As China becomes a global power the Chinese language will assume a greater global significance. That significance will extend over business, trade, culture and other areas. But will the Chinese language ever reach the type of influence that English now has? Will Mandarin ever become a lingua franca?
After the year 1600, the British Empire began to spread English around the world. That process was given a huge boost in the 20th century through the business, technology and post-war re-construction efforts of the US. Beyond this, there were a number of quite extraordinary trends in culture, science and the arts that reinforced these developments. Many of these were spontaneous, but others were highly deliberate - the work of the British Council, for example. Either way, English now stands unchallenged as the world’s international language.
But the English language also has some inherent qualities that enabled this process even further. English is a ‘mongrel language’ that has always borrowed heavily from other languages. This has allowed it to grow quickly, flexibly, and efficiently. (English has many more words than any other language.) It has developed spontaneously (without an Academie Francaise to restrict it, for example) and it has tended towards a simplification - from a more highly inflected language towards becoming a less highly inflected one.
Meanwhile, almost every educated person in the entire world knows some English. Very few people anywhere would not consider it an essential part of an education in science, art, business, etc. There’s a pretty clear dynamic at work here.
So, will Mandarin challenge English in the coming years/decades? What are your thoughts on this? Are there any historical trends that might tell us about this? Are there qualities of the Chinese language that make it difficult, or impossible, for Mandarin to assume the role of lingua franca?
Big theme today.I guess I’m feeling a bit philosophical.
Ken Carroll
I have to say, sadly enough, no. Mandarin will never spread like English because of one major difference: the writing system. I have thought this over quite a bit actually. Yes, the tones are hard, but Mandarin is somewhat forgiving (unlike Cantonese, I hear). However, a lot of foreignors who can speak Mandarin never bother learning to read Chinese. For many it’s just too overwhelming. Dictionarys are confusing; radicals don’t seem to have any logical reference system. Each character requires memorization. Flash cards help me to recognize characters, but remembering how to write that character is a whole different story. You can never guess at the way a word is written. In English, you can sound it out and write it down and even if you get it wrong, as long as it’s close you can be understood. As much as the government has tried, Simplified has not replaced Traditional entirely, and so you have to know how to recognize and write both. Although I love the history and artistry of characters, it can be simply maddening. Even Chinese people have trouble writing words like “kneecap” and “tin can” (I read that in a report somewhere). And when I tell people that I am learning Chinese, they usually reply, “Chinese?! Doesn’t that have like, 50,000 characters?!” What can I say… It’s a love-hate relationship.
No.
How does the joke go? What do you call a person who speaks three languages? Trilingual. Two languages? Bilingual. One Language? American.
I’d say that Mandarin won’t likely become a world wide lingua franca in my lifetime or my children’s. Will more people outside of China learn Mandarin in the near future? Absolutely. Will even more people learn English outside of English speaking nations? Absolutely.
With the steep learning curve to be able to read, if not write, Chinese and with almost every educated person already knowing English, what’s the point?
Ken … I’m not sure how a shift away from inflection can be considered “simplification”. The morphological information in a sentence is there whether it’s carried by inflected endings or by a strictly imposed word order (in the spirit of “Throw the horse of the fence some hay.”). So, instead of memorizing countless endings, we’re forced instead to memorize countless rules. To my mind — that’s a “wash”. Invariably, when one language has a simple aspect (like a single verb form), they balance the linguistic books by having a maddening one (like “tones” or endless “homophones”). In the end, as counterintuitive as it may seem, all spoken languages have roughly the same level of difficulty.
In English, we do see trends toward simplication. I think “whom” dropped out of the lexicon back in the 60’s and I pretty much refuse to use it. Third person singular verb endings are being dropped (much to the chagrin of prim schoolmarms everywhere). Verbs are becoming weaker and intransitives are merging with transitives. But we have an insane number of idioms so it all balances out in the end.
And (duìbuqĭ), I’m not buying into the idea that English has more words than any other language. Ours are just better documented, thanks to the OED. Any language I’ve encountered allows one to express themselves in an infinite number of ways. (Don’t make me bring out the Chomsky … I will!!) But, alas, that argument is a bit more esorteric than space allows and goes mightily into the deceptively complex topic of exactly what constitutes a “word”.
To answer the overall question, I’ve always that if the Chinese had developed an alphabet (or at least a syllabary), they’d probably be building space stations with jacuzzis on Sedna by now. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the rise in China’s economic prospects is happening at the time when computers are (sort of) compensating for the once arduous task of typing a simple paragraph. Pinyin input helps, but it’s geared toward Mandarin, so it’s still an obstacle to efficient communication. Look what happened in Turkey back when Kemal Atatürk dropped Arabic script for the Roman Alphabet; literacy shot up overnight. (Yes, Arabic uses an alphabet too, but instead of the nice staic Roman letters, Arabic letters change depending on how they are attached to other letters, etc.)
I think I’d wanna see another round of state-sponsored “simplifiation” before I place any bets on Mandarin. And Mandarin will have to be the “lingua franca” in their own country (more than it is, of course) before they can hope to export it. But that prognosis is for the short term. Historically, the “lingua franca” battles were won for economic reasons and China’s prospects look good in that arena … BUT ya never know. Maybe they’ll discover way to run cars on jalapenos and we’ll all be hablar’en Español.
>I think I’d wanna see another round of state-sponsored “simplifiation” before I place any bets on Mandarin.
I agree. I recall reading once that the PRC almost switched to a totally pinyin-based system in the 50s. The model was Turkey, which westernized their writing system shortly after WWI (I think…).
That said, it’s ultimately driven by economics. English is the language of capital - people who risk their money on startups. If China overtakes the west and (particularly Wall Street) in the accumulation of capital - to the point where startups in Silicon Valley are pitching to the VCs on Nanjing Road instead of Sand Hill Road, then perhaps it will change.
My turn for two cents…
I have to continue th trend and say that Chinese will probably not challenge English in any large way. The best we can hope for ist that it will become a second global language (it’s kind of already doing that in some ways). We’ll have a choice - we can write academic papers in Chinese or English, learn Chinese or English as a second language etc, btu English will always have the upper hand - at least for another couple of hundred years. After that it gets a bit hazy and we need a flux capacitor or Lorentzian wormhole.
My reasoning has nothing to do with ease of learning/writing, but through sheer cultural power. The Romans did it with Latin, the Chinese did it with their characters as well, and then the English started it and is being continued by the American cultural machine. A decent portion of information in the world is in English only at the moment, so if you want to access it you need to know English or have a translator. Machine translation isn’t good enough to handly it properly yet, so we’ll have to leave it as is. It’s a bit of a tragedy in some ways because of the minority language issue. Reading a book like Crystal’s Language Death leaves you feeling like the loss of the Amazonian rainforest isn’t so important compared to the loss of language (note: exaggeration - I’m not a logger).
It would be nice to have a few more popular tonal languages.
Alternate reality: An interesting future with Chinese hegemony would involve adapting Chinese characters for European languages in Japanese style. Perhaps something like:
一ce up上 a 时, 那有三熊s, and 他们 住ed 内 the 林。 那有 爸爸熊， 妈妈熊 and 娃娃熊。
Once upon a time, there were three bears, and they lived in the forest. There was Papa bear, Mama bear and Baby bear.
THat’d be kind of cool, but somehow not so fun to learn…
I also agree that the writing system will be a large obstacle for Mandarin becoming a global language. But I don’t agree when people say that it is impossible to guess how a Chinese word is written. Yes if you haven’t studied any chinese writing it is impossible to know how to write the characters but it’s the same with English. If you have a foundation in writing Chinese you can usually make a good guess at how a word is written (especially if you studied the character before, but haven’t used it for this word). For example:
Say a friend tells me that the word for zipper is “la1lian4″
I know that la1 means pull. Makes sense that the character should be 拉。
Now what about lian. Well it’s made of metal. So a good guess would be that it would have the metal radical 金.
Most characters are made up of a phonetic part and a part that expresses the meaning. So we have the meaning part what about the phonetic part? What characters have i studied that have the sound “lian?” 脸, 连, 联, 练
Of these most of them are complex characters. The simplest one seems to be 连.
Alright then, maybe the word for zipper is 拉链.
I know that this example can’t really be applied to thousands of characters. But the more characters you learn the more similarities you see between them. And since most words are made up of a smaller amount of characters you can usually make an educated guess as to how to write it.
Just my opinion. But when it comes down to it, the writing system is really difficult and takes years to master. In fact I think that is one of the reasons Chinese schooling is so pressured.
OOoppps … I, of course, meant to type: “Throw the horse OVER the fence some hay.” as an archetype example of word order carring meaning. (Trust me … Linguists are funny, funny guys.)
Fu Da Wei,
Glad you didn’t resort to Chomsky. The issues may not be as simple as I suggested. For example, I could have written that ‘English has more words in the OED than any other language’. That would have been more objective.
I do appreciate the level of discipline that you bring to our discussions here. Are you a linguisitics grad?
Was the spread of English globally more the result of religious zeal as opposed to sun never setting on the British Commonwealth? If so is the religion of today, capitalism?
Like religion one can make an arguement of the postives and negatives of each.
The “other” great creative/productive juggernaut coming on stream is India. I think with their cultural history they will easily continue to use English. Therefore I beleive English will be the global language.
Learning Chinese is possibly a way to reduce ignorance in negotiations. Unless your counterparts are from say ..Shanghai and switch to the local dialect if they understand you can comprehend Mandarin.
Mike in Jubei
I waver back and fourth on this issue. On the one hand, I would tend to agree that English has pretty much been established as the global language for the long term. Yes, there are a lot of Chinese speakers out there, more than any other language I believe, and yes they are becoming more economically powerful, but is it too late for Chinese to overtake the standardizations that have been set in English?
On the written side we have keyboards, URLs, and I don’t know but I would imagine even Chinese coders use the roman alphabet. But then, how much longer are we going to be using keyboards? We already see Hong Kong companies pushing out Chinese character URLs, and so on and so fourth. Our input methods are limited now, but this will change.
Then on the spoken side we have everyone rushing to learn English so they can do business. Was it in the Economist where they predicted by 2010 or around there that there will be more Mandarin natives speaking English than native English speakers themselves? That would suggest that China has decided to adopt the current standards as they progress economically. But what’s going to happen when there are all these English speaking Chinese doing business out in the world? Is there going to come a point when the unilinguals, or as James calls them “Americans” (North Americans to include myself) just can’t do business effectively? At that point, will they just drop the English and go with what is most commonly spoken?
Either way, we can all take comfort knowing that the users here will be all set. No doubt it’s a good language to be studying.
While it is no doubt true that there is an economic factor involved in maintaining English as the de facto international language, there are a number of other issues aty stake as well, such as status and education, adaptability, and inertia. In Europe, was France really such an economic powerhouse? Is that what led the aristocracy to speak French to the extent or radically altering the course of the Russian language? Noone can doubt Germany’s economic force in Europe, but the EU actually dropped it as a mandatory language for awhile. French was a court language, and as such was a symbol of status and education. I was told that at one time, Americans actually were in some doubt as to what language should be the national language of the United States. Demographically, German- and Irish-speakers were in the majority, but English-speakers held political hegemony. Obviously, English carried the day. Even today, English is in many parts of the world a prime signifier of education, as perhaps French used to be. In India, the medical and advanced science textbooks are all written in English, and that is unlikely to change anytime soon. Of their 20 odd national languages, it is English that upper-class Indians use to pepper their conversations, not Marathi. In China, the numerous English tests (Ban 4, Ban 6, PETS, TOEFL, etc) all designate a person’s status. Passing the Ban 6 will raise your pay scale or make it easier to find a job, even if that job does not require the use of English. If China continues to simplify its language, I fail to see how it can at the same time allow for people to use a literary style that is sometimes expected in the English exams. Indeed, at times the English exams in China seem less concerned with learning English as a language per se, but as an exercise in decryption.
Mongolia went through a few different writing systems, from the indigenous form to cyrillic to roman, and it seems a smattering of each can still be seen. The effect on literacy haven’t really been startling either way. The rise in literacy in Egypt had more to do with allowing the lingua franca to be printed rather than everything being translated into Arabic first. Using the Roman alphabet wasn’t really an issue. The classical language just couldn’t adapt to modern needs. However, knowing classical Arabic remains a prime signifier of education and status. As difficult as learning Chinese characters may be, to read a novel written in Pinyin would be a nightmare. The homonyms would be overwhelming. Script is less a factor than it seems, especially allowing for the more common use of computers.
Even in the US, one’s English skills designate one’s status, which is why we code-switch. You can ignore the “who/whom” distinction, split infinitives and misplaced modifiers all you like, but when someone points it out your gaffe, you lose status. As David Foster Wallace pointed out in an article in Harpers a few years ago, America’s many dialects may be equally valid, but students are forced to use Standard American English in the classroom because that’s what will get them a job. Using SAE on the playground will most likely invite a thrashing. Again, the importance of code-switching.
Yes, English may tend toward simplification in some ways such as grammar, but less so in idiom and phraseology. So called “pidgin” forms of English constantly refresh it. As Eliot stated, in reference to the new dialects of English cropping up in Ireland, they add lifeblood to the dying heart of English. Indian-English is another example, and it will be very interesting to see if and how China adapts English. It may be this adaptability, rather than simplicity, that will keep English alive as the premier international language.
And, of course, there is the inertia factor. Why would English be dethroned as the world’s de facto common language? If Chinese took over as a business language, would it also take over as the language of science? Would international meetings of academics suddenly be conducted in Chinese? Doubtful. English is common now, and it would be too difficult to change the status quo.
Just out of curiosity, are people still paying attention to Chomsky’s linguistics?
Oh come on! Chinese isn\’t that hard to learn. To be the contrarian, I think Chinese will become the Lingua Franca. You\’re forgetting that kids absorb languages like sponges. Sure- it takes some sweat and tears to learn Chinese at our age. I think with resources like ChinesePod the whole world will be speaking Chinese in about… oh I\’d say 50 years. Ken, you should start thinking about branding a little more. I expect in another 10 years we\’ll be wearing ChinesePod clothes, and CPod shoes. Ken, how about a line of furniture? You and Jenny can pitch this stuff globally. One day CPod will rule the world. Bwah ha ha… and we\’ll all be speaking Chinese.
Yanshu … with all due respect, don’t mock Chomsky and quote David Foster Wallace in the same message.
In deference to the overwhelming processing power of Fu Da-Wei and Yanshu I will have to resort to something much more basic, my Coca-Cola can metric:
可口可乐 really big hanzi
Coca-Cola, kinda small lettering
www.iCoke.cn
www.coca-cola.com.cn
Coke, really small lettering on a cola bottle logo
由［可口可乐], “Coca-cola”, “Coke”. in the trademark disclaimer
可口可乐公司 really small lettering
2006 THE COCA-COLA COMPANY
This tells me that in places not the USA, there will be a mix of languages with the local language the language of the common person, pop culture and buzz as evidenced by the 可口可乐 dominating the can. Internet search top-level will remain English, but explanations will come in the local venacular. Legalese will remain the powerhouse of English, but increasingly include Chinese. There is no pinyin in the future. French is removed from passports. And peace will wash over the planet, “I’d like to buy the world a ..”
I think technological developments will make learning a second language irrelevent - by 2020 it is predicted that real time voice recognition software will be able to immediately translate between any 2 languages you choose. The world after this stage will no longer need any lingua franca and we can all go back to using our local dialects (an’ then tha’l need na chunner nowt else, I tell thi that for nowt)
The second language of the internet is Chinese. As more Chinese citizens become connected and create their own web content the number of Chinese sites could easily overtake English.
Technology of various forms has allowed languages to spread across the world, and the internet brings Chinese to every connected household. I don’t think Chinese needs to become number one, a close second would be good enough, and Chinese is already there.
I think given sufficient time, anything could happen. However, the eventual use of Mandarin as lingua franca is not why I am studying Chinese. I think I will be dead and gone long before that happens. (My passport still has French and English for its official headings.) It does have a little to do with the joke about Americans, though. Ouch.
English became the global language mostly by the fortunate timing of the inauguration of the industrial capital revolution and founding of the English Empire. As capitalism, mass markets, mass culture, mass migration and global communication became possible in the last 200 years the ideas and other cultural influences (language) spread with unprecedented speed. English, being the language of the most active and successful market driven economies and military political powers of the age, was naturally the language of the educated classes throughout the world.
In short, it is too late for Chinese. The factors that would have propelled it into world dominance have passed. Now, had they aggressively expanded their empire in the age of the treasure ships and moved east into the Americas… we would now be talking about the question of English becoming a world language.
As an example, think about this fact:
There are far more people in China (not counting the nation of Taiwan) learning English than all those learning Chinese around the world. With that kind of dynamic Chinese will never become a global language, and never is a very long time
English was a global language long before it had the population to back it up. It doesn’t necessarily come from population but rather from influence and use. Chiense could manage it if there was a full on effort to do so, but not likely.
to james:
How does the joke go? -It is not a joke.ok?
What do you call a person who speaks three languages? Trilingual.
-You know now all Chinese peoplec can speak two language at least and ‘Chinese and with almost every educated person already knowing English’ as you say, so most of Chinese people can speak three language, why you cant?
Will more people outside of China learn Mandarin in the near future? -of coz, most Chinese people speak Mandarin outside of China and they ask their children to keep learning Mandarin though they are living out of China mainland.
Will even more people learn English outside of English speaking nations?
-Now they dunt but in future hard to say.
Chinese and with almost every educated person already knowing English
-not almost every educated people know English, it is almost every middle school students know English,such as me.
n I think in the future we dunt need to learn it anymore,we just need to improve our Chinese ability thatz enough.
> So, will Mandarin challenge English in the coming years/decades? What are your thoughts on this? Are there any historical trends that might tell us about this?
“How does the joke go? What do you call a person who speaks three languages? Trilingual. Two languages? Bilingual. One Language? American.”
Well, that is a bit unfair, isn’t it. I can think of a number of other countries where lots of people can only speak one language.
Indeed, I would imagine that a lot of people in China can actually only speak one language (and I have seen a report where the Chinese government seemed to admit that as much as 40% of chinese do not speak mandarin).
Yep. It is not a question of “if” China will become a dominant power but “when”. And it will dominate the world both in terms of language and commerce.
The Colbet Report did a special feature on China and basically concluded that China is both a friend and an enemy of the United States, because the Chinese are communists who love to make money.
And so a new word was coined “Frenemy”, which will be added to the English dictionary. Which is somewhat how Mandarin combines antonyms to produce new words.
” “How does the joke go? What do you call a person who speaks three languages? Trilingual. Two languages? Bilingual. One Language? American.” ”
I like the “joke,” I hate that so many Americans don’t even want to learn other languages. Oh well, I guess that will help me get better jobs than some of them one day:)
“Well, that is a bit unfair, isn’t it. I can think of a number of other countries where lots of people can only speak one language.”
Maybe there are, but many of them do not have the same resources as Americans do (I’m assuming, don’t think that I am an expert on this subject). Sadly though, lots of our “resources” are going away, and my resources I mean learning in a classroom setting (one of the easiest ways to get kids to learn it without actually speaking it at home and whatnot). A few years ago, my school taught 4 (yes, FOUR!!) foreign languages: French, Spanish, German, and Latin (not really “foreign” in a sense, but useful nonetheless). Now, we have downsized to merely French and Spanish. And I know of several school districts that only have Spanish. (at least many colleges are getting the hint and adding more language departments). Compare that to someone I know in Italy who started learning French and German in I believe elementary school (whereas in the Statees we tend to start in high school). I don’t really care for the whole set up, but I doubt it’s going to change any time soon.
Congrats to anyone who made it through my 2 cents rant:)
In defense of our President George W. there are scarce budget resources, with the bulk of the Federal budget allocated to higher priority spending areas such as the War in Iraq and the domestic military industry.
That said, educational spending for the “No Child Left Behind” policy has been boosted. The focus is trying to make our kids less illiterate in their own language (English). We have to get this right before we can even consider introducing foreign languages into the educational dynamic.
Well, Clever Dick, I don’t think there is any need to defend George W (because NCLB is pretty stupid and so easy for the states to game) but more importantly, G’s diatribe simply misses the point.
I reckon that there would be no more than 5% of Chinese learning English (to any better proficiency than my wife did in Hong Kong, that is to say, a couple of hours a week and when she got to Australia she could not communicate). For the most part, people in China simply do not need English. The reason that Europeans are dealing with multiple languages is that they must because they live so close to people who speak other languages.
Similarly, in the states, the great majority of Americans do not need to speak anything other than English, unless they themselves percieve a need. And then, the most compelling reason for many of them that do learn another language will be economic[1].
There are only a small number of people who learn another language for the sheer joy of it, and why should everyone be put through what would be pain for them.
Never try to teach a pig to sing! It only wastes your time and annoys the pig.
[1] I have seen asian grocery store owners in Australia who could speak five or six languages. Typically, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Thai, sometimes Mandarin and Cambodian as well, and English too. Why? Because their customers speak those languages. They had a compelling need, and probably an apptitude as well.
One of the most common mistakes made by people is to notice a trend and then to assume that that trend will persist indefinitely. One of the most common things overlooked in China is the existence of another power whose population will be growing long after the Chinese population has aged- India.
I will focus on another characteristic of English that makes it an ideal global language. It is extremely forgiving. Even someone speaking with a terrible accent and making huge mistakes (a Starbucks employee in China for example?) can get his/her message through. In chinese on the other hand, get one tone wrong and you re doomed… And of course, only in context can even them chinese people be sure to understand each other, because of the homophones. It happens everyday: I tell the taxi driver my destination (so context is there: he is expecting me to say an address, plus you would expect him to be prepared for some bad chinese, since I m clearly a laowai). I tell him to take me to the corner of two very well-known streets in the centre of Shanghai (let’s say Chang Le lu and Chang Shu lu), which also helps cause if you get the one street’s name, the other is easier to guess (Chang Shu lu intersects a limited number of streets). But no, you mispronounce one syllable and the driver has no clue what you re talking about.
I have another example from my own experience that shows how unforgiving and not flexible mandarin is. In my first month in China, I found myself in a small town hotel and I was out of toilet paper. I went to the reception and not knowing the word for toilet paper at the time, I chose one of the words for toilet (there are at least 5 to my knowledge, with slight differences, sure) and combined it with the word for paper. But no matter how many times I asked for “cesuo zhi” (I also used hand-signals, it wasn’t pretty) I got nowhere. When I run back upstairs, got the dictionary and asked for “wei sheng zhi” (using one of the other 4 words for toilet…), they understood immediately. In English, the equivalent would be to ask for “bathroom paper” instead of “toilet paper”. The term bathroom paper does not exist, noone uses it, it is wrong english, yet I m sure most people would understand (epsecially when facing a non-native speaker). And don’t think I was just dealing with a stupid receptionist. I have since tried this with several chinese people (as an experiment), some of which were educated, english-speaking persons. It is just the rigid nature of their language in my opinion.
Lastly, I think that moving away from hanzi and using just pinyin is not a realistic option. Hanzi are the only common means of communication for chinese people in different regions. And then, you have the homophones: even I, with my intermediate (at best) mandarin, often find it easier to understand a short text in hanzi than in pinyin.
Stavros,
I think you have a point. The language may be less forgiving in this way. My guess is that it’s because of the tones, but there may indeed be a cultural element. In school, kids spend a lot of time learning to do things ‘the proper way’. They come to expect things to be done in set ways - perhaps they are generally less accustomed to variations on the norm (gross generalization, I realize, but no time to offer more detail).
Ken Carroll
Languages are studied for practical gain. Corresponding with the economic significance of countries speaking the language. I disagree with pandagator. If China had the colonial success of the British Empire of old. Those who refused to study Chinese would be at a serious competitive disadvantage against those who did.
English is spoken in Britain, The United States, Canada, Australia. A massive quantity of academic material is in English. English is the most wide spread language in the world, and arguably the most spoken language in the world (no 1 billion people do not speak Mandarin). Can China do at least as well?
” “How does the joke go? What do you call a person who speaks three languages? Trilingual. Two languages? Bilingual. One Language? American.” ”
Cute. The facts don’t support this at all, but don’t let that get in the way of a cute slur.
I like the “joke,” I hate that so many Americans don’t even want to learn other languages. Oh well, I guess that will help me get better jobs than some of them one day:)
Yeah, that logic works.
Chinese has some formidable obstacles to overcome if it wants to be a global language.
1. There is already one language, which appears to be moving from strength to strength, and increasing in global reach. To become a global language one must answer this question: why should I (with all the other things I need to learn) learn a third language? It is kinda like why I resist learning a Chinese dialect. It seems like overkill. I already know one language that serves me for communication in China. There is already one language that serves as the global language. Chinese is basically used to communicate only with Chinese. The world only needs one global language.
2. Chinese is not a language that is kind or forgiving to those who want to learn to read it. This is why we have Chinesepod instead of thousands of graded readers in Chinese (Chinese makes the perfect language to Pod because it is the hardest language to enjoy in written form). How does one go about acquiring this language by text except in painfully slow bits? I mean even kids here equate reading with STUDY not pleasure. The written Chinese language makes learning cumbersome, and forces one to rely more on an aural method of language learning than ANY alphabet based language.
3. There aren’t any other countries that speak only Chinese apart from China (and China only does so imperfectly). The success of this language depends on the success of China. Not so with English.
4. People learn Chinese to deal with the Chinese. People learn English to deal with the world. Sure there are a whole lot of Chinese people to deal with but these people are also putting in a whole lot of time investing in an English education in mass. They expect some kind of return on this language that is being billed as THE GLOBAL LANGUAGE. They want to speak this language as the
Hey
Very intresting topic, but I also agree that although i would like to think that Chinese would become the next big thing so I could laugh at all my friends because they would need to learn Chinese!! I am well aware after traveling to many different countries and seeing the effect of English on the world, that it will not be moving in my life time!
I had a good chat with a Chinese University student who said to me,,
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but English is not your language, or England’s language or Americas language, it is everyones language. Its the global language, people everywhere now speak it.”
Then I got thinking, and then it hit me…Because i grew up on a huge Island (Australia) I only have one language and the majority of people need to learn this language to enter into the world on a social level to communicate internationally. These people who learn English have there mother langauge which is “their” language. There mother language is a personal thing between them and another small group of people on the earth and I as an English speaker miss out on that aspect.
I will be in the middle of Laos and people will speak English, or in the Highlands of the Phillipines and i can find some people to communicate.
So i will stop rambling on and conclude. I would like Chinese to become the next major language so i could show off to everyone that I already know it (a little lame I know). But English has made a home and it will lot leave quickly!
TIM
Tim hits on a great point. It’s not so much a particular country whose native language is English, but those countries who are English-speaking.
Countries such as US, Great Britain, Ireland and Australia share similar conditions. Strong economies, immigration, and they are strong allies.
So are their citizens less apt to learn Mandarin? A strong economy normally might mean there’s no need outside of personal gratification, unless one argues that China’s own strong economy would induce motivation.
Does immigration mitigate opporunities for natives who learn a foreign language as a second language? For example, wouldn’t a second-generation citizen typically be a much stronger candidate as a bilingual speaker?
And doesn’t the free travel between such countries (which are very nice places to go) generally mitigate the need to learn a foreign language to communicate?
My guess is that many English-speaking people will attempt to learn Mandarin. Most will learn and remember a few nice phrases. A very small fraction of them (though a big increase to prior), will accomplish varying levels of fluency.
I believe Mandarin fluency will be a huge advantage for the few who ‘master’ it, but that it won’t rise above Spanish as a global language.
Somehow my last posting was cut off in mid-stream due to technical difficulties.
I wanted to add that I suspect, among all peoples, that English speakers thinking about learning a second language, might slowly decide to consider Chinese first. In other words, native speakers of the only existing global language would be among the first to promote Chinese as a potential competitor. Interesting thought, purely speculation.
My extrapolation therefore is that for English speakers Chinese MIGHT become the dominate 2nd language. For everyone else, Chinese will be regulated to a 3rd or 4th language.
By the way, my thinking is that it is harder to learn a second language than your third or fourth and that the two groups have different needs.
Chinese will be regulated,/b. to a 3rd or 4th language.
I think you mean relegated …
I stand corrected. Thank you Richard.
I thought he meant relegated too. In fact I was so sure it didn’t bother me one jot..
Hope no-one every picks through my blog posts, I tend to operate on the brain-dump approach. I reserve my best grammar and spelling for business English and my most precise syntax for programming (computers are not very forgiving ;))
Mandarin could become a world language if it became alphabetized. Pinyin is increasingly being used as a computer input method and I think it could be readily pressed into service as the replacement for hanzi. An added benefit is that China could increase it’s 60 percent literacy rate. Of course, there’s the issue of what alphabet system would be used for all the other Chinese languages. The Wu dialect alone is the tenth largest language in the world although many of those speakers are also somewhat fluent in Mandarin. Would the government simply let the “lesser” Chinese languages founder and die in obscurity?
Richard-my “diatribe” was not meant to be that at all, though I understand how you may have seen it that way (I need to stop logging online and posting late at night when I’m not my sharpest). I see your point that many Americans do not need to know another language for work, etc. in the sense that, say, a European would need a second language. However, in this day in age when the world seems to be getting smaller and smaller (globalization, easier communication, etc.), it is my humble opinion that it is to one’s advantage to learn about cultures outside of one’s own. One way this can be achieved is through language learning (which, at the very least, may motivate people to explore a culture more deeply). This is obviously just from my point of view and as a high school student I see my language class as one of the best ways for my peers (most of which have never been outside of the States and currently live in a (for lack of a better description) not-so-diverse setting) and I to be exposed to another culture. Not to mention, some people believe that studying another language has enhanced their own understanding of their native language as well. All in all, the fundamental point that I am trying to make is that I believe that there are many reasons outside of basic “need” for one to learn a language.
Ron in DC-please note that I was neither the one who thought of the “joke” nor the first to post it (I simply commented on it and included it in my post for reference), but it must have a little truth to it (but it is far from defining all Americans, obviously) or else no one would have thought of it or reposted it. As for my “logic” (which, I admit, was not explained in the clearest of language…), I was simply going on what I have heard from some people I have talked to that have said that knowing a second language has benefited them in countless ways (though, again I’ll stress, this is not everyone’s view).
As a side note, my mother recently had a short conversation with a leader of a large hotel chain who told her that Chinese was the language to be learning, at least for her specific type of business
A long time ago before multiple people posted using the name “James” I posted a joke to this blog.
Imagine my surprise to see it come back to life!
G says:
However, in this day in age when the world seems to be getting smaller and smaller (globalization, easier communication, etc.), it is my humble opinion that it is to one’s advantage to learn about cultures outside of one’s own.
You and I are on the same wavelength here. However, there are a great many immigrants in the US who only grudgingly speak English (and I am an immigrant to the US who spoke English and some Cantonese before I arrived in the US, and am now engaged in learning Mandarin).
Indeed, had I only put more effort into French during high school I might have gotten further with a certain female who spoke French (but was not from France)
So, motivation is important, as are ability and opportunity.