3 ms·

Chinese can be the language of Internet within China, not outside and I am not saying it with any agony; it is the truth. Once and for all English has been esta

by uast23 16y ago

Chinese can be the language of Internet within China, not outside and I am not saying it with any agony; it is the truth. Once and for all English has been established as the universal language to communicate. India as an example, has majority of its websites targeted towards English speaking audience (which is a huge lot in India) and its not because no body wants to do a regional website, its because the regional websites have very less number of readers. So, learning English is almost a pre-requisite to using Internet here. And there is no hard feeling about having "English" as a pre-requisite because that helps you in reaching to a wider audience. Niche cannot be denied and we will always have regionally targeted products but that won't replace English at a global level. Even China is training a huge number of people with English.

cdavid 16y ago
I am not sure why you are saying that english has been established once and for all. French was that language two centuries and half ago because France was very powerful, and latin was before because the church was the most powerful entity (in Europe that is). It is mostly a question of which culture is the dominant one - right now, it is the western one, in particular american one. I don't know how nor when, but I am sure it will change at some point. The cost of changing language is not that high. The only thing that could change this would be near-perfect automated translation. I would not bet on China not getting the most important culture in the world before that :)
- uast23 16y ago
  I said that because of increasing level of acceptance among people. And I beg to differ on "The cost of changing language is not that high" point of yours. I know that English was not always the first language to communicate for everyone but look at 'today" where billions of people are reading and writing English everyday on web at a faster pace than any other language. All the dominant languages earlier did not have this privilege. And the bigger point is that no body minds it. People are more concerned about the their economic status. And this might be very personal but somehow I don't relate to languages emotionally. I am very much an Indian at heart even though I use English for most of my everyday communication needs :) Regarding the cost for language change, it will take lot of economic turmoil to turn it totally upside down.
  - zeemonkee 16y ago
    "Once and for all" is a very, very long time. English could easily fragment (happened to Latin), or be supplanted. For example, Persian occupied the same status that English does today in India, and was replaced pretty quickly once the British took over.
    - uast23 16y ago
      I never said that English is/will be the only language having existence. English is not the first language in India and with the kind of diversity India has I am sure it never will be the first language. But it is the common platform for people to communicate. Same is the case with other languages. We are talking while living in a much broader perspective now, where people are looking forward to work with each other and gain, rather than rule each other. So, just because some event happened in past, its not necessary that it will happen again. And while I am at it, let me say that this human kindness has not evolved on its own. We are living in a nuclear age, so for one person/country to dominate others it it will take millions of life and an entire economic era to fall down. So from current standing of the world, thinking that there will be one major global event which will suddenly change the way we live is a little imaginary, unless we are ready to sacrifice ourselves. China is one of the fastest growing economies and there is no denial to the fact the Chinese language will spread once the trade has more open face but at the same time no one else has stopped (US and other English speaking countries). So languages might co-exist but replacing English is far from truth. I truly wish that more n more languages attain a global status. This will just add to the learning.
      - zeemonkee 16y ago
        There need not be a major global event for English to lose its status. There are a number of possible scenarios, which may take centuries or millennia. For example, Latin persisted as the language of the church and academia centuries after the collapse of the Roman Empire - if the US were to collapse tomorrow (however unlikely) English will likely persist out of convenience for a while. It need not even be a collapse - sometimes languages can be adopted for other reasons. For example, upper class Romans spoke Greek (the language of a conquered people), upper class Russians in the 19th century spoke French (if you read War and Peace, it's strange to see so much French dialogue - when the French were the enemy !). Could it be possible that perhaps a century hence, upper class Americans use Chinese among themselves and English to speak to the peasants ? A more likely scenario is fragmentation into new languages - just as Latin broke up into French, Spanish etc. Often this happens with the influence of local languages. While a collapse in global communications - due to war, resource depletion, or other disaster - would accelerate the process, it can still happen over a longer period of time. Another new possibility is that advances in technology render the concept of a lingua franca obsolete - a "universal translator". This is unlikely without some major advances in AI but not impossible.

by uast23 16y ago

cdavid 16y ago

I am not sure why you are saying that english has been established once and for all. French was that language two centuries and half ago because France was very powerful, and latin was before because the church was the most powerful entity (in Europe that is). It is mostly a question of which culture is the dominant one - right now, it is the western one, in particular american one. I don't know how nor when, but I am sure it will change at some point. The cost of changing language is not that high. The only thing that could change this would be near-perfect automated translation. I would not bet on China not getting the most important culture in the world before that :)

uast23 16y ago
I said that because of increasing level of acceptance among people. And I beg to differ on "The cost of changing language is not that high" point of yours. I know that English was not always the first language to communicate for everyone but look at 'today" where billions of people are reading and writing English everyday on web at a faster pace than any other language. All the dominant languages earlier did not have this privilege. And the bigger point is that no body minds it. People are more concerned about the their economic status. And this might be very personal but somehow I don't relate to languages emotionally. I am very much an Indian at heart even though I use English for most of my everyday communication needs :) Regarding the cost for language change, it will take lot of economic turmoil to turn it totally upside down.
- zeemonkee 16y ago
  "Once and for all" is a very, very long time. English could easily fragment (happened to Latin), or be supplanted. For example, Persian occupied the same status that English does today in India, and was replaced pretty quickly once the British took over.
  - uast23 16y ago
    I never said that English is/will be the only language having existence. English is not the first language in India and with the kind of diversity India has I am sure it never will be the first language. But it is the common platform for people to communicate. Same is the case with other languages. We are talking while living in a much broader perspective now, where people are looking forward to work with each other and gain, rather than rule each other. So, just because some event happened in past, its not necessary that it will happen again. And while I am at it, let me say that this human kindness has not evolved on its own. We are living in a nuclear age, so for one person/country to dominate others it it will take millions of life and an entire economic era to fall down. So from current standing of the world, thinking that there will be one major global event which will suddenly change the way we live is a little imaginary, unless we are ready to sacrifice ourselves. China is one of the fastest growing economies and there is no denial to the fact the Chinese language will spread once the trade has more open face but at the same time no one else has stopped (US and other English speaking countries). So languages might co-exist but replacing English is far from truth. I truly wish that more n more languages attain a global status. This will just add to the learning.
    - zeemonkee 16y ago
      There need not be a major global event for English to lose its status. There are a number of possible scenarios, which may take centuries or millennia. For example, Latin persisted as the language of the church and academia centuries after the collapse of the Roman Empire - if the US were to collapse tomorrow (however unlikely) English will likely persist out of convenience for a while. It need not even be a collapse - sometimes languages can be adopted for other reasons. For example, upper class Romans spoke Greek (the language of a conquered people), upper class Russians in the 19th century spoke French (if you read War and Peace, it's strange to see so much French dialogue - when the French were the enemy !). Could it be possible that perhaps a century hence, upper class Americans use Chinese among themselves and English to speak to the peasants ? A more likely scenario is fragmentation into new languages - just as Latin broke up into French, Spanish etc. Often this happens with the influence of local languages. While a collapse in global communications - due to war, resource depletion, or other disaster - would accelerate the process, it can still happen over a longer period of time. Another new possibility is that advances in technology render the concept of a lingua franca obsolete - a "universal translator". This is unlikely without some major advances in AI but not impossible.