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If the Internet pushes English enough to get every digital citizen to learn it, that would be one of the most compelling reasons for its social good. I always
by zanny 10y ago
If the Internet pushes English enough to get every digital citizen to learn it, that would be one of the most compelling reasons for its social good.
I always hate all the talk about multilingualism as a good thing, when the consequence of language diversity is, one, people are wasting time in their youths learning languages for other peoples benefit, ie, those that want to "preserve" it, when the marginal utility of having excess languages is at best questionable. And two, if you do not know the primary language used for, you know, communicating with other human beings, especially English, your potential economic mobility is catastrophically crippled on a global scale.
- Typhon 10y agoTu as tout à fait raison. Pourquoi perdrais-je mon temps à apprendre ta langue pour ton bénéfice, c'est une perte de temps total. Merci de m'avoir ouvert les yeux. J'aime bien aussi ta deuxième phrase qui sous-entend qu'on ne peut communiquer avec les autres qu'en anglais. Je me demande comment je faisais pour discuter avec mes parents quand j'étais petit. C'est sans doute de là que vient la tragique incommunicabilité qui a marqué mon enfance.
- _kyran 10y agoExactement. Quand j'étais plus jeune, je voulais de comprendre et communiquer avec des Francophones. Je ne saisis pas que le majorité des jeunes en France apprennent et utilisent Anglais tout les temps. Donc à le début, c'était très difficile d'avoir un conversation sans les changent à anglais. Maintenant je peux parler juste un peu le Français, mais l'expression quand un francophones réalise que je peux le comprendre est absolument fantastique :) Bravo pour apprendre Anglais. Je souhaite que plus gens ont apprécié la lutte que les locuteurs non natifs ont quand ils apprennent un nouveau langue.
- fighting 10y agoWhile I agree that language policing like you see in France or the drive for culture preservation via language in various parts of the world is tragically misguided if not actively harmful, the one thing that gives pause is that we do not have a 'perfect' language in english by any means. Learning other languages and lingustic evolution gives hope that we can trend towards better options in the future. So lets not declare english as the winner just yet.
- cm2187 10y agoWhat other language do you suggest we use instead? English as already de facto won. It is the modern latin.
- fighting 10y agoWhat I would like to see is a language that is much more succinct, less bound in grammar rules/syntax but also less irregularities and ambiguities. English could evolve into this. Latin could have too but currently it is dead. Change happens.
- cm2187 10y agoBut again, what language? We are not talking about computer languages. This is not a theoretical exercise in an ideal software world where you can start all over again. It's going to be one of the mainstream languages. Which one? Russian? Chinese?
- fighting 10y agoYes, currently Chinese is the main alternative with the most population and has some of the features I mentioned. It is also great for business with many people learning it to attract some of the chinese money floating around and lots of foreigners there to make their fortunes. But just a couple of decades ago it was russian. A major war between the US and China and it might be Hindi next. Never safe to predict the future.
- douche 10y agoChinese has a really awful written form, as far as being something that people can learn to read and write in a short amount of time.
- seanmcdirmid 10y agoAnd before that Japanese.
- vacri 10y agoOne benefit of keeping languages around is that they help us understand what the brain is capable of. I'm with you on having a universal communication language, but keeping other languages alive does have some benefits. One example is literature - literature often does not translate well at all. Another is psychology and brain functionality, as I say above. For example, there are languages out there that don't have 'left' and 'right' as concepts. Instead people use 'east' and 'west' or 'north' and 'south'. Speakers of these languages tend to have a very good grasp of their geospatial bearing as a result. Without these unusual languages, we would be very unlikely to think of experimenting with such a concept, much less be able to test it. I did hear of one language about to go extinct (in central america, I think). There are apparently only two speakers of it, both elderly, that live a couple of streets apart... and they don't speak to each other because of some feud :)