The 8 "imperial" Languages

Viri Amaoro   Thu Mar 02, 2006 3:31 am GMT
Hello everybody!

This is the first time I post in this forum. I already knew Antimoon and I enjoy it, but never posted here. Please excuse my English, not very good due to lack of practise.
I would like to ask for the opinion of participants here, about a theory I read long time ago from a french professor (I don't recall is name, I read it in a magazine):
He said that in the future there will be an overwhelming influence by 8 major languages, which he called "imperial languages" - English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Hindi and Arabic.
The reasons he gave were that these languages had a number of factors (independent or a combination of factors) that helped in their hegemony:
1- Number of speakers
2-Number of countries/nations where the language is used
3-Distribution of those nations (1 continent or several)
4-Land area of "language space"

What is your opinion about this theory?
CHINESE   Thu Mar 02, 2006 3:43 am GMT
You forgot an important language-German, the most spoken language in Europe.
Viri Amaoro   Thu Mar 02, 2006 4:39 am GMT
Hello, Chinese!

The most important language in the Continent of Europe is Russian, not German. And German is spoken by about 100 million and only in Europe, not outside Europe.
The criteria are, according to that french professor, number of speakers, number of countries, distribution and area.
CHINESE   Thu Mar 02, 2006 4:57 am GMT
Thanks Viri


this website below is for your information


http://www.how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/languages/index.html
Mitch   Thu Mar 02, 2006 5:04 pm GMT
The list is very interesting. The six official languages of the United Nations are from this list: English, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, and Arabic. And there is a push to add Hindi. In the meantime, many Hindi speakers can handle English, and many Portuguese speakers can understand Spanish. One can argue for including other important languages (like Japanese or German), but it looks like the UN is in general agreement with the list.
Viri Amaoro   Thu Mar 02, 2006 5:56 pm GMT
Thanks to all of you for your input!

I will try to be more specific about the concept of the 8 "imperial" languages. According to that article I read long time ago, one must take into account the number of speakers of a language (native and/or secondary), number of countries where it is official (that is, protected by law and used by the State), distribution and land area.
We could make a very simplistic scheme (just a sketch! please do not take any numbers as 100% sure; it may vary a little) for each language:

Chinese - over 1000 million speakers, official in 3 nations (I shall restrict the political entities to sovereign nations, de jure or the facto, not counting special territories like HK and Macao) in 1 continent: it's strenght lies in the sheer number of speakers and also land area

English - over 500 million, native and secundary (I repeat: just a rough sketch! please don't fight over these 500 m. being 520, 550 or 600) in about 60 countries, in all continents - this language is the strongest, in number of speakers (nº2), number of countries (nº1), distribution (nº1) and land area (didn't do the math, but certainly nº1)

Spanish - over 350 million speakers, in 20 countries, present in 4 continents but it's main core being in 2 continents of the Americas (North and South)

Hindi - over 300 million (I don't know the exact numbers for this language), in 1 country, in 1 continent

Portuguese - about 220 million, native and secundary, in 8 countries, in 4 continents

Arabic - 250 million (?) native and secundary, in over 20 countries in 2 continents

French - about 150 million (?) native and secundary, in over 30 countries, in 6 continents. Despite it's relative low number of speakers, the strenght of this language lies in the number of countries where it is an official language (used and protected by the State), it's distribution (present in all continents) and land area

Russian - 145 million native speakers, a diminishing (is the spelling correct?) number of secundary speakers in former soviet countries, present in 1 core country (Russia), in 2 continents (Europe and Asia). The strength of this language resides mainly in the land area that it's core-state controls, over 17.000.000 sqkm.

According to this theory, no other languages in the world except for these 8 come close in scoring high marks in any or all of these categories (number of speakers, number of countries, distribution and land area).

What do you think of this? I would like to know your opinions and/or criticisms (spelling?...)

P:S: I am trying to improve my writen english/grammar etc. I would welcome any correction of any mistakes of mine. Thank you!
JR   Fri Mar 03, 2006 12:57 am GMT
I would say that it is true, however because English has a much larger second-language speakers, the numbers can change rapidly. Most would agree that the reason for such high numbers of second language speakers is the economic influence of English speaking countries. If things go the way they are, the third world countries will have a much larger influence economically, and the precence of Spanish from Latin America, Protuguese from Latin America and Africa, and French from Africa may grow stronger as the influence of English diminishes. Concerning Chinese and Arabic, I doubt that these languages will spread further than what they already have. Because Arabic uses a different "alphabet" than what most of the world's Latin-based speakers are used to, that will make Arabic second-language speakers scarce. And Chinese uses a grammar system completely different from Romance Languages or English, so I doubt it will spread very far. As to Russian, it is just spoken in Russia, and it also uses a different alphabet and grammar system than what most speakers are used to. I also doubt this language will grow more.
Candy   Fri Mar 03, 2006 6:38 am GMT
<<Most would agree that the reason for such high numbers of second language speakers is the economic influence of English speaking countries.>>

I don't agree. Which English-speaking countries, apart from the US, wield any kind of economic influence? At least here in the European Union, such 'economic influence' has little or no impact on people's decision to learn English, yet something like 90% of (non-English-speaking) EU schoolchildren are currently learning English (I don't have the exact figures, but it's something like that), and around 50% of the EU population already speaks English. How would you account for this? Given that such a huge percentage of children are learning English, do you think the language is going to fade in the EU anytime soon?
greg   Fri Mar 03, 2006 10:40 pm GMT
Tu es un peu optimiste avec tes chiffres, Candy. Je doute qu'il y ait 50 % d'anglophones (même occasionnels) dans l'Union européenne.
mishuk   Sat Mar 04, 2006 5:08 am GMT
Russian is official language of Kyrgizstan, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Russia.Plus, there is a great number of Russians live outside these countries.Russian speakers is estimated to be 300 mln of people. 160 mln of people are native Russian speakers.
(Language Monthly 1997,#3)
Linguist   Sat Mar 04, 2006 6:17 am GMT
>>As to Russian, it is just spoken in Russia, and it also uses a different alphabet and grammar system than what most speakers are used to. I also doubt this language will grow more

As Mishuk already said, it is spoken not only in Russia, many people in Israel speak Russian as well. Cyrillic alphabet is used in 11 countries, it s increadible easy, grammar is very simple for most part of Europe (Central and Eastern), actually it is Latin-like and Latin was a major language if you dont know. So everything depends on Russia's influence and not on any other factors.
Candy   Sat Mar 04, 2006 7:01 am GMT
<<Tu es un peu optimiste avec tes chiffres, Candy. Je doute qu'il y ait 50 % d'anglophones (même occasionnels) dans l'Union européenne. >>

Well, I'm not claiming to have counted them myself, greg, but according to the European Commission, it's 47%, which seems close enough to 'around 50%' as I wrote:

<<English is the language which is most widely "spoken" in the EU. While it is the mother tongue for 16% of the European population, a further 31% of the EU citizens speak it well enough to hold a conversation. >>

http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/policies/lang/languages/index_en.html#2most%20useful

If you've seen other figures, I'd like to see them, though.
Viri Amaoro   Sun Mar 05, 2006 2:33 am GMT
In my opinion, if Russian language want's to improve its chances it should forget tradition and adopt the Latin alphabet. The same could be true for Arabic, Chinese and Hindi. We should try to have one single script in the world, just like we have the metric system (apart from the americans, but that's just futile resistence, in the long run).
Dude Who Knows   Tue Mar 07, 2006 3:36 am GMT
<<Chinese - over 1000 million speakers, official in 3 nations (I shall restrict the political entities to sovereign nations, de jure or the facto, not counting special territories like HK and Macao) in 1 continent: it's strenght lies in the sheer number of speakers and also land area>>

One must remember that there is no one Chinese language. Instead, Chinese would be more accurately described as a language family. The most popular Chinese dialect is Mandarin, which has about 867 million speakers. Even within Mandarin there are numerous dialects, many of which are mutually unintelligible. Standard Mandarin, the official language of China, can be only be understand by 53% of the Chinese population.
CHINESE   Tue Mar 07, 2006 4:50 am GMT
Dude Who Knows


Standard Mandarin Introduction

http://www.answers.com/topic/standard-mandarin?method=6


But this website also has some falsehoods, for example: Republic of China doesn't exist, it should be Taiwan province of China (P.R.China).