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English having sticking power depends on how the future goes. Why did Latin stick around so much? Basically because no 2 european countries spoke the same lan

English having sticking power depends on how the future goes. Why did Latin stick around so much? Basically because no 2 european countries spoke the same language so it was the only way long-term communication was possible, voth over time and distance. Additional causes were the church clinging to latin, and knowledge in books was in Latin. Both of these were self reenforcing. So in a future with 100s of tiny languages, English might stick around for a long time. If however a new great empire rises ( China? Arab? Something on nobody's radar?), the days of all previous great languages are over, including English.

carlmr 3y ago
I'm not that convinced. Latin was used past the crumbling roman empire because it was sticky. Like you said, the only way to communicate. And English already spread to all continents, something Latin didn't have at the time. If e.g. Mandarin Chinese were to become lingua franca they'd have to first simplify the writing system. It's just too much effort for a foreigner to learn. Excluding the Japanese for this, since they share a lot of the writing system. They might have a chance. Vietnamese shows that you can communicate in a language that was entirely written in Chinese characters before if you add word separation, tone markers and latin characters. Pinyin with tone markers and word separation is quite readable. It could be a way forward. Korean also has letters and used to be Chinese characters. It's definitely possible but the move would have to come before widespread adoption could happen. I know plenty of people who tried to learn Chinese for 2-5 years and plainly gave up because it's too hard. English on a similarly basic level can be adopted in ~6 months with less effort. It's not the same. Arabic could more easily become a lingua franca by virtue of a) already being widespread, and b) having pretty good standardization already. If India rises they're already using English to communicate, because Hindi only gets you so far. It would probably be more stickiness for English.
- hyperman1 3y ago
  I'll respectfully disagree here. English is one of the worst choices for a latin alphabet based lingua franca, as a mix of germanic and romanic languages, with inconsistent to non-existent rules, differences between sound vs written character. It got its current status by piggybacking on 2 empires, with a bonus of hollywood for planetary indoctrination. I've seen a few languages lose lingua franca status in their subdomains in my liftime: French as the ex-language of political power in Belgium, and German as the ex-technical documentation language. In fact, seeing more and more Chinese appear in electronic spec cheats, I've wondered if such a change isn't already happening for English. As always, the cultural core of the power in vogue will be the last to notice the disappearance of status. There was a document regularly appearing here on HN: The fate of empires, linked below. If you follow it's rules, you'd expect a new power appear out of nowhere. So for a new lingua franca, we just can't predict what will be the choice, but the existing big languages might be the worst candidates. I believe English will be lingua franca until a new empire will rule the world. If the USA disappears and balkanization follows, English will have a long life. But if a global invasion from a new culture comes, English is done for. http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf
  - tharkun__ 3y ago
    I'll respectfully disagree here. English is one of the worst choices for a latin alphabet based lingua franca, as a mix of germanic and romanic languages, with inconsistent to non-existent rules, differences between sound vs written character. It's funny though how English, despite basically being a language of "every second word is an exception" is still so easy to learn? French is much harder. German is much harder. In Chinese (and Arab) you not only have to contend with a different alphabet to learn but (at least for Chinese - don't know for Arab) also a completely different style of putting these symbols together to make sense. English at least shares that with other Euro languages and even if you get the structure a bit wrong (you can easily tell German or French sentence structure in an English sentence in many cases) it's still easy to comprehend well enough. What I do think though is that Chinese or Arab might still take over simply because of numbers of speakers of them being more and dispersing and taking over that way. Firefly universe style.
    - hyperman1 3y ago
      Seriius question:. How do you compare easy to learn? Afaik, the main thing English has going for it is massive exposure, originally by TV/Hollywood. But if you watch e.g. French or German TV programming long enough, you'll pick up the language soon. I think English succeeded despite its downsides, for geopolitical reasons.
      - tharkun__ 3y ago
        I have one anecdotal piece of evidence: me :) I picked up English very easily despite all the "oh it's all just exceptions". It feels natural even. Latin on the other hand took much more effort. French I never could quite get through. Reading sorta works sometimes given Latin, English and German knowledge. The whole language sorta always feels weird though. Can't bring myself to even try any longer.
    - MandieD 3y ago
      English seems to be a lot more fault-tolerant than German. I've come to see it as jazz (English) vs. classical music (German). Either that, or native English speakers are lazier than native German speakers, and would rather work out how a non-native speaker is trying to use our language than try to understand that other person's language or a third language we both kind of speak.
hckendn 3y ago
Good point. Also worth bearing in mind that Pax Britannica was quickly followed by Pax Americana, both English speaking countries. The major problem with this though is the massive and unparalleled extent of the British empire. English is the first language for most of two continents (NA and Australia) and official languages for significant portions of another two (Africa and Asia). That global scale is unprecedented in history and it’s hard to see how English would be dislodged without a significant societal collapse. Point being it seems more likely that English would be replaced by a language that doesn’t exist yet, rather than an existing language.
- nerdbert 3y ago
  Yes, I think an English creole is more likely than any other existing language.

carlmr 3y ago

I'm not that convinced. Latin was used past the crumbling roman empire because it was sticky. Like you said, the only way to communicate. And English already spread to all continents, something Latin didn't have at the time. If e.g. Mandarin Chinese were to become lingua franca they'd have to first simplify the writing system. It's just too much effort for a foreigner to learn. Excluding the Japanese for this, since they share a lot of the writing system. They might have a chance. Vietnamese shows that you can communicate in a language that was entirely written in Chinese characters before if you add word separation, tone markers and latin characters. Pinyin with tone markers and word separation is quite readable. It could be a way forward. Korean also has letters and used to be Chinese characters. It's definitely possible but the move would have to come before widespread adoption could happen. I know plenty of people who tried to learn Chinese for 2-5 years and plainly gave up because it's too hard. English on a similarly basic level can be adopted in ~6 months with less effort. It's not the same. Arabic could more easily become a lingua franca by virtue of a) already being widespread, and b) having pretty good standardization already. If India rises they're already using English to communicate, because Hindi only gets you so far. It would probably be more stickiness for English.

hyperman1 3y ago
I'll respectfully disagree here. English is one of the worst choices for a latin alphabet based lingua franca, as a mix of germanic and romanic languages, with inconsistent to non-existent rules, differences between sound vs written character. It got its current status by piggybacking on 2 empires, with a bonus of hollywood for planetary indoctrination. I've seen a few languages lose lingua franca status in their subdomains in my liftime: French as the ex-language of political power in Belgium, and German as the ex-technical documentation language. In fact, seeing more and more Chinese appear in electronic spec cheats, I've wondered if such a change isn't already happening for English. As always, the cultural core of the power in vogue will be the last to notice the disappearance of status. There was a document regularly appearing here on HN: The fate of empires, linked below. If you follow it's rules, you'd expect a new power appear out of nowhere. So for a new lingua franca, we just can't predict what will be the choice, but the existing big languages might be the worst candidates. I believe English will be lingua franca until a new empire will rule the world. If the USA disappears and balkanization follows, English will have a long life. But if a global invasion from a new culture comes, English is done for. http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf
- tharkun__ 3y ago
  I'll respectfully disagree here. English is one of the worst choices for a latin alphabet based lingua franca, as a mix of germanic and romanic languages, with inconsistent to non-existent rules, differences between sound vs written character. It's funny though how English, despite basically being a language of "every second word is an exception" is still so easy to learn? French is much harder. German is much harder. In Chinese (and Arab) you not only have to contend with a different alphabet to learn but (at least for Chinese - don't know for Arab) also a completely different style of putting these symbols together to make sense. English at least shares that with other Euro languages and even if you get the structure a bit wrong (you can easily tell German or French sentence structure in an English sentence in many cases) it's still easy to comprehend well enough. What I do think though is that Chinese or Arab might still take over simply because of numbers of speakers of them being more and dispersing and taking over that way. Firefly universe style.
  - hyperman1 3y ago
    Seriius question:. How do you compare easy to learn? Afaik, the main thing English has going for it is massive exposure, originally by TV/Hollywood. But if you watch e.g. French or German TV programming long enough, you'll pick up the language soon. I think English succeeded despite its downsides, for geopolitical reasons.
    - tharkun__ 3y ago
      I have one anecdotal piece of evidence: me :) I picked up English very easily despite all the "oh it's all just exceptions". It feels natural even. Latin on the other hand took much more effort. French I never could quite get through. Reading sorta works sometimes given Latin, English and German knowledge. The whole language sorta always feels weird though. Can't bring myself to even try any longer.
  - MandieD 3y ago
    English seems to be a lot more fault-tolerant than German. I've come to see it as jazz (English) vs. classical music (German). Either that, or native English speakers are lazier than native German speakers, and would rather work out how a non-native speaker is trying to use our language than try to understand that other person's language or a third language we both kind of speak.

hckendn 3y ago

Good point. Also worth bearing in mind that Pax Britannica was quickly followed by Pax Americana, both English speaking countries. The major problem with this though is the massive and unparalleled extent of the British empire. English is the first language for most of two continents (NA and Australia) and official languages for significant portions of another two (Africa and Asia). That global scale is unprecedented in history and it’s hard to see how English would be dislodged without a significant societal collapse. Point being it seems more likely that English would be replaced by a language that doesn’t exist yet, rather than an existing language.

nerdbert 3y ago
Yes, I think an English creole is more likely than any other existing language.