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It's not due to English own linguistic merits in itself - and it borrowed/borrows from other languages as well. English has taken over because, in our local hi

It's not due to English own linguistic merits in itself - and it borrowed/borrows from other languages as well. English has taken over because, in our local history so far, because it's been the official language of the last two main world military (hence cultural & business) powers: UK for 19th century, US for 20th century - boosted by WW I & II & furthering globalization. It's been also shaped by this globalization worldwide. In 1, or 2 centuries, it very well may be that another language will have taken over. https://blog.esl-languages.com/blog/learn-languages/english-language-global-number-one/ https://blog.esl-languages.com/blog/learn-languages/english-...

henrikschroder 7y ago
> It's not due to English own linguistic merits in itself Well, English is a pretty simple language, grammatically. Compared to its Germanic neighbours, it doesn't have gendered nouns, it doesn't have the funky word order of German, nor the funky word order of the V2 Scandinavian languages. It has fewer letters in its alphabet, and it has fewer phonemes. It does have a very large vocabulary, mostly due to the French influence, and it's in dire need of a spelling reform to fix all the accumulated crap, but those are hurdles for writing English or mastering English. When it comes to speaking simple English, the bar is lower than what is required for speaking simple German, or simple Norwegian, for example. It's also pretty forgiving when it comes to word order, which means understanding bad English is also easier. So I think there's some sort of lowest common denominator merit to it that made it easier for it to take over.
- Juliate 7y ago
  That's seen through your own lens. Just compare the delicacies of the differences between British English & American English, if not only for the different understated meanings. The "funky word order" of German makes sense from a German perspective (and back to ancient Latin & Greek). Mandarin is not simple, comparatively to English. Yet, you can be quite assured that, would China, for instance, get the military & cultural influence UK/US had for 2 centuries, by 2200 they wouldn't have spread something else than a globalized Mandarin worldwide (as it happened for English; and French and Spanish before them).
  - octbash 7y ago
    Besides vocabulary/characters, in what sense is Mandarin not simple?
    - 2a0c40 7y ago
      Tones
      - kaesar14 7y ago
        Which is a massive sense in which it is not simple! For any non-native speakers, (I'm a native English speaker), tones were nearly impossible to master, and I still have a terrible grasp of them I think. It requires a complete rewiring of the way you speak language, sure, but it also requires a complete rewiring of how you hear it too!
      - jhanschoo 7y ago
        Tones are simple (in the sense of being governed by linguistic rules), just foreign.
  - henrikschroder 7y ago
    > they wouldn't have spread something else than a globalized Mandarin worldwide For sure, but my point was that the simpler (relatively, comparatively) a lingua franca is, the less pidgin you get, and the more of the actual language you get instead. And that's a merit of the language itself, not the powers that back it.
- lolc 7y ago
  The language of the dominant culture will prevail. I don't see why we should invent other reasons.
- jcranmer 7y ago
  > English is a pretty simple language, grammatically. Compared to Indo-European languages. Look at other language families, and our insistence on articles, inflection for tenses, plurality, and case (in the case of pronouns) looks unnecessarily complicated. And then there is the insane polysemy of English words. "get" has a wide variety of meanings, some of which are completely opposite from one another! > When it comes to speaking simple English I should also point out that English has relatively complex phonotactics. A word like "strengths" is excruciating for anyone whose phonology doesn't have consonant clusters in the first place.
  - jdashg 7y ago
    I think while English is really tough to speak perfectly, it's pretty easy to muddle through. "It suhrengz is" that you can drop all inflections, butcher pronunciations, and ignore the chaotic spelling, and still be able to communicate pretty reliably. Getting English right is a fractal of traditions and exceptions, but its MVP is very forgiving.
    - henrikschroder 7y ago
      > but its MVP is very forgiving. Yes, that was exactly my original point, thanks for explaining it more hacker-news-y than me. :-)
zojirushibottle 7y ago
wait, isn't english the international language of science as well? i thought it was...
- Juliate 7y ago
  Like, Arabic was about 10 centuries ago? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_the_medieval_Islamic_world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_the_medieval_Islami... Or Greek before? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_in_classical_antiquity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_in_classica... Or Chinese? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technol...
  - kaesar14 7y ago
    Isn't the difference here that science has become a global institution, and far more complex than it was in any of those societies?
    - Juliate 7y ago
      Science is a placeholder here, in the context of which language being used to express and articulate complex thoughts.

henrikschroder 7y ago

> It's not due to English own linguistic merits in itself Well, English is a pretty simple language, grammatically. Compared to its Germanic neighbours, it doesn't have gendered nouns, it doesn't have the funky word order of German, nor the funky word order of the V2 Scandinavian languages. It has fewer letters in its alphabet, and it has fewer phonemes. It does have a very large vocabulary, mostly due to the French influence, and it's in dire need of a spelling reform to fix all the accumulated crap, but those are hurdles for writing English or mastering English. When it comes to speaking simple English, the bar is lower than what is required for speaking simple German, or simple Norwegian, for example. It's also pretty forgiving when it comes to word order, which means understanding bad English is also easier. So I think there's some sort of lowest common denominator merit to it that made it easier for it to take over.

Juliate 7y ago
That's seen through your own lens. Just compare the delicacies of the differences between British English & American English, if not only for the different understated meanings. The "funky word order" of German makes sense from a German perspective (and back to ancient Latin & Greek). Mandarin is not simple, comparatively to English. Yet, you can be quite assured that, would China, for instance, get the military & cultural influence UK/US had for 2 centuries, by 2200 they wouldn't have spread something else than a globalized Mandarin worldwide (as it happened for English; and French and Spanish before them).
- octbash 7y ago
  Besides vocabulary/characters, in what sense is Mandarin not simple?
  - 2a0c40 7y ago
    Tones
    - kaesar14 7y ago
      Which is a massive sense in which it is not simple! For any non-native speakers, (I'm a native English speaker), tones were nearly impossible to master, and I still have a terrible grasp of them I think. It requires a complete rewiring of the way you speak language, sure, but it also requires a complete rewiring of how you hear it too!
    - jhanschoo 7y ago
      Tones are simple (in the sense of being governed by linguistic rules), just foreign.
- henrikschroder 7y ago
  > they wouldn't have spread something else than a globalized Mandarin worldwide For sure, but my point was that the simpler (relatively, comparatively) a lingua franca is, the less pidgin you get, and the more of the actual language you get instead. And that's a merit of the language itself, not the powers that back it.
lolc 7y ago
The language of the dominant culture will prevail. I don't see why we should invent other reasons.
jcranmer 7y ago
> English is a pretty simple language, grammatically. Compared to Indo-European languages. Look at other language families, and our insistence on articles, inflection for tenses, plurality, and case (in the case of pronouns) looks unnecessarily complicated. And then there is the insane polysemy of English words. "get" has a wide variety of meanings, some of which are completely opposite from one another! > When it comes to speaking simple English I should also point out that English has relatively complex phonotactics. A word like "strengths" is excruciating for anyone whose phonology doesn't have consonant clusters in the first place.
- jdashg 7y ago
  I think while English is really tough to speak perfectly, it's pretty easy to muddle through. "It suhrengz is" that you can drop all inflections, butcher pronunciations, and ignore the chaotic spelling, and still be able to communicate pretty reliably. Getting English right is a fractal of traditions and exceptions, but its MVP is very forgiving.
  - henrikschroder 7y ago
    > but its MVP is very forgiving. Yes, that was exactly my original point, thanks for explaining it more hacker-news-y than me. :-)

zojirushibottle 7y ago

wait, isn't english the international language of science as well? i thought it was...

Juliate 7y ago
Like, Arabic was about 10 centuries ago? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_the_medieval_Islamic_world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_the_medieval_Islami... Or Greek before? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_in_classical_antiquity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_in_classica... Or Chinese? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technol...
- kaesar14 7y ago
  Isn't the difference here that science has become a global institution, and far more complex than it was in any of those societies?
  - Juliate 7y ago
    Science is a placeholder here, in the context of which language being used to express and articulate complex thoughts.