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I don't think linguistic features are very relevant. Historically, languages have become lingua franca primarily due to political and economical factors, and se

by nandemo 14y ago

I don't think linguistic features are very relevant. Historically, languages have become lingua franca primarily due to political and economical factors, and secondarily cultural factors. E.g. people living in the Soviet republics and communist Eastern Europe had to learn Russian, no matter how hard Russian was for them. Nowadays people all over the world learn English; for many of them, English is as hard as Chinese is to a native English speaker. But I agree that it's not a given that China will be the superpower, and even if gets there, it's not clear that Mandarin will immediately become that important.

w1ntermute 14y ago
I think China's ascendancy is a foregone conclusion, but not the dominance of Mandarin.
- lifeisstillgood 14y ago
  I honestly do not - I fear for China. Over the past 150 years this past generation is the only one not to suffer some horrific war, genocide or starvation. China has a revolt somewhere almost daily, it has none of the institutions we are pretty sure are necessary to managing power (independent judiciary, enforceable contracts etc) and has worrying signs of becoming a mafia state, with none of the benefits of one guy in charge ala Putin . So basically there are a huge number of ways it can go wrong, very little to hold it together except the fear that if we don't keep on this course it will be a lot worse.
- dageshi 14y ago
  I think the easy part of China's ascendency has just about finished, a lot of very hard economic, political and demographic problems are about to kick in, I wouldn't presume that their continued meteoric rise is guaranteed.
sigkill 14y ago
Although I'm not a native speaker of English I can't help but feel that English will remain the common language for quite some time. Any new technology is first 'released' in English. Be it new devices or even new programming languages. Actually, I personally don't know of any programming language that isn't based in English (i.e. logical sentence structure etc.) and mainly, the documentation for practically anything technical/technological is essentially in English. Sure, you've got user manuals in multiple languages, but for chip specification, pin diagrams or anything really, I am unable to find manuals in a non-English language. I believe, the same thing applies to other Engineering fields too. Sure, you've got formulae that's universal. Say, you're a Mechanical Engineer working on some modeling-simulation software, you'd be hard pressed to find a non-English version. And seeing that most of the world is embracing technology, even in the smallest capacity, I feel English isn't going anywhere.

by nandemo 14y ago

w1ntermute 14y ago

I think China's ascendancy is a foregone conclusion, but not the dominance of Mandarin.

lifeisstillgood 14y ago
I honestly do not - I fear for China. Over the past 150 years this past generation is the only one not to suffer some horrific war, genocide or starvation. China has a revolt somewhere almost daily, it has none of the institutions we are pretty sure are necessary to managing power (independent judiciary, enforceable contracts etc) and has worrying signs of becoming a mafia state, with none of the benefits of one guy in charge ala Putin . So basically there are a huge number of ways it can go wrong, very little to hold it together except the fear that if we don't keep on this course it will be a lot worse.
dageshi 14y ago
I think the easy part of China's ascendency has just about finished, a lot of very hard economic, political and demographic problems are about to kick in, I wouldn't presume that their continued meteoric rise is guaranteed.

sigkill 14y ago

Although I'm not a native speaker of English I can't help but feel that English will remain the common language for quite some time. Any new technology is first 'released' in English. Be it new devices or even new programming languages. Actually, I personally don't know of any programming language that isn't based in English (i.e. logical sentence structure etc.) and mainly, the documentation for practically anything technical/technological is essentially in English. Sure, you've got user manuals in multiple languages, but for chip specification, pin diagrams or anything really, I am unable to find manuals in a non-English language. I believe, the same thing applies to other Engineering fields too. Sure, you've got formulae that's universal. Say, you're a Mechanical Engineer working on some modeling-simulation software, you'd be hard pressed to find a non-English version. And seeing that most of the world is embracing technology, even in the smallest capacity, I feel English isn't going anywhere.