English Language

[andyb]

This guy is really pissed off, is anyone else concerned that the "English" language is taking over.???

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6341795.stm

I can understand his point to a degree, and he is obviously a proud Frenchman, but if everyone around you is speaking English then the obvious choice is to speak English as well.

For multinational companies English is the common ground as English is the second language for most of Europe, and the first language in the business world.

This is not going to change, English is taking over, which is exactly what should happen, now all we need to do is re-educate the Americans to stop dropping "U's" out of words and start spelling correctly.


Andy

[Tzupy]

I have no problem with English taking over, but please don't try to push others to drive on the WRONG side of the road.
I'm speaking quite often to my partners in the UK, but I just can't get used to the driving side.

[nutball]

The French routinely get bent out of shape about this, it's nothing new. They are pissing in wind though, because as you rightly say, the advance of English as the lingua franca of international trade, science and technology is unstoppable. Let them have their fit of pique I say!

[CoolGav]

Possibly if the French slowed down a bit (like in Mauritus), and stopped shrugging then everyone would understand them a bit more and feel that they want to use the French language.

I don't think any language should die out, since it is part of the cultural heritage of an area. Unfortunatly in the global world we need to communicate effectivly, and despite technology trying to intorduce translators, it's still better to use a common language.

[Mescalero]

Everybody should be bilingiual. I can't understand how someone would not want to learn English rather well, if it's not his or her native tongue. Without English you are ddenied such a huge part of information especially course on the internet.
English natives should also learn a foreign language because it's also a window into other countries and cultures.
English is great for a worldwide language though because I find it's grammar comparitivly easy. I learned French in school and thought it difficult, now I learn Russian and it's hard and could never even figure out the German grammar. Learning English was somehow quick and easy though...

[qviri]

Whatever, we're all going to be speaking Mandarin in fifty years anyway.

[andyb]

No way we are all going to be speaking a type of Orange, thats just silly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_orange

Anyway the reason why the Chinese are all learning English is because everyone else is, most of the internet is English, businesses speak English, and a Mandarin keyboard is a nightmare.

Quite specifically the Internet, and computer usage in general is spreading English to the chinese, and not the other way around, and many Chinese people learn to read and write English, but not to speak it. This is an excelent halfway house, but is still spreading the use of the English language.


Andy

[mr. poopyhead]

teh english langwedge iz going down the toylet... in one or too generashuns, most of us wont bee abel to undrstand it at all, lol!!!111

4 a humeris look at wut englsih mite look lyke in teh future, wotch mike judge's idiocracy. quiet hilareeus, roflle!!!!111

[qviri]

Mandarin has more speakers than any other language. Right now internet access is not as widespread in China as it is in the English-speaking world. That is going to change.

Agreed about the writing system though, it's going to be interesting what they end up coming up with. If all else fails, there's always pinyin.

[andyb]

Mr Poopyhead, you are quite right, its not just you Yanks that have the problem, us Brits have as well, no doubt the Convicts too.

Qviri, the only way to know which language is going to win is to do a bit of time-travelling, but my machine is out of juice and I cant find a supplier so I will just have to wait.

The thing that gives English a big edge over Manadarin is that English is pretty much everyones second language, it IS the common ground. If a Chinese person wants to communicate with anyone frome Europe, the USA, Aussieland, or Canada, south america, India, Japan, Russia, etc they need to be speaking English.

Just how many Chinese people will bother speaking German, Spanish, Italian, Urdu or French, very few, because all of those people will already know English, so that Chinese person will learn English to some degree and not bother with any of the other languages.

Strictly speaking there are more people speaking Spanish (or a sub-dialect) than English (or so I heard), yet Spanish is not regarded as a world-wide contender to English.

Just because a language is widely used by the sheer mass of people does not mean that it will be triumphant, English is winning because its either the first OR second language of every developed country. Developing countries need common ground to sell their wares, being able to communicate with everyone is in their best interests, and English wins hands down purely because it IS everyones first or second language.


Andy

[AZBrandon]

How funny, I just read an article about how literacy is expected to take a huge hit in the USA by 2030. "Taking over" huh?

Link to Article

[qviri]

Qviri, the only way to know which language is going to win is to do a bit of time-travelling, but my machine is out of juice and I cant find a supplier so I will just have to wait.

Or believe me

I acknowledge that right now Chinese is no match for English. But things change.

[vincentfox]

English does not borrow from other languages.

English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over the head, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.

People often complain about the state of the language, but probably don't know much about it's history so far. English has always been a fluid language that works and fits the mood of it's people at that time and place. Some obvious and much-commented on external aspects are akward spellings, constant change, and all the slang bolted onto the side of it. It didn't start nor end with Cockney rhymes old bean. Several times in the history of the English language, people got motivated to do some spring-cleaning and spruce it up. But it never lasts.

A little humor for you:

A Pan Am 727 flight, waiting for start clearance in Munich , overheard the following:
Lufthansa (in German): "Ground, what is our start clearance time?"
Ground (in English): "If you want an answer you must speak in English."
Lufthansa (in English): "I am a German, flying a German airplane, in Germany . Why must I speak English?"
Unknown voice from another plane (in a beautiful British accent): "Because you lost the bloody war!"

But humor aside, the English language in various forms has become entrenched as an international language used by many technical and professional fields. I can't see it being displaced anytime soon. I've seen 2 engineers from different countries, who both know French and English as common languages, spend much more time conversing in English. Much though we deride the oddities of English sometimes, it can be a lot simpler not having to worry what GENDER a table is, or the subtle variations in tone that change meanings in Asian languages.

[Beyonder]

How funny, I just read an article about how literacy is expected to take a huge hit in the USA by 2030. "Taking over" huh?

Link to Article

That is, assuming that literacy has some impact on the proliferation of a language. Just because people aren't particularly good at reading or writing English doesn't mean it isn't spreading. In fact, I doubt literacy has much to do with it at all. And the last thing the modern world needs are David Foster Wallace clones correcting everyone and injecting snide [sic] comments everytime someone has a grammatical lapse.

Part of me thinks it's probably for the best that people speak some sort of common language, but part of me also thinks it's pretty sad that a lot of languages are being marginalized. French speaking people don't have nearly as much to worry about as some other languages do.

When I was visiting Norway, it became pretty clear what was happening there. The girl I stayed with had a twelve year old sister who spoke English and Norwegian. We watched The Simpsons together, in English with Norwegian subtitles--and she understood all of it. Over the course of several weeks, I didn't encounter a single person who didn't at least speak some English. Most people spoke excellent English. But it was sort of a sad subject for some Norwegian people; it's pretty clear that the Norwegian language isn't exactly thriving.

[Devonavar]

English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over the head, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

@Beyonder:

I'll take that Wikipedia article with a grain of salt. Cantonese is not listed for some reason; presumably it's subsumed as a dialect of Mandarin, which makes no since since they are mutually unintelligible when spoken.

Also, the number of native English speakers seems absurdly low:

Wikipedia: 340 million native speakers
US = 300 million, UK = 60 million, Canada = 23 million (leaving out the Quebecois), Australia = 20 million for a total of 400 million native speakers.



I'll be very happy when we all speak Manderish. We need a lingua franca, and if it's English, so be it. I don't see other languages disappearing any time soon. Latin was a lingua franca for centuries without affecting local dialects. I doubt we'll recognize the lingua franca 100 years from now as the English we know today.

I think what is likely to happen is languages are likely to evolve based on culture rather than geography. I can think of several widely used, non-geographical variants of English that are not quite "true" English:

1337 5p34k: wat all da gamerz talk 2 wen there r0xing teh b0xers
hip-hop (Ebonics?): for all da homeboyz in da 'hood
Academic English: The proper mode of expression for clear, unambiguous communication, thereby ensuring the utmost epistemological accuracy and precision in any common dialogue.
Legal English: Academic English with more heretofore's and wherewithal's, and a weird tendancy to number every paragraph as an article. (...and I thought "the" and "an" were articles)
Fanboy: Watch some anime and find out... ja ne / ganbatte dattebayo...

[andyb]

So the only contenders to English are......... Mandarin.

It is a shame that the lesser spoken languages are dying out, but so long as there is interest there will always be the die-hard element, who refuse to let the language die out. This is happening over in Wales, some Taffs are campaigning very hard to keep wales as a major language, and in some schools English is a second language.

Smaller languages do have a chance to make a lasting impression on the English language, add some of their words to the English language.

As Vincentfox most hilariously put it English eats other languages, or at least some words and phrases, English has words that are directly linked to French, German, Italian, Spanish and Scandanavian languages.

English has become a hugely varied language over hundreds of years because new words have been added, or invented, including "cha" which means Tea (simplified) in China and Japan, we dont just take European words.

The best thing about English is that someone can miss out whole words out of sentences and it is still understandable people with different dialects can understand each other (with some exceptions Glaswegian and Newcastlian) the sentences are formed in a sensible manner unlike French which is just the wrong way around and we dont have to worry about whether the subject matter is male female or shim abbreviation is also OK so long as people abbreviate sensibly unlike those twats that use 1337 5p34k bed speeleng is a nun ishue there are dozens of words that can mean the same thing so there is plenty of choice for people to use and words can be bastardised from other words grammar is not as important as it is in other languages as you can still understand this massive paragraph.


Andy

[qviri]

Also, the number of native English speakers seems absurdly low:

Wikipedia: 340 million native speakers
US = 300 million, UK = 60 million, Canada = 23 million (leaving out the Quebecois), Australia = 20 million for a total of 400 million native speakers.

In terms of people for whom English is a native language, it probably looks more like:

US = 246 million (1), UK = 60 million, Canada = 19.5 million (2), Australia = 17.7 million (3) for a total of 343.2 million of native speakers. Minus some people in the UK for which I couldn't find stats right now, and plus children who were brought up as bilingual in other countries, plus ex-pats, etc... It's within 350 million.

The joys of immigration!

[Devonavar]

I would have thought that the immigration numbers would be made up by native English speakers who have emigrated to other countries, but perhaps there's been less emigration away from the English speaking world???

Also, there are native speakers of English in South Africa, India, Hong Kong, New Zealand and other former colonies that should be counted. And even by your count, the estimate is still well above the Wikipedia estimate.

[mathias]

teh english langwedge iz going down the toylet... in one or too generashuns, most of us wont bee abel to undrstand it at all, lol!!!111

4 a humeris look at wut englsih mite look lyke in teh future, wotch mike judge's idiocracy. quiet hilareeus, roflle!!!!111

If it evir reechez that point, wee ken, yue noe, akchwelee spel it konsistentlee.

Which would probably end up fragmenting english speakers into those who spell it the way it's always been spelled and those who spell it in new ways. Which would accelerate the pace of spoken englishes diverging.

Strictly speaking there are more people speaking Spanish (or a sub-dialect) than English (or so I heard), yet Spanish is not regarded as a world-wide contender to English.

What do you mean it's not regarded as a contender? In a few decades, half the US will be speaking spanish.

But it was sort of a sad subject for some Norwegian people; it's pretty clear that the Norwegian language isn't exactly thriving.

Too bad for them. Those vikings could have made english a lot more like norwegian, they could have even made england speak a scandinavian language, but they blew their chances, instead they helped mash in all that french.

English has words that are directly linked to French, German, Italian, Spanish and Scandanavian languages.

French? No, english has words that are linked to old english. The majority of english vocabulary is french.

[Beyonder]

@Beyonder:

I'll take that Wikipedia article with a grain of salt. Cantonese is not listed for some reason; presumably it's subsumed as a dialect of Mandarin, which makes no since since they are mutually unintelligible when spoken.

Also, the number of native English speakers seems absurdly low:

Wikipedia: 340 million native speakers
US = 300 million, UK = 60 million, Canada = 23 million (leaving out the Quebecois), Australia = 20 million for a total of 400 million native speakers.

Regarding Cantonese, see the talk page of the article. There's considerable controversy (and rightfully so, if you read some of the comments) around that point. I suspect you're right, and it should be listed as a separate item, but I'd hardly take the page with a grain of salt because it isn't perfect.

(also of note: I posted the page to illustrate why French people have little to worry about, relatively speaking--not to haggle over the precision of those numbers, which are obviously going to be debatable)

Regarding your English math, see qviri's post. You're making a gigantic assumption that those countries are composed entirely of English speaking citizens. If 82% of the US speaks English at home (which is a figure presented here), that means 18% of the US speaks some other language at home. If there are 300 million people in the U.S., that's roughly 54 million people who are arguably not native English speakers. Without even looking at the other countries, I'd say the Ethnologue estimate is absurdly good compared to yours.

[Beyonder]

the estimate is still well above the Wikipedia estimate.

It's not an estimate by Wikipedia. It's an estimate by Ethnologue.

[Trip]

English dominance will ebb and flow is my prediction. People always want to change so such things will always be changing.

In the Americas Hispanics are very proud of their language.

[vincentfox]

Regarding spellings, is it laziness to spell things the way they sound? You should look at some spellings from the 1600 and 1700's. The current spelling system is the result of several partially successful attempts to move to a phonetic spelling system. In some aspects leet-speak and for example the short spellings used by frequent text-messagers are better in my opinion. At least they are usually compact. Lack of comfort with the prospect speaks more to fear of the speaker, than it does to who is "right". In English there is little sense of right, just what is commonly used.

Indeed, why shouldn't we spell "enough" as "enuf" or something similar? There are many entertaining articles on "spelling reform" on Wikipedia. But many of the good ideas didn't make it, just inertia and obstinance in many cases I think. I find this one quite funny:

http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/ortho.html

I do not buy that the Spanish/USA comment really means anything long-term. Pick another period of history and you'll probably find someone predicting some other language will "replace English" and yet it never happens. A New York cab-driver may speak only very little of a 2nd language, but that language will undoubtedly be English. A Spanish-speaker who speaks only Spanish, will probably not be doing any work above minimum-wage. Unless the entire population of the USA died in a plague, and only Spanish-speakers moved in, I cannot see Spanish becoming a primary language. That idea has even less prospect than the US switching to metric.

[Aside: I am always amused by a few old co-workers who can go on at length about the Spanish Invasion, yet themselves speak heavily accented SE US English which could hardly be considered proper by a purist as they must imagine themselves to be.]

[Trip]

I think we'll definately switch to metric this century

America has a lot of Mexican immigration and Spanish is becoming increasingly popular. With the NAFTA highway being built, America is growing increasingly close to Mexico and Mexicans have higher birth rates.

Also, a latin state might become the next Celtic tiger maybe. Maybe Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, or Uruguay?

I was just putting the idea up not making a prediction really.

[vincentfox]

Either stand by your ideas or don't post them!

I liken it to "kitchen Italian". Look at history. Plenty of Italians, or pick your group, emigrated. After 2 or 3 generations the mother-tongue becomes something they are proud of, but maybe they don't use everyday. If you went back to the mother country and tried to speak it they would just make fun of you. Follow a Spanish-speaking family a few generations and you'll see the same thing. 1st generation may speak primarily Spanish. Their kids speak Spanish at home and English or Spanglish everywhere else. By the time of the 3rd generation, the Spanish becomes this proud accessory thing but not the primary. I'll probably be flogged for that by someone but I've seen it happen.

I blame Bush and his "Mexican" focus last year for making people think immigrants=Mexicans. Are all the Chinese and other immigrants speaking Spanish? No, they typically speak passable English. How are a Mexican immigrant and a Pakistani immigrant going to communicate? Probably in English.

I think it's easy to get lost on this as being about the PRIMACY of any language. Which is not how I see it. it's how often you are going to see it as the COMMON language between two people where their primary languages are different.

To return to my pilots example, even in France, all pilots speak English in radio communications after March 23rd of 2000. Aeronautical English is a standard that is all about operations and safety.

Think of English as the Microsoft Windows of languages. Everybody complains about it, but with all it's problems people just keep buying it.

[Trip]

The sheer number of Latino (mostly Mexican) immigrants (illegal as well as legal) into the US makes them unique. Also, some are coming around to seeing the gringos as the immigrants and themselves the natives.

Dunno if you're familiar with the Neutrals from Futurama, but my position is definately maybe.

[vincentfox]

Not a regular Futurama viewer, but seen enough episodes to not "axe" you to explain it.

I think Futurama made a nice point there.

I won't debate the many hypocritical positions regarding Mexican illegals in the US. That would be an entirely new off-topic thread.

Sticking to the topic, the original story is just the usual nationalistic hand-wringing. A country with 14 commissions to keep the French language pure has no shortage of that.

I must retract my last comments though, the French airports are back to using French again after an uproar about the topic. Which is unfortunate, the fatal accident at Charles de Gaulle around that time was due to language problems since that airport tries to accomodate both French and English. This would be fine if all pilots understood both French and English but they don't, or if all pilots flying through France were required to be fluent in French. It's only a matter of time until there is another accident. The French will see it as arrogance, from a practical perspective it would benefit everyone though if the EU would standardize and make it mandatory. At 200+ knots translation might take one second too long. This is not an area where nationalistic fervor leads to good policy.

[mathias]

Much though we deride the oddities of English sometimes, it can be a lot simpler not having to worry what GENDER a table is, or the subtle variations in tone that change meanings in Asian languages.

I doubt tonal variations are at all subtle to speakers of tonal languages (ie. most languages of the world). It's english that's infamous for subtle variations in vowel quality, that's why the vowels are constantly moving all over the place.

Regarding spellings, is it laziness to spell things the way they sound?

On the internet? Yes, it is laziness to spell everything the way it sounds to you.

If people did start to spell english the way it sounds, that would kill a lot of the motivation for people to learn it, ie. access to a lot of material.

[Aside: I am always amused by a few old co-workers who can go on at length about the Spanish Invasion, yet themselves speak heavily accented SE US English which could hardly be considered proper by a purist as they must imagine themselves to be.]

And just what's wrong with their english? It's just as legitemate an english as any other, even if people like you identify it as "redneck". To them, you're the one with the heavy accent. If anything, it's a little less confusing than some other dialects since it at least has a distinct 2nd person plural pronoun.

Are all the Chinese and other immigrants speaking Spanish? No, they typically speak passable English.

But we also speak other languages, and we have those other languages available to us if we ever want to go back to europe/asia. And china is becoming a much nicer place to live for people with money.

How are a Mexican immigrant and a Pakistani immigrant going to communicate?

What makes you so sure they'll want to?

What if it's mexican immigrants and brazilian immigrants? Their languages are a lot closer to each other than to english, and together their numbers are huge.

To return to my pilots example, even in France, all pilots speak English in radio communications after March 23rd of 2000. Aeronautical English is a standard that is all about operations and safety.

That's not that good of an example. Like I sort of said before, english is basically french bolted onto a germanic backbone.

Think of English as the Microsoft Windows of languages. Everybody complains about it, but with all it's problems people just keep buying it.

When did windows have that little market share? The english speaking world isn't microsoft. They're not going to threaten to do bad things to people for speaking languages other than english. They can't make it impossible to add latin derived words to other languages. They can't encourage people to write things in such a way that it'll be very difficult to translate them into other languages. Backwards compatibility, okay, they have that, but you're suggesting they throw it away.

In some aspects leet-speak and for example the short spellings used by frequent text-messagers are better in my opinion. At least they are usually compact.

And why is that at all a big deal? Because it's easier to type? People won't even bother to switch to typing devices that are more ergonomic than these imitations of 19th century ink-onto-paper-smashing machines, changing spelling is a far more extreme approach to this issue.

English does not borrow from other languages.

English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over the head, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.

Actually, it was the other way around. English had grammar from french, norse and latin surgically implanted into it with viking broadswoards.

English is great for a worldwide language though because I find it's grammar comparitivly easy. I learned French in school and thought it difficult, now I learn Russian and it's hard and could never even figure out the German grammar. Learning English was somehow quick and easy though...

Not only is that argument anecdotal, but you're not even saying what your native language is OR at what age you learned English, French and German.

[Trip]

Southern spellings were originally the same as the British. The Northerners changed things a bit though. I suppose it's to be expected that a rural aristocratic society would be more traditional than an individualist industrialist one.

Also, I've heard that Southerners and Australians speak somewhat like rural err Brits (lots of accents to choose from there though Southern accents also vary a great deal...). I've only heard this but I haven't been to Britain to compare. Also my ethnic British roommate from Zimbabwe told me whites were called roynecks (rednecks) there. So I think the South is fairly British still. More Irish and Scottish than English.

I didn't mean this in the least to be a discussion on whether immigration was good or bad. That can be found in one of my immigration threads I meant only that Spanish could become a major global language as well.

Which language is used doesn't bother me. As I said, people like change and such things will always be changing. Spanish might be a better language than English in some ways... Though it adds gender which I find annoying, it does stick to its rules and offers more tenses. Additionally it's closer to Latin, English being a German/Latin monstrosity (German based but now very Latin.) I was reading the other day of a language that was particularly good from SA... it was from one of the ancient civilisations there but I can't recall the name

That's my random almost totally OT post of the day

EDIT: Aymara language. It is based on a 3 value logic system (true, false, unknown/maybe) and the speakers look forward to the past and backward to the future which I suspect could lead to a far more traditional and thus long-lasting albeit less progressive civilisation (the focus on the past not the language necessarily). The Amerindians may well have a claim to the oldest civilisation hidden away somewhere, so I'm certainly not condescending to a people with such an incredible history. Though a lot has been lost to history from all over.

[andyb]

RANT WARNING

I have spoken to dozens of people (in England) who hate Americans for destroying the "English" language. Or more specifically for calling "American", "English", Americans cant spell correctly, yet they claim to be spelling "English".

How someone speaks is a different point to how they spell. Everyone will speak slightly different from the next person, people living a few hundered miles apart will have vastly different accents, but that does not excuse the fact that americans cant spell correctly. Yes this subject has been raised hundereds of times, and yes I do agree that spellings change over the years and due to influences by others. However the main reason why the spelling of "English" should not be ALLOWED to change is simply that the language known as "English" MUST be kept constant and consistent. If everyone spelt things as they said them, there would be hundereds of common spellings for the same word. English people, Jocks, Taffs, Newcastlians and Paddy's all speak English, with vastly different accents, yet they all manage to "spell" correctly, why cant the Yanks.???

If English was spelt how it sounded by everyone who writes it down, we would be going back to the 15th Century where everyone DID spell things how they sound. Let me give you an example, "Amereca" how does that sound to all of the "Amerecans" out there. I pronounce the word "America" with an "E" where the "I" quite rightly lives. I have no doubt that you now understand why the "English" are pissed off with "Amerecans" for making that outragous claim that they are speaking "English" when they are speaking "American", and spelling in "Amerecan" when they claim they are spelling "English".

Basiclly my point is that regardless of someones accent and pronounciation, the "Spelling" should not change just because they cant be bothered to use the letter "U".

RANT WARNING

Rant over, back on topic.

English will win in the strugle over what the populous of the planet will be speaking in 200 years time because of all of the many points that people have made, and as this is my post about the "English" language I have given myself the right to divert the subject from the "English" language to more specific things about the "English" language, such as spelling, pronounciation and the effects this has on various "English" speaking people around the world, and less about which language is going to win on this planet.

Quite specifically, I would like some input from some of the dozens of non-native "English" speakers and writers that populate these forums, that also inludes Amerecans

For example does anyone on here read and write "English" but cant actually speak "English" very well or at all. Or need to speak "English" as part of their job but dont at home.


Andy

PS: If any Jocks, Taffs, Newcastlians, Paddy's or Yanks are upset that I used those words then I will appologise if you beat us in the Six Nations - Oooops Jocks are still Jocks and Yanks will stay Yanks because they cant play Rugby. I am about to watch the Paddy's beat the Frogs, come on Paddy's.