanish, it's just closer too you, and you've got more exposure to it. So it wasn't a slight, more an oversight.

It's true guys. Stop badgering him about it. We get very little exposure to Spanish in Australia. I've had a lot of exposure to it, but only because my father was born in Chile and lived his childhood there. Can I speak a word of it? Nope. Which I'm not happy about. But there's very little point to learning Spanish in Australia. (I apologise, btw, OP. I was surprised when I saw Spanish wasn't on the poll. I didn't realise you're Aussie)

Interestingly enough, when I started learning Japanese I would get into a lot of debates with my friends, who all chose to study German. They insisted that German was spoken in more places and would therefore be more useful. My response to that was "Yes, absolutely, lots of places. And are ANY of those places REMOTELY close to Australia?" To be honest though, despite the 80s and 90s talk about Japan being the next superpower, I'm skeptical. I think the best language for young Australians to be learning in schools is Mandarin Chinese. Something like 200,000 residents born in China are living there - that's the largest ethnic minority in Aus that speaks a different first language (and yes, I'm counting the UK as an ethnic minority, because Australians and Brits are not the same).

 

[somonels]

I'd go for none but I do believe there will be an artificial interpereted language which will be good enough for common conversation. It wouldn't be any good for literal arts, word plays, puns, etc.

 

[instantbenz]

the two most recognizeable things on the planet that can come out of someone's mouth is 'wow!' and 'coca cola' ...

so if you say "wow, coca cola!" anywhere on the planet to someone, they are more than likely going to understand you

 

[Brandon237]

Well My first thought is English.
But isn't it something like Spanish that's the most widely spoken language?

Nope, English is the most widely spoken, not the most common first language, but by far the language the most people can speak to decent degree. And the one spoken in the most places.

English. I want my home language and I want everyone else to want it.
And English is easy to learn, hard to master. Good.
English has many words and can very well express almost any emotion. good.
Lots of people already know it worldwide. Good.

Ahh I see my mistake XD
(English is also my first language)
But the bad side is there are far to many words that are the same but different meanings.

There, Their, They're, Right. Are the first examples I can think of XD

True, but it isn't nearly as bad as say... Afrikaans/ Dutch. They have far fewer words than English, but as many meaning's. It is crazy!

Another reason for English: Most new terms are originally coined in English. Many brand names, names for modern goods and items are first named in English and then shoddily translated for other languages at a slightly later point, if ever. So this leads to other languages becoming more like English each passing day anyhow.

 

[SuperUberBob]

Seriously, I don't understand why people here are all picking English. Sure, it widely spoken in the developed world. But if you think it's easy to learn, you are a fool. English has so many rules, and even more exceptions to those rules. It has a ridiculous amount of silent 'E's, the way we combine vowels is just bizarre, and a vast amount of words are actually taken from other languages, with their own rules.

The ideal language would be Spanish (why is it not in the poll?), as it is the most intuitive language to pick up. It is pretty much pronounced exactly how it looks, there are far less exceptions to the established rules, and it is already widely spoken.

It is the easiest language to learn for all those that understand the Latin alphabet (the most widely used in the world).

The high learning curve for English is irrelevant. Nearly every developed country has mandatory English classes in their education system if it is not the country's primary language. Many Asian students take English classes from kindergarten all the way up into high school. On top of that, most (about 80-90%) students go to private academies after school to go to even more English classes. How many people go to after school classes to learn Spanish in the world?

Spanish is intuitive to speakers of a similar language such as the Romance languages or English due to the cognates and similar pronunciation and grammatical structure between the languages. Try teaching any Romance language to a foreign student who speaks a completely unrelated language and you will see how unintuitive those languages are to them. To say that one language is easier to learn than another is highly subjective and impossible for anybody to prove.

English is *the* language of the world and will be for the foreseeable future.

 

[GeorgW]

A universal language would be great. English would be the easiest and most probable and Klingon would be F*ing awesome. But the most logical choice would be Lojban, an artificial language.

 

[Wiiiiiiilliam]

honk honk blarg

 

[Plazmatic]

Lets go in order.

1) The poll isn't what would be the best, but what is the most likely; Mandarin and Hindi are spoken by a lot of people, Japanese was included (and I said this in an earlier post) because of a slight bias I have from growing up in Australia during the 80s/90s when everyone assumed Japan was going to become the net great economic power house, and everyone was pushing for Japanese to be taught to kids.

2a) You'd actually be surprised at the number of countries that speak French, like the English the French had a large empire and a lot of countries still have that heritage.

2b) The lack of Spanish is an oversight, I'm Australian, so I have had very little exposure to Spanish, if I was from North America I might have included it, but I honestly didn't think about it, because my nation trades a lot with Asian nations so they came into my mind quicker then Spanish did. So oversight.

3) Again it's not a matter of what is the best, or the easiest, but the most likely; English as it stands is very wide spread as a secondary language.

4) Latin... do you actually speak Latin? There is a reason it died out, a wonderful language that should never be forgotten, but for every day use? No way in hell; it's also a ***** to learn. Considering there are no native speakers (that is someone who learnt it before another language) for it, we'd be far better of inventing a new synthetic language.

Lets go in order

1. alright

2a. I'm not surprised by the number of countries that speak French, I'm more surprised by the countries that used to be French colonies and USED to speak French. Give a few examples, like most (if not all) Asian French colonies, a lot of African colonies, that no longer take French up as one of their official spoken languages, A lot of american colonies for example, Haiti, who only 3% speak French, (an it's the official language too! isn't that weird?) and the rest speak Creole, And Canada, where French is quickly dying.

2b. understandable

3. ok

4. The reason it died out is because the western roman empire fell, then all these languages branched off from it that were vastly more complicated, a lot have excessive silent syllables and huge amounts of odd spellings. For every day use? yes, the best for its ease and application wider than just for simple language, (see math and science). It is not a ***** to learn, especially when compared to japanese, and even french and spanish. It would be harder, than say, german, to you because english came off of german. A new synthetic language might actually be better though, if it could achieve an even simpler gramatical style and alphabet.

 

[LarenzoAOG]

I don't think their should be a universal spoken language, it would detract from the cultures that created them, plus it would be hard to impress dumb white girls with my rolling r's and smooth 1/4 latin charm.

 

[Bruin]

And I'm not talking about actually doing it. I'm not proposing everybody demolish their old languages in favor of Latin. I think it's the one the majority of the world has in common, considering more than a quarter of the world's population at one time lived under Roman rule, and these days, much of the world speaks a Latin-derived language. I think it'd be a very easy language to implement if we had to come up with a language for the world to speak.

I think it's the most practical choice, is all. I'm not saying we should actually do it.

No.

The most practical choice is to chose a language that millions of people already speak.

Which means English, Spanish, Mandarin, German or French.


What's more practical, having EVERYONE learn a new language, or having SOME people?
The former, obviously.

The most practical choice is one everybody is somewhat familiar with and has exposure to.

Considering no language was as wide spread as Latin was, and almost no other languages have as many derivative languages branched off them, I see Latin as the obvious choice. Not to mention that the fact that it's a dead language means that we can finally iron out the irregularities in speech to make it easier to understand and use, cutting down on the amount of time it would take to teach everybody it. Or even make it so it's easier for both East and West to understand at the same time.

Mandarin would be a close second if I had one, but I think the change would be too great for people who natively speak Romance languages.

Again, CAPITALIZING words and using INTERROGATIVE argument techniques doesn't EXACTLY make your argument any more SOUND, and sure as hell just REPULSES me from agreeing with you.

Can't you SEE?

 

[Nanissimov]

This is a rather perplexing question. And believe it or not scientists have thought the same thing, Number one within 100 years everyone will probably be speaking one language and it will most likely either be English or Chinese, why? Well Chinese is the most spoken language by most people in the world but it's only spoken in china and that area, as apposed to English which is more widely spoken. Though scientists don't think all other languages will be pushed aside for one language to take it's place, no they think it will be more like everyone speaks English and their own language. Now why most likely English, well it's being thought in most schools, i guess im speaking for my parents here who are both Russian and were born there and went to school there, and you know how we here are thought Spanish, well there they were though English in school, and it's not just in Russia. Its also in Spain, Italy, Hell most country's even developing nations being funded solely by opera Winfrey are being taught English in there schools. So yes it will probably be English but that doesn't mean other languages wont be spoken.

 

[Elliee]

Mandarin <3 most beautiful ^^

 

[Ruffythepirate]

Making a new world language and implementing it has been tried dozens if time and obviously didn't work. English however is basically the new world language. Only a few places in the world still don't speak English.

 

[Jezzy54]

I suppose a single world language would be a hard blow to most cultures, but it does seem likely in the distant future, and it would be easier for various countries to sympathize with each other. Come to think of it, by then there might even be some kind of united world government.