4 ms·

“The one most people are already using” is Mandarin, followed by Spanish, then followed by English.

tekla 3y ago
The one most people are already using in international science. Also if you're going to try dunking on me, at least get it right, English is the most spoken language in the world https://www.berlitz.com/blog/most-spoken-languages-world https://www.berlitz.com/blog/most-spoken-languages-world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_number_of_speakers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_num...
- throwaway894345 3y ago
  I think he's listing the most widely spoken native language which confused me as well since English is the most widely spoken language.
  - local_crmdgeon 3y ago
    I don't think native speaker count really means anything though - you learn the subset of English for your domain pretty quickly. The entirety, sure, maybe the average SDEII at Amazon doesn't know what "sesquipedalian" means, but they absolutely know hysteresis, concurrency, thunk etc.
    - filoleg 3y ago
      > I don't think native speaker count really means anything though Especially since there are plenty of people who aren't native speakers, but got to the native level of fluency (usually, due to moving to an english-speaking country at some point and spending 99% of their time in english-only environments for many years). How do we account for those? I always had trouble with the whole "native speaker" categorization, because I definitley don't fall under it by definition, but English is legitimately my most comfortable and most frequently used language by far, and has been this way for over a decade. Like, the only thing that gives away my non-native status is that sometimes my accent comes out accidentally, but that's just stupid muscle memory. I am way more comfortable with english in every aspect (speaking, writing, etc.) than my actual native language, despite often having an accent in english, but never in my native language (which i have exactly zero foreign accent in).
    - throwaway894345 3y ago
      Yeah, I probably agree, I was just trying to clarify because it took me a little bit to figure out why he thought Mandarin was the most widely spoken language.
- thebooktocome 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - throwaway894345 3y ago
    Not sure why you're flaming people in an otherwise agreeable thread. In particular, the parent's argument isn't "poor", it makes at least as much sense to standardize on the majority spoken language in science as the majority native language globally.
kaba0 3y ago
But if you change that to most commonly spoken second language, English is quite ahead.

The one most people are already using in international science. Also if you're going to try dunking on me, at least get it right, English is the most spoken language in the world https://www.berlitz.com/blog/most-spoken-languages-world https://www.berlitz.com/blog/most-spoken-languages-world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_number_of_speakers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_num...

throwaway894345 3y ago
I think he's listing the most widely spoken native language which confused me as well since English is the most widely spoken language.
- local_crmdgeon 3y ago
  I don't think native speaker count really means anything though - you learn the subset of English for your domain pretty quickly. The entirety, sure, maybe the average SDEII at Amazon doesn't know what "sesquipedalian" means, but they absolutely know hysteresis, concurrency, thunk etc.
  - filoleg 3y ago
    > I don't think native speaker count really means anything though Especially since there are plenty of people who aren't native speakers, but got to the native level of fluency (usually, due to moving to an english-speaking country at some point and spending 99% of their time in english-only environments for many years). How do we account for those? I always had trouble with the whole "native speaker" categorization, because I definitley don't fall under it by definition, but English is legitimately my most comfortable and most frequently used language by far, and has been this way for over a decade. Like, the only thing that gives away my non-native status is that sometimes my accent comes out accidentally, but that's just stupid muscle memory. I am way more comfortable with english in every aspect (speaking, writing, etc.) than my actual native language, despite often having an accent in english, but never in my native language (which i have exactly zero foreign accent in).
  - throwaway894345 3y ago
    Yeah, I probably agree, I was just trying to clarify because it took me a little bit to figure out why he thought Mandarin was the most widely spoken language.
thebooktocome 3y ago
[flagged]
- throwaway894345 3y ago
  Not sure why you're flaming people in an otherwise agreeable thread. In particular, the parent's argument isn't "poor", it makes at least as much sense to standardize on the majority spoken language in science as the majority native language globally.

kaba0 3y ago

But if you change that to most commonly spoken second language, English is quite ahead.