How d u think Chinese wud replace English as lengua franca?

A.M.   Tue Aug 04, 2009 9:11 am GMT
Chinese and other languages like Spanish, Arabic and Hindi will be more important in the near future.

The future importance of Chinese depends on the economic power of China and the choice of Chinese or English in countries like Vietnam, South Korea, Japan or Malaysia. If they prefer Chinese, this language will be the lingua franca of East Asia, but not all the World.

There will be a new order with the big five: English, Spanish, Arabic, Hindi and Chinese. All of them will have their area of influence, according to the economic organizations and countries where these languages are spoken.

Besides, English will be only 5th in number of mother tongue speakers, after Chinese, Hindi, Arabic and Spanish. I think that the Golden Age of English is over.

So, English will be less important, of course. It won't be the World lingua franca, only the lingua franca of North America and Australasia.

Perhaps, also the lingua franca of European Union. I am not sure, but if English is less important in the World, French and German people would prefer to use their own languages, or Esperanto/Europaio, a neutral language.

Finally, there will be good translators, and it will be less useful to study languages. So, the importance of a language will be considered by the mother tongue speakers, not secondary ones.
Shuimo   Fri Aug 07, 2009 11:05 am GMT
A.M. Tue Aug 04, 2009 9:11 am GMT
Chinese and other languages like Spanish, Arabic and Hindi will be more important in the near future.

The future importance of Chinese depends on the economic power of China and the choice of Chinese or English in countries like Vietnam, South Korea, Japan or Malaysia. If they prefer Chinese, this language will be the lingua franca of East Asia, but not all the World.

There will be a new order with the big five: English, Spanish, Arabic, Hindi and Chinese. All of them will have their area of influence, according to the economic organizations and countries where these languages are spoken.

Besides, English will be only 5th in number of mother tongue speakers, after Chinese, Hindi, Arabic and Spanish. I think that the Golden Age of English is over.

So, English will be less important, of course. It won't be the World lingua franca, only the lingua franca of North America and Australasia.

Perhaps, also the lingua franca of European Union. I am not sure, but if English is less important in the World, French and German people would prefer to use their own languages, or Esperanto/Europaio, a neutral language.

Finally, there will be good translators, and it will be less useful to study languages. So, the importance of a language will be considered by the mother tongue speakers, not secondary ones.
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Interesting point! I agree up to a point!

The strength of a language is indeed dictated by how powerful the countries and peoples that use the language really are!