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English is the de facto lingua franca, and the fact I can use that phrase and you all know what it means proves there’s no “taking over”, English is uniquely we
by gaius 8y ago
English is the de facto lingua franca, and the fact I can use that phrase and you all know what it means proves there’s no “taking over”, English is uniquely welcoming to others
- ajross 8y ago> English is the de facto lingua franca The fact that the idiom you picked there uses Latin to tell us that English is like French tells you everything you need to know about this status. It's ephemeral in the long term. I don't know what our grandkids' children will be speaking. It certainly could be English or Mandarin. But languages change, even on this scale. Certainly there's economic value in having a universal language (and a social loss when languages fall into disuse, for that matter), but IMHO that's as far as it goes.
- megaman22 8y agoMandarin is hamstrung by an impossible writing system, even in its various alphabetization schemes, so I do not see that as a reasonable winner. It simply requires too great an effort to reach functional levels of reading and writing proficiency, compared to competitors.
- ajross 8y agoMeh. They changed it once already in the last half century. They can change it again. I'm no expert, but it's certainly not impossible to imagine a future where all international business communication is in pinyin or a descendant.
- kharms 8y agoActually, the "franca" in "lingua franca" refers to the "Frankish" people, a term applied to a variety of Western Mediterraneans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_Lingua_Franca https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_Lingua_Franca