The decline of America vs. the decline of English

Shuimo   Mon Aug 03, 2009 10:50 am GMT
Do you think the decline of America wud result in the decline of English?
trendyman   Mon Aug 03, 2009 11:23 am GMT
Not at all! English is already an universal language, the whole world adopted it. So, regardless of the America's decline from now on, it will still remain popular.
EU   Mon Aug 03, 2009 12:58 pm GMT
I really don't think so. America is not the only developed country which speaks English but also England, Canada, Ireland,Australia and New Zeland. Also in the group of the developing countries you have important countries which speak English like India (English is offical) and South Africa.

But I think other language will be important too like, Chinese in Asia, French and Arabic in West africa and Middle east, Spanish in Latin America, German in Europe and Russian Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
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KT   Mon Aug 03, 2009 8:51 pm GMT
Indians don't speak English any more than Germans do. If anything Indians in General speak worse English than Germans.
guessed   Mon Aug 03, 2009 9:40 pm GMT
I suspect that the decline of the US and rest of the West will cause English to become vulnerable for replacement by Chinese, Hindi, Arabic, etc.

Latin remined around for a long while after Rome declined, but this decline allowed other Western Languages to eventually replace it as a Lingua Franca. If Rome were still supremely powerful, I suspect evolved Latin would still be the major language across the globe.
Shuimo   Mon Aug 03, 2009 9:51 pm GMT
There's currently no other language that could reasonably replace English. Maybe things will be different in two hundred years or so, but don't expect Chinese to become important before their culture changes and those strange symbols are replaced with some kind of phonetic/phonemic alphabet.
Damian London SW15   Mon Aug 03, 2009 10:56 pm GMT
***America is not the only developed country which speaks English but also England, Canada, Ireland,Australia and New Zeland***

Ummm......England? OK, it's the birthplace of the English Language and deserves a mention but when you say England in this context surely you mean the United Kingdom? If there's anything in this world which makes the Scots, the Welsh and the Northern Irish see a red mist descend in their line of vision it's having foreigners lumping all the home countries of the United Kingdom under the name of England! In any case there are a fair number of countries other than the ones you listed in which English is the official Language.

I doubt very much that English will globally decline in status even when China becomes the world's No 1 Superpower, economically, commercially, militarily and perhaps culturally as well....as it most probably will.

If both the United States and China engage in some kind of tussle over Super Power status I only hope they don't bring us in Europe into the "struggle"....we just won't want to know, we shall remain stubbornly neutral, just as the USA was in 1939 and 1914 while Europe was being torn asunder.

I don't even want English to become over dominant here in the EU either....each and every European Language, and individual culture, is precious and all must endure, no matter what. That is one of the great beauties of our great Continent and Union.
Uriel   Wed Aug 05, 2009 1:21 am GMT
<<Latin remined around for a long while after Rome declined, but this decline allowed other Western Languages to eventually replace it as a Lingua Franca. If Rome were still supremely powerful, I suspect evolved Latin would still be the major language across the globe. >>

Um, it actually still is, Rome or no Rome. Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, and a whole host of other "Western Languages" are just that -- "evolved Latin" --and they are spoken across several continents. English has a major Latin component, and is spoken here and there as well. ;P

So I guess your original home base doesn't need to remain preeminent for your language to persist. The language just has to get a toehold in enough ordinary people and it'll last no matter who's on top of the stock market.
annoying guy   Wed Aug 05, 2009 7:57 am GMT
<<Ummm......England? OK, it's the birthplace of the English Language and deserves a mention but when you say England in this context surely you mean the United Kingdom? If there's anything in this world which makes the Scots, the Welsh and the Northern Irish see a red mist descend in their line of vision it's having foreigners lumping all the home countries of the United Kingdom under the name of England! In any case there are a fair number of countries other than the ones you listed in which English is the official Language.>>


Well, you're right that it should be called the UK, but to be fair, there is no reason why people should consider Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland as 'countries' when they are all actually part of the same political entity. I find it quite annoying when people go on about how the UK is four 'countries'. As far as outsiders are concerned, these 'countries' are no more than autonomous regions. We care no more about these subnational subdivisions than we care about Autonomous Okrugs and Oblasts in Russia.
Some people care, sure, but in general they don't, and it is quite pretentious to refer to such an entity as a 'country' and expect people to elevate them to a level equal with an independent state.
Damian London E14   Wed Aug 05, 2009 8:49 am GMT
Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and, of course, England are indeed component parts of a single entity - the United Kingdom - but at the same time they really are countries in their own right, even now under the current British Constitution. Each one is different from any of the others in character, and even in Language, although English is the dominant Language in all four, of course.

They were quite independent countries at one time, long before the idea of a single United Kingdom under one Crown was even thought of, and they really are separate countries even now, with their own local governing bodies, such as the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, while still under the overall jurisdiction of the Westminster Parliament. They are always referred to as individual countries in their own right - the four countries of the UK.

You cannot call them mere Regions, as Scotland in particular is divided into Regions, and to call Scotland a Region instead of a Country when it is a Country made up of Regions would be tantamount to insanity.

When driving from England into either Scotland or Wales you are really aware that you are no longer in England because many things appear to be "different". This is because you have travelled out of one country and into another.

So there! ;-)
A.M.   Wed Aug 05, 2009 8:59 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.
Uriel   Thu Aug 06, 2009 1:31 am GMT
Damian, Texas and California used to be their own countries, too, once upon a time. Now they're not. That's about how the rest of us look at England, Scotland, Wales, etc. We know you guys stick stubbornly to your guns about it, but it sounds like "insanity" to us! ;)
trendyman   Thu Aug 06, 2009 8:18 am GMT
The common language is disappearing. It is slowly being crushed to death under the weight of verbal conglomerate, a pseudospeech at once both pretentious and feeble, that is created daily by millions of blunders and inaccuracies in grammar, syntax, idiom, metaphor, logic, and common sense.... In the history of modern English there is no period in which such victory over thought-in-speech has been so widespread. Nor in the past has the general idiom, on which we depend for our very understanding of vital matters, been so seriously distorted.
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Wretched fucking angry gu   Thu Aug 06, 2009 10:04 am GMT
It is so ridiculous how stupid people are. It's amazing that universities can decry this situation of graduates who can't spell or do shit all, and yet the idiotic education ministers do flying fuck all about it. Is it really that difficult to comprehend? How the fuck can they not realise that they MUST teach grammar and punctuation in school and other basic things like writing and reading. It is NOT omittable. That's all there is too it! Why the fuck are they so obsessed with dumbing EVERYTHING down. Why?! What benefit can possibly come out of it?! Why are English classes these days all about fun, games and easy passes?! School is not supposed to be ALL about having fun and developing social skills, which seems to be the new 'in' thing in the education industry. It doesn't even work for shit because social skills today are the same if not worse than ever, so they've basically been wasting time for no result. Those assholes are so fucking thick! Why are they so hell-bent on bringing the Western world to its knees?!
JUST TEACH ENGLISH AGAIN YOU FUCKING MORONS!! GET IT THROUGH YOUR FUCKING THICK HEADS!!!! WHAT DO YOU NOT FUCKING UNDERSTAND!!!!
My English is rather bad and I often have problems and I blame this on the ridiculously fucked up education system. For example, not once in my life have I learnt when you are supposed to put fucking hyphens in compound (?) words. NOT FUCKING ONCE WAS IT EVER MENTIONED IN SCHOOL, despite the fact that these words are god(-)damned everywhere. I'm not fucking stupid either. I'm no English nut or anything but I read a reasonable amount, I just don't notice these things when reading. I have a university degree so I'm at least not brain damaged, and while I admit that my degree counts for shit (because not only English is dumbed down) at least I surely must have the right to call myself 'educated' (by today's standards). So fuck you ministers of fucking education!

By the way, excuse my French...