What's the Language of the Future

[Ruth]

from Salon

http://www.salon.com/2011/11/06/whats...

[Carol]

I don't know about it being the most respected though.

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

....or respectable.....

[Ken, Moderator]

The world has a love/hate relationship with all things English, I think. As for native speakers like me -- hey, you can't help where you were born. We are all victims of geography, after all.

[Cecily]

Likely reasons for the rise of English and Globish are given in the article, and none of them apply to Esperanto, which is barely anyone's mother tongue and has no colonial powers (whether military, commercial or cultural) to promote or impose it.

[Arminius]

English is the international business language. Because America was the largest economic power for so long other countries began to learn it.

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

Oh? And here I was thinking it was because England colonised so much of the globe.....including America.....

[Blood Bone and Muscle]

I would think it's the second one tied with the first in the tiniest bit.

In Liberia they speak English because they were a generation of slaves brought back. Hong Kong was under British Rule for a hundred years or so (Opium War, second or first?).

All I can say is no matter how much I want it to be, it's certainly not going to be Russian.

[Ken, Moderator]

Imagine if we all had to learn the Cyrillic alphabet? Nyetski.

[Blood Bone and Muscle]

I can read it fluently, it's not that bad. Thank goodness they cut down on the amount during the Soviet Union. Now there's only 33 letters.

[Ken, Moderator]

I have been to the Soviet Union. Have yet to go to Russia, though.

[Blood Bone and Muscle]

How was it?

[Ken, Moderator]

Everyone was Russian around and asking if I had jeans to sell or chewing gum to give away. I guess I looked American, though one guy in the hotel asked if I was "Deutsche" and I thought he said "Dutch." Anyway, when I told him I was American, he grimaced as if a bad odor had been released. Sometimes it's painful being the Perpetually-Ugly American....

[Blood Bone and Muscle]

Pauvre toi. That sounds awful. I've been to Africa and my trip seems nothing close to as painful.

What were you doing there? (And where were you if not in Russia? Was it Lithuania, Belarus?)

[Ruth]

I was in Russia when it was still the Soviet Union. Studied up so I could read a little Russian. But not fast enough to get off at the right subway stop.

[Blood Bone and Muscle]

My father went to Red Square as a boy, he played soccer with some of the locals and remembers the ice cream.

[Ken, Moderator]

Like Ruth, I was in Russia when it was still the Soviet Union, so saying that I had been to the Soviet Union but not Russia was a bad joke. I was there as a student on a cultural tour. I was representing America so Russians could appreciate how wonderful we are. I ate no ice cream while I was there. In fact, I remember the food being awful. It's a great diet, traveling to the Soviet Union....

[Ruth]

The food we ate in Russia was very good. The soups were wonderful. We often had caviar as an appetizer. The bread was good. Meals were very tasty. We were on a tour for doctors. In those days it was practically impossible to go there if you were not on a tour. The one thing we didn't like was that every meal but breakfast was served with Pepsi. Really? Maybe it was their idea of what Americans like.

[Doug]

I think English were just carriers, not the infection. People will eventually go with whatever system of rules for sounds produces the most successful result even if it is far more difficult. Darwin would agree. Vocabulary, on the other hand, will always be in flux. English (or call it any name you want to) is not in any danger of demise. It is just being homogenized into the rest of the world.

[Ken, Moderator]

English evolving into Esperanto, then?

[Doug]

:) :) Is there a nation that speaks it? I used to know it. But if it produced the best results, then eventually.... yes.

[Cecily]

It's not about best results. Esperanto has never caught on because it is barely anyone's mother tongue and has no colonial powers (whether military, commercial or cultural) to promote or impose it.

Some people will learn it for idealistic, intellectual or other reasons, but it will never be widely spoken.

[Doug]

N E was being facetious. Cecily, you are right. Best results include all those influences.