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Look then at human languages - two of the giants are English and Spanish. Both pretty simple. Definitely they both are the most spoken as second language. They
by yjgyhj 11y ago
Look then at human languages - two of the giants are English and Spanish. Both pretty simple. Definitely they both are the most spoken as second language. They would not have that position if it was not for their simplicity, compared to other languages.
Mandarin is an outlier in that comparison - but also not popular as a second language.
- mkehrt 11y agoEnglish and Spanish hold their positions as popular languages based on the fact they were both spoken in world spanning empires in the past, not because they are particularly simple. English, in particular, is known for being difficult to learn--it uses phones that very rare ("th" and the English "r"), it has a bizarrely large vocabulary, and, somewhat separately, its spelling is nonsensical.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- JBReefer 11y agoYour are correct about the cause of dominance, but Spanish is absolutely the most simple language in large use.