When does a language become considered significant?
How many speakers would you say a language needs before it stops being considered simply a regional language, and becomes considered a language that is useful and helpful to know without really having a specific reason for doing so.
I suppose no language is truly a waste of time if you have a reason for learning it, but take Finnish, a language with 6 million speakers. If you have no direct link to Finland, no need for Finnish in your job, and no way of practicing it then learning Finnish in my opinion would be a fruitless waste of time and effort.
I would say a minimum of 100 million people and to be official in international organizations.
So, only 8 languages can be considered significant:
English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Russian, Arabic, German and Portuguese.
what about hindi and japanese they have over 100 mil and are fairly significant
Japanese and Hindi are not official in UNO or other international organizations.
I don't know (or care) about your post's subject, but its title sounds funny. Shouldn't you consider rewriting it as "When is a language [deemed/considered] [significant/important]?"
"what about hindi and japanese"
Hindi and Japanese (and Portuguese) aren't influential at all beyond their domestic turf.
Arabic and Chinese are significant first of all because speakers are seen as primary source of potential trouble (oil, economy, terrorism)
Japanese should be a significant language just based on its GDP alone.
Portuguese will be in the future. Economists predict its GDP will be greater than Russia by 2050 and a major world power.
What about Swedish?
The Danes, Swedes and Norwegians all understand each other to an extent.
With the craze about animes... More and more people are learning a little bit of Japanese.
I myself can speak some stuff and understand some basic frases. I believe that Japanese will become more important. Not at the same level of English but it will be more influential.
Regards
I would say a minimum of 100 million people speak a languaghand to be official in international organizations.
So, only 8 languages can be considered significant:
English, French, Russian, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, German and Portuguese.
<< What about Swedish?
The Danes, Swedes and Norwegians all understand each other to an extent. >>
You mean Scandinavian?
First, they have to unify the spelling or orthography of the 3 languages, then programs coming from of the countries shown on the other 2 need not to be dubbed but with subtitles so that all three will get exposed to each others' language, speak to each other using his own language without any difficulty as if they're using a single language. Who knows, one day the 3 languages would merge into just one language like Bokmal and Nynorsk wherein it is hoped that the 2 will someday merge into 1 Norwegian speech.
This is really depends on where you are!
I consider a language important based on:
- how different places it is spoken
- how many of its speakers are bilingual
- whether it is a language commonly studied
Russian I consider a huge one.
Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia, Moldova, Georgia,
in all those places a good portion of the population can speak Russian!
Japanese? It's spoken in Japan. And most people there learn English.
But it really depends. Obviously Aymara plays huge significance around Lake Titicaca. I went there and not a soul spoke Spanish. They all spoke Aymara.
Oh and Hebrew! It plays huge significance in Judaism.
A language can be considered significant when it has twice the importance that French has currently.