Does English risk being replaced?
>> Saleh Bin Tariq,
I am a Muslim, and I got an impression that some Muslims ( are they really muslims ? ), have different understanding with mine regarding Islam. I suggest you to seek another website that is specially dedicated for discussing religions/faith.
Can anyone help me to make some corrections to my sentences above ? <<
Sure here ya go:
>>
Saleh bin Tariq,
I am a Moslem, and I got the impression that some Moslems (or are they?) have a different understanding about Islam. I suggest that you find another website that is dedicated to religion. <<
>>
Saleh bin Tariq,
I am a Moslem, and I got the impression that some Moslems (or are they?) have a different understanding about Islam. I suggest that you find another website that is dedicated to religion. <<
I would use "Muslim" over "Moslem". "Moslem" has a loaded meaning and is rarely used in English these days.
http://hnn.us/articles/524.html
"In 50 years all of you infidels will be speaking Arabic! To Jess
Regarding Arabic- Islam has no complete cultural or religious claim on all arabs (as there are Chrsitian and Jewish arabs) as much as contemporary English has a complete claim on Christianity. Stop the cultural emperialism and the condecending attitude many of you converted Muslims are so full of pride. All the real Arabs i've met have been kind and generous
"In 50 years all of you infidels will be speaking Arabic!
In 50 years Western Countries will be completely oil independent.
In 50 years Arab Countries will be completely impoverished because no one will need oil.
In 50 years Arabs will be wearing bedsheets while Black Africans will be wearing Gucci.
In 50 years Arabs will be expelled from Europe.
I think that English will remain being the dominant language or the presiding language for a very long time to come. It's much much easier than most if not all of the languages in the world. For me, German, French, Spanish, Thai, Arabic, Japanese, Korean, Hindu, Egyption, or any other language would be impossible to learn. For me it would just be too difficult or too time-consuming to learn. But English is relatively easy and accessible. You can get English-learning materials easily from the bookstores, the Internet, or TV & radios. And English only consists of 26 alphabets. All you need to do is to start with memorizing the 26 upper-case and the 26 lower-case alphabets. Then try to memorize the spellings of words. You can start communicating with someone else by using simple vocabulary. It's just not difficult to get started. Also, there are many logical grammatical rules. Once you know the grammatical rules, you know how to produce the forms.
I just think that it's totally worth the time to learn English well since it would help me to communicate with anybody else who also knows English.
If it will take another ten years for me to improve my English even better, it's still worth the time and efforts to do it.
However, it does not mean I will give up or abandon my own native language. Instead, I will spend time to read more in my own native language too and also have better understandings of my own people, root cultures and our histories. It is necessary to know the society I am living in well.
My idea is to get the most out of having the two useful languages at the same time -- my mother language and also English.
(Irene Huang
graduated from UCSB, U.S.A. in 1995
currently teaching in an elementary school in Taipei County, Taiwan
also a graduate student in National Cheng-Chi University, Taiwan)
Hindu refers to a person who lives in India and Hindhi is a language which is spoken in India.
How do you know all those other languages would be impossible to learn? It doesn't sound like you have tried to learn any foreign language apart from English. As for German, yes its grammar is much more complicated than that of English, but at the same time the rules are also very logical (I'm not sure as they actually are in English), and once you learn them it is not difficult to achieve a reasonable standard of German. Mastering the language is a different matter, but then so is mastering English, almost all the non-native speakers who come on here and claim that English is so easy are nowhere near mastering it.
The guest above has a good point there. I'd like to make a further point of view that the degree of either the easiness or the difficulty of learning a language has no substantial bearing on the issue of whether it is (better) qualified to perform as an international language. The real issue behind is the overall power and strength of the nations who speak that language. No matter how easy it is, a language is of little practical use and practical significane internationally if the people and nation speaking that language is weak militarily and economically.
Yes, because if it was only about the simplicity of the language, wouldn't Afrikaans be the international language?
"[T]he easiness or the difficulty of learning a language has no substantial bearing on the issue of whether it is (better) qualified to perform as an international language. The real issue behind is the overall power and strength of the nations who speak that language."
Well said. The answer in a nutshell!
If by some fluke, Finland were the dominant global economic and political power today, I guarantee we'd all be taking Finnish lessons in night school.
I doubt Chinese will replace English in our lifetime.
French used to be considered the language of the civilized and it was dominant in a number of European courts. Yes, France was a great power, you might even say a superpower at times, but it was her cultural richness that convinced people to learn the language. People who spoke French as a second language, most notably the upper classes, usually followed the French trends in fashion, music, literature, etc.
Today, many foreigners learn English because it is a requirement of a "modern individual," much like French used to be before. I personally know people who think it's cool to throw in some English words or phrases while speaking in their native tongue. By doing that, they try to appear advanced and modern.
Soviet Union was also a superpower, but the significance of Russian was limited to communist countries. From this, we can infer than unless a country has political or cultural influence outside of its borders, it's language won't acquire an international role. Thus, unless China plans to conquer half of the world, or somehow make its music, movies, etc. super attractive to foreigners, Chinese will not replace English.
.... used to be considered the language of the civilized .........
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On what basis d u call a language civilized? By claiming a language civilized, it shows how heavily prejudiced and biased u r in yr views of languages, which are of equal status.
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Today, many foreigners learn English because it is a requirement of a "modern individual," ..................................By doing that, they try to appear advanced and modern.
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When u claim some lanauage is civilized excluding other as uncivilized, I see no point in yr claim that "many foreigners learn English because it is a requirement of a "modern individual" , a statement running counter to the requirement of a truly modern individual, also a narrow-minded statemtn put by someone whose head is rife with ideas of snobbishness and complacency.
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From this, we can infer than unless a country has political or cultural influence outside of its borders, it's language won't acquire an international role.
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The so called "political or cultural influence " of a country is inherently based on its hard power, as is the case of English in relation to the superpower of USA. Without its solid and striking military, economical and science-technological power, USA' so called political or cultural influence soon loses ground to rely upon, like a car without gasoline to propel. Whether Chinese willl replace English depends upon the future strength and the hard power of China and the Chinese nation. But that is hard to predict.
Yes, French was CONSIDERED to be the language of the civilized. Centuries ago people would not consider that statement to be prejudiced. You might learn that from opening a history book on Europe.
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How would saying that some people learn English because it is required to appear progressive make ME biased? I don't take part in it, I'm just stating my observations.
It is funny to read the many ridiculous posts on this thread, as though one was reading transcripts of written arguments from a kindergarten class. You all sound ignorant, arrogant, and extraordinarily absurd. On here, I'd say silence remains the best response for simpletons...GROW UP!!
<< "In 50 years all of you infidels will be speaking Arabic!' >>
POINT NOTED!
<< "In 50 years all of you infidels will be speaking Arabic!' >>
No way need we wait that long......in some metropolitan areas of Britain the English Language is, to all intents and purposes, virtually extinct - well, slight exaggeration maybe - ok...we'll settle for "minority" instead.
Actually, the idea of Finnish becoming a lingua franca sounds quite attractive......for one thing, it would be quite a challenge to learn it - it doesn't look like any other Language - and it certainly doesn't resemble your average Scandi tongue. It doesn't belong to the same lingo group does it?