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This is actually one of the main reasons I don't think China will become a global hegemon. English, with all its flaws, is far easier to speak, read, and write.

This is actually one of the main reasons I don't think China will become a global hegemon. English, with all its flaws, is far easier to speak, read, and write. Languages are the walls between cultures.

ak_111 2y ago
Could argue this works in exactly the opposite way. This "wall" makes the west an open book to china, while for the west it is hard to crack the Chinese. For one thing, think of the implications on recruiting people to spy or interpret intercepted messages from china or on espionage in general. Also the impact of this "problem" on running a well-functioning highly-productive and scientific powerhouse society is highly exaggerated and easily refuted by empirical facts. Just think of what Japan and China managed to accomplish in engineering and scientific accomplishment in the last 50 years and they both use character-based languages.
- cynicalpeace 2y ago
  This is true. I learned Chinese and then hitchhiked China in 2018 for exactly this reason. Everyone was yapping about how important China had become, but China was a black box to me. After months of hitchhiking I came back home unconcerned. I think the fact that it's a black box makes us overhype China.
jampekka 2y ago
I don't think English is particularly easy to speak, read nor write. The pronounciation is highly irregular and the writing system is very non-phonetic. E.g. "spelling bees" don't make any sense in most languages. Chinese also seems to be moving to the very phonetic and regular Pinyin that (for Mandarin) doesn't suffer from character amnesia. I do agree that languages are walls between peoples and should be taken down with a global language. Maybe in few decades the kids speak some kind of Chinglish.
- cynicalpeace 2y ago
  "Easier" I didn't say easy. It's a relative comparison. Spanish and ASL are easy languages, but they won't help Peru or the Deaf community become hegemons for their own reasons. We already have the global language. It's called English lol
  - jampekka 2y ago
    > We already have the global language. It's called English lol Around 82% of people don't speak English. Mandarin at around 86% isn't that far off. Lingua francas come and go, and it's a lot more about weapons than about linguistics. https://www.statista.com/statistics/266808/the-most-spoken-languages-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/266808/the-most-spoken-l...
    - cynicalpeace 2y ago
      Most of those English speakers learned it as a 2nd language. Most of those Chinese speakers learned it as a native speaker. No language worldwide is even close to English in terms of learning demand. Chinese doesn't even rank in the top 3.
famouswaffles 2y ago
Language difficulty is not absolute. Most Japanese natives have a much easier time learning Korean than they do English. What makes a 2nd Language easier or not to speak is how closely related it is to your native language. English is not any easier to speak than Chinese if your native language is far removed from both. It is definitely harder to write though. Writing systems can be absolute in difficulty.
- cynicalpeace 2y ago
  > Language difficulty is not absolute > Writing systems can be absolute in difficulty These things contradict each other.
  - famouswaffles 2y ago
    Writing is a relatively recent add-on in human history so I was making a point distinguishing the difficulty of the two. There isn't really anything contradictory there. I did this because some people have the idea that the language itself is easier rather than just the writing system. You are thinking of writing as part of Language difficulty which is fair(I mean it is in a practical sense and I don't disagree) but it doesn't make as much of a dent as you might think compared to difficulty of everything else. According to the FSI who tracks the number of class hours it takes their diplomats to reach sufficient mastery, Korean and Arabic are still Category IV Languages for native English speakers (along with Japanese, Chinese) despite having a much easier writing system than those two.

ak_111 2y ago

Could argue this works in exactly the opposite way. This "wall" makes the west an open book to china, while for the west it is hard to crack the Chinese. For one thing, think of the implications on recruiting people to spy or interpret intercepted messages from china or on espionage in general. Also the impact of this "problem" on running a well-functioning highly-productive and scientific powerhouse society is highly exaggerated and easily refuted by empirical facts. Just think of what Japan and China managed to accomplish in engineering and scientific accomplishment in the last 50 years and they both use character-based languages.

cynicalpeace 2y ago
This is true. I learned Chinese and then hitchhiked China in 2018 for exactly this reason. Everyone was yapping about how important China had become, but China was a black box to me. After months of hitchhiking I came back home unconcerned. I think the fact that it's a black box makes us overhype China.

jampekka 2y ago

I don't think English is particularly easy to speak, read nor write. The pronounciation is highly irregular and the writing system is very non-phonetic. E.g. "spelling bees" don't make any sense in most languages. Chinese also seems to be moving to the very phonetic and regular Pinyin that (for Mandarin) doesn't suffer from character amnesia. I do agree that languages are walls between peoples and should be taken down with a global language. Maybe in few decades the kids speak some kind of Chinglish.

cynicalpeace 2y ago
"Easier" I didn't say easy. It's a relative comparison. Spanish and ASL are easy languages, but they won't help Peru or the Deaf community become hegemons for their own reasons. We already have the global language. It's called English lol
- jampekka 2y ago
  > We already have the global language. It's called English lol Around 82% of people don't speak English. Mandarin at around 86% isn't that far off. Lingua francas come and go, and it's a lot more about weapons than about linguistics. https://www.statista.com/statistics/266808/the-most-spoken-languages-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/266808/the-most-spoken-l...
  - cynicalpeace 2y ago
    Most of those English speakers learned it as a 2nd language. Most of those Chinese speakers learned it as a native speaker. No language worldwide is even close to English in terms of learning demand. Chinese doesn't even rank in the top 3.

famouswaffles 2y ago

Language difficulty is not absolute. Most Japanese natives have a much easier time learning Korean than they do English. What makes a 2nd Language easier or not to speak is how closely related it is to your native language. English is not any easier to speak than Chinese if your native language is far removed from both. It is definitely harder to write though. Writing systems can be absolute in difficulty.

cynicalpeace 2y ago
> Language difficulty is not absolute > Writing systems can be absolute in difficulty These things contradict each other.
- famouswaffles 2y ago
  Writing is a relatively recent add-on in human history so I was making a point distinguishing the difficulty of the two. There isn't really anything contradictory there. I did this because some people have the idea that the language itself is easier rather than just the writing system. You are thinking of writing as part of Language difficulty which is fair(I mean it is in a practical sense and I don't disagree) but it doesn't make as much of a dent as you might think compared to difficulty of everything else. According to the FSI who tracks the number of class hours it takes their diplomats to reach sufficient mastery, Korean and Arabic are still Category IV Languages for native English speakers (along with Japanese, Chinese) despite having a much easier writing system than those two.