World Languages

Poster   Thu Dec 25, 2008 9:39 am GMT
World language
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A world language is a language spoken internationally, which is learned by many people as a second language. A world language is not only characterized by the number of its speakers (native or second language speakers), but also by its geographical distribution, and its use in international organizations and in diplomatic relations. In this respect, major world languages are dominated by languages of European origin. The historical reason for this is the period of European colonialism. World languages originating with historical colonial empires include English, Spanish, Portuguese and French. The international prominence of Arabic has its historical reason in the medieval Islamic conquests.

Other major languages are not widely used across several continents, but have an international significance as the lingua franca of a historical empire. These include Mandarin Chinese in the Chinese empire, Greek in the Hellenistic world after the conquests of Alexander the Great, Russian in the Russian empire, German in the German empire, Tamil in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore and Hindi following the British Raj which united India.

The major languages of the Indian subcontinent, Hindustani (including all Hindi dialects and Urdu) and Bengali, have numbers of speakers comparable to those of major world languages primarily due to the extreme population growth in the region in recent decades rather than a super-regional use of these languages. Similarly, Japanese has more native speakers than French, but while French is spoken intercontinentally and has a significant portion of second language speakers, the vast majority of Japanese speakers are native Japanese.

History

The Romance languages bear testimony to the role of Latin as the lingua franca of the Roman Empire. Koine Greek was the "world language" of the Hellenistic period, but its distribution is not reflected in the distribution of Modern Greek due to the linguistic impact of the Slavic, Arabic and Turkic expansions. The distribution of the Turkic languages, in turn, are a legacy of the Turkic Khaganate.

Just as all the de facto world languages owe their status to historical imperialism, the suggestion of a given language as a world language or "universal language" has strong political implications. Thus, Russian was declared the "world language of internationalism" in Soviet literature, which at the same time denounced French as the "language of fancy courtiers" and English as the "jargon of traders". A number of international auxiliary languages have been introduced as prospective world languages, the most successful of them being Esperanto, but none of them can claim the status of a de facto world language. Many natural languages have been proffered as candidates for a global lingua franca, including Italian, Dutch, Hungarian, German and Malay.

A de facto world language has the following properties

* a large number of speakers
* a substantive fraction of non-native speakers (function as lingua franca)
* a standard register which is widely taught as a foreign language
* the linguistic community is not defined along ethnic lines (multiethnic, pluricentric language)
* official status in several countries
* use in international trade relations
* use in international organizations
* use in the academic community
* significant body of literature
* association with linguistic prestige

World languages in this sense are the six official languages of the UN (Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish, and Arabic) as well as German, Hindi and Portuguese:

Mandarin Chinese: 600 M native speakers; Total of 1,051 M speakers
English: 350 M native speakers; Total; of 1,000 M speakers
Hindustani (Hindi+Urdu): 460 M native speakers; Total of 650 M speakers
French: 79 M native speakers; Total of 500 M speakers
Spanish: 330 M native speakers; Total of 350 M speakers
Arabic: 200 M native speakers; Total of 300 M of speakers
Russian: 165 M native speakers; Total of 280 M of speakers
Portuguese: 190 M of native speakers; Total of 230 M of speakers
German: 100 M native speakers; Total of 150 M of speakers.

All the languages listed have more than 100 million speakers (as of the 2000s, estimates based on SIL Ethnologue). There are two other languages with a number of speakers in excess of 100 million, viz. Bengali and Japanese. Both of these are not considered world languages- despite their respective history of empires, because their communities are strongly tied to ethnicity, and, at least now, are regionally limited sphere of influence;). Of the nine de facto world languages listed, six have a significantly intercontinental sphere of influence, with Chinese, German and Hindi restricted to a more regional Sprachraum, Greater China, Europe and South Asia, respectively, with scattered diaspora communities (Chinese diaspora, German diaspora, Indian diaspora).

Chinese, Arabic, German, Hindi are macrolanguages or pluricentric languages, consisting of dialects of limited mutual comprehensibility (Chinese dialects, Arabic dialects, Hindi dialects, German dialects).
Poster   Thu Dec 25, 2008 9:41 am GMT
Poster   Thu Dec 25, 2008 10:58 am GMT
Visitor   Fri Dec 26, 2008 1:05 am GMT
A de facto world language has the following properties

1. a large number of speakers
2. a substantive fraction of non-native speakers (function as lingua franca)
3. a standard register which is widely taught as a foreign language
4. the linguistic community is not defined along ethnic lines (multiethnic, pluricentric language)
5. official status in several countries
6. use in international trade relations
7. use in international organizations
8. use in the academic community
9. significant body of literature
10. association with linguistic prestige

English have them all.
French have them all.
Spanish got only numbers 1,4(?),5,6,7
German got 1,2,3,8,9,10
Russian got 1,2,3,5,6,8,9,10
Chinese got 1,4,9
Arabic got 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,10
Portuguese got 1,2,4,5,10
Hindustani got 1,4,9
Lalala   Fri Dec 26, 2008 2:43 am GMT
Spanish:

1. a large number of speakers

Undisputed.

2. a substantive fraction of non-native speakers (function as lingua franca)

It is the lingua franca of most of Latin America. Understood widely in Brazil, the Caribbean and North America.

3. a standard register which is widely taught as a foreign language

Standard Latin American Spanish or European Spanish.

4. the linguistic community is not defined along ethnic lines (multiethnic, pluricentric language)

Common language for Spaniards, Amerindians, Mestizos, Latin American blacks.

5. official status in several countries

Undisputed.

6. use in international trade relations

Undisputed.

7. use in international organizations

Undisputed.

8. use in the academic community

Admitted, this area is a serious weak point.

9. significant body of literature

True, the body of literature is relatively small per capita, but numerically there is a large body.

10. association with linguistic prestige

To an extent. It is considered prestigious amongst Amerindians, and the only place it is not considered prestigious is the USA. Everywhere else it is neither one nor the other.