Will Spanish and Chinese overcome English?
Ben, I am assuming of course that you meant "superpower" under a commercial context not militar, because otherwise English could be rather a hated language instead and see that anyway those wrong decisions (to call them in a soft way) made by U.S.and that most people in the world condemn, don't really has affected the language and I'm sure they won't.
Spanish is spreading every day much more than ever in the U.S. Has that weakened the English worldwide ? or has that strengthened the Spanish ? I would say no to both questions.
I can't deny that U.S. has promoted enormously the English in the last decades but the work was started by England. Today I think the use of English is like a snowball and I doubt that something could stop it and much less a so difficult language like Chinese or even the not so difficult Spanish. You can't deny that Japan economically is one of the most powerful countries of the world and with a great prestige today but that's not enough for Japanese language to be popular, the same could be applied to France, Italy or Germany for example.
Chinese overcoming English as a language...
I simply doubt it. The reason being is that Chinese is non-phonological, which means the language isn't based on how the words are pronounced.
There are so many distinct characters in the language, and each character is pronounced differently. This means, to learn it, you have to remember a number of charcters and how they are pronounced.
I've tried to learn it some time ago, but was just shocked by the number of things to remember in the first stage of learning. Especially reading and writing were the most challenging - recognising which character is which, etc. It was too much effort for me to put into it, so I gave up.
Don't get me wrong, though. English isn't the only language I speak nor is my first language. As I recall, to write and read simple English words and sentences wasn't that difficult at the first stage.
It's simply too much work. Learning any lauguage as a second language isn't easy, but the effort I had to put when getting started was simply scary.
Personally I think that Chinese are very smart people specially for business and sciences, could a such mental excercise, through years of learning, help to strengthen the intellectual capability ?
Chinese can NEVER, not NOW or EVER, replace the English language. Although studying Chinese was, and is still, very enjoyable to me. But the fact that it is not enough a modern language to compete with other languages–at least to me. I just want to share my own understanding and imaginations of the philosophy behind this language. I will make a comparison between Chinese and English. If you look at the English language, u will find that out of 24-or so- letters, u have thousands of combinations of words. there is atwo-letter words, like “go”, “do”…then u have three-letter words, like “can”, “fun” … And goes up to more than an eight-letter word, Like “Hospital” “ convenience”… the result is great number of different sounds and words to describe objects and actions in a wide efficient, clear and beautiful way. On the other hand, in Chinese, they do have around 26 different letters. There is a 2-letter word, like “bu”, “ qu”, “he”…Then have the three-letter words, like “ban”, “Cai”…etc, but here we stop!! There are no words built from a four different letter sounds. So the number of combinations to built words is very limited (in other words, shortage of words because at that time they did not create enough words from more than four letters). The result was to use same word or sound to describe more than one object or action.
Yet that was not enough! Again, another way was to pronounce same word in different tones to describe different meanings, or put two words together to have more meanings.
For example, the 2-letter word “yi” has four tones to pronounce it, and has more than 250 different meaning… isn’t that very much confusing to beginners?? From there we can understand the definition of “character”, as the only way to separate between different meanings of “yi” is to give each meaning a different character. This also could be an answer to the foreigners who try to be smart by saying that china should abandon using characters and replace it by the phonetic one –Pinyin. Definitely anyone who says so indicates having very limited vocabulary, like knowing only one meaning of “yi” without knowing the other 250 meanings.
Chinese, because of what I explained above, could be often misunderstood, even between native speakers (chinese people always put in the middle of a sentence: "DO YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN"). It is an easy language to speak, but not to write and ready. Many foreigners has complained that when they speak, no one understands them…very frustrating!. That’s true, because the words are very similar and close in sounds, so pronouncing should be precise, otherwise will jump from one word to another without knowing, and if one does not master the tones…well, at least learn how to Control your temper my friend!
Mike : tu te trompes de A à Z. Si le chinois doit remplacer l'anglais, cela se fera quelles que soient les spécificités linguistiques du chinois. Tu ne t'en rends peut-être pas compte, mais l'anglais est certainement, d'un point de vue technique, une très mauvaise option pour promouvoir et diffuser l'idée d'un idiome planétaire. Je crois que ni toi ni moi n'avons encore tout vu...
Sorry Greg but I don't understand French. Could you please write in English ? if you know of course.
Greg I totally support your point! Good job!
BRAVO! for teaching these chinese-bashers a good lesson!
I must really apologise for chiding you for writing french here, you have that right to write french here, greg! Je vous soutiens !
<<...mais l'anglais est certainement, d'un point de vue technique, une très mauvaise option pour promouvoir et diffuser l'idée d'un idiome planétaire. >>
English IS already a planetary language even if we don't like such title (I don't like it) and even with the difficulties d'un point de vue technique.
<<mais l'anglais est certainement, d'un point de vue technique, une très mauvaise option>>
Imagine if English would be technically a -good- option then. There are not many options around.
It's hard to deny, except by Chinese people I guess, that Chinese language is a too complex one just looking at its writing and phonetics. There is no offence or "bash" intented.
Aldvs : il n'existe *AUCUNE* langue planétaire. Ça se saurait...
English is anything but a simple language, it has loads of vocalic sounds that are only slightly different from each other, so words have to be pronounced carefully for the meaning to be understood correctly. So even if grammar is fairly simplified, the spoken language is very hard to pick up unless you are submerged in it. In spite of all that, it's today's lingua franca. But then I wouldn't be surprised if chinese, in spite of all its difficulties, became lingua franca in 100 years time
<<il n'existe *AUCUNE* langue planétaire.>>
Strictly is to exaggerate I know, but as second language I think it is planetary indeed. it's amazing how it is spread around the world and used to communicate, as I'm doing right now, with almost anybody even not being a native English speaker. I admit that never in the history of humankind a language has been so successful at least until now.