4 ms·

The Future of Language

33 points by kafkaesq 11y ago

Aqwis 11y ago
It is sort of touched on later in the article, but the first graphic, showing the number of native speakers for each language, isn't very useful. The statistic that better measures the utility of knowing a language is the total number of people with working knowledge of the language, which would boosts the numbers of English, French and Russian dramatically. I wonder if a better statistic would be number of speakers with working knowledge of a language, weighted by GDP per capita of the countries in which those speakers live. Of course, that assumes the purpose of learning a language is to do business, which is not necessarily true.
- maehwasu 11y ago
  Very interesting, and can be stated even more strongly. Even if the purpose of learning a language isn't business, the GDP per capita of the target language matters. Countries that are better off have more people with leisure time who you are likely to meet/interact with, and also tend to produce more interesting culture.
evmar 11y ago
Does anyone know why articles like this, which often seem to involve consulting experts, always count all of China as one language? Aside from the many different languages of China[1], Wikipedia also says that "Chinese"/Hanyu in different regions is mutually unintelligible[2], which as far as I know is the same as the difference between similar languages like Italian and Spanish. I don't mean this as a middlebrow dismissal -- I am not very knowledgeable about Chinese and I am hoping someone has a good explanation for this. For example, maybe it's the case that everyone speaks their local language and a unified dialect as well; or maybe it's that the vast majority of people all speak one dialect (Mandarin?) such that these articles are only counting those people; or maybe it's some other thing I don't understand. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_China [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language
- LiweiZ 11y ago
  Many Chinese in mainland China can speak Putonghua (probably just another name for Mandarin). Each place has its own dialect. The adoption of mandarin as a "unified dialect" should be the result of central government's policy. Some regions of China still keep their dialects as daily spoken languages. I did not read the article. Just provide some basic info here.
- snogglethorpe 11y ago
  Mandarin is effectively a Chinese lingua-franca these days... I know people from all areas of China and Chinese-origin countries like Taiwan, and they happily chat away when they meet, although their native dialects are supposedly not mutually comprehensible. Also the written language, which varies far less, has always served as sort of an anchor and connecting point. Historically, language was one of the central factors underlying the entire concept of "China" and "Chinese" (China as a country in the modern sense is a very recent phenomena).
- beisner 11y ago
  While the different dialects of Chinese (Mandarin/普通话/putonghua being the most common, followed by Cantonese/广东话/Guangdonghua, etc.) sound entirely different spoken, the written character representations of the dialects are essentially the same. That means that the syntax, grammar, and other conventions of written Chinese underpin all spoken dialects. This extends to both written Traditional and Simplified Chinese, which are just two parallel character sets that represent the same fundamental characters (Simplified characters are just simplified versions of the Traditional characters, and were introduced in the 1940's and '50s to promote literacy). So while two people speaking different dialects may not be able to speak to each other because the tones and pronunciations of words are different, they most certainly can communicate by writing with each other because each dialect is just a different vocal representation of the same underlying language.
  - mc32 11y ago
    Not only that (well, ignoring traditional Chinese characters versus simplified --where someone versed in traditional can make out simplified, but those versed in simplified normally have a harder time reading traditional characters) but everyone learns the Beijing dialect in school --it's, after all, the official language.
jaimebuelta 11y ago
I'm curious about the discrepancy of the number of Arabic speakers. The article says 467 Million, while Wikipedia states 290 Million [1] I know that Wikipedia can't be taken as The Truth, but a quick search on Internet seems to get values closer to 200-300M than to 450M (except for Ulrich Ammon, which is the source for the post). It seems a sensible difference, anyone has an explanation? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic
- jaimebuelta 11y ago
  Ok, I answer myself, there are some discrepancies on the graphic with the number of native vs total number of speakers. In some cases they are mixed, and that makes a difference. For example, in [1], the total (L1 + L2) is 490 M. The total for English is 840M, then, not ~500M, which is L2. The primary source is this [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_number_of_speakers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_num... [2] http://www.ethnologue.com/statistics/size http://www.ethnologue.com/statistics/size
- hasenj 11y ago
  Arabic is not one language, but a family of languages, with "Standard Arabic" serving as an almost artificial lingua-franca, that no one actually can speak natively. I say almost artificial because it has never been any body's native language at any point in time. Now, Classical Arabic, theoretically was the native language of certain tribes in the Hijaz region (of modern day Saudi Arabia) some 1400 years ago. Standard Arabic is a modernized version of Classical Arabic. Some vocabulary have almost completely different meanings, and a large number of modern collocations would probably make no sense to the native speakers of Classical Arabic if they were alive today.

33 points by kafkaesq 11y ago

Aqwis 11y ago

It is sort of touched on later in the article, but the first graphic, showing the number of native speakers for each language, isn't very useful. The statistic that better measures the utility of knowing a language is the total number of people with working knowledge of the language, which would boosts the numbers of English, French and Russian dramatically. I wonder if a better statistic would be number of speakers with working knowledge of a language, weighted by GDP per capita of the countries in which those speakers live. Of course, that assumes the purpose of learning a language is to do business, which is not necessarily true.

maehwasu 11y ago
Very interesting, and can be stated even more strongly. Even if the purpose of learning a language isn't business, the GDP per capita of the target language matters. Countries that are better off have more people with leisure time who you are likely to meet/interact with, and also tend to produce more interesting culture.

evmar 11y ago

Does anyone know why articles like this, which often seem to involve consulting experts, always count all of China as one language? Aside from the many different languages of China[1], Wikipedia also says that "Chinese"/Hanyu in different regions is mutually unintelligible[2], which as far as I know is the same as the difference between similar languages like Italian and Spanish. I don't mean this as a middlebrow dismissal -- I am not very knowledgeable about Chinese and I am hoping someone has a good explanation for this. For example, maybe it's the case that everyone speaks their local language and a unified dialect as well; or maybe it's that the vast majority of people all speak one dialect (Mandarin?) such that these articles are only counting those people; or maybe it's some other thing I don't understand. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_China [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language

LiweiZ 11y ago
Many Chinese in mainland China can speak Putonghua (probably just another name for Mandarin). Each place has its own dialect. The adoption of mandarin as a "unified dialect" should be the result of central government's policy. Some regions of China still keep their dialects as daily spoken languages. I did not read the article. Just provide some basic info here.
snogglethorpe 11y ago
Mandarin is effectively a Chinese lingua-franca these days... I know people from all areas of China and Chinese-origin countries like Taiwan, and they happily chat away when they meet, although their native dialects are supposedly not mutually comprehensible. Also the written language, which varies far less, has always served as sort of an anchor and connecting point. Historically, language was one of the central factors underlying the entire concept of "China" and "Chinese" (China as a country in the modern sense is a very recent phenomena).
beisner 11y ago
While the different dialects of Chinese (Mandarin/普通话/putonghua being the most common, followed by Cantonese/广东话/Guangdonghua, etc.) sound entirely different spoken, the written character representations of the dialects are essentially the same. That means that the syntax, grammar, and other conventions of written Chinese underpin all spoken dialects. This extends to both written Traditional and Simplified Chinese, which are just two parallel character sets that represent the same fundamental characters (Simplified characters are just simplified versions of the Traditional characters, and were introduced in the 1940's and '50s to promote literacy). So while two people speaking different dialects may not be able to speak to each other because the tones and pronunciations of words are different, they most certainly can communicate by writing with each other because each dialect is just a different vocal representation of the same underlying language.
- mc32 11y ago
  Not only that (well, ignoring traditional Chinese characters versus simplified --where someone versed in traditional can make out simplified, but those versed in simplified normally have a harder time reading traditional characters) but everyone learns the Beijing dialect in school --it's, after all, the official language.

jaimebuelta 11y ago

I'm curious about the discrepancy of the number of Arabic speakers. The article says 467 Million, while Wikipedia states 290 Million [1] I know that Wikipedia can't be taken as The Truth, but a quick search on Internet seems to get values closer to 200-300M than to 450M (except for Ulrich Ammon, which is the source for the post). It seems a sensible difference, anyone has an explanation? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic

jaimebuelta 11y ago
Ok, I answer myself, there are some discrepancies on the graphic with the number of native vs total number of speakers. In some cases they are mixed, and that makes a difference. For example, in [1], the total (L1 + L2) is 490 M. The total for English is 840M, then, not ~500M, which is L2. The primary source is this [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_number_of_speakers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_num... [2] http://www.ethnologue.com/statistics/size http://www.ethnologue.com/statistics/size
hasenj 11y ago
Arabic is not one language, but a family of languages, with "Standard Arabic" serving as an almost artificial lingua-franca, that no one actually can speak natively. I say almost artificial because it has never been any body's native language at any point in time. Now, Classical Arabic, theoretically was the native language of certain tribes in the Hijaz region (of modern day Saudi Arabia) some 1400 years ago. Standard Arabic is a modernized version of Classical Arabic. Some vocabulary have almost completely different meanings, and a large number of modern collocations would probably make no sense to the native speakers of Classical Arabic if they were alive today.