There were many lingua francas of which French was supposedly the first global lingua franca. That changed and it became English (from what I understand). We will probably see another language become the lingua franca, so my question is: should it be English? Are there better candidates out there? Why / why not?
The Year of Esperanto is finally upon us! Bonan Matenon, Europe!
Nia tempo venis!
I would actually love a law that says Esperanto has to be the first foreign language taught in each EU school.
Why not a combination out of all European languages. Might be a huge mess, but still.
Edit: I‘m an idiot.
The Lingua Franca didn’t change because someone decided to change it, it slowly happened. You could argue it would be nice for EU if the (local) Lingua Franca would be the language of a large member state, but I don’t see it happening by force. Probably better to just leave it to be English, even if the Irish are the only native speakers in the EU.
Ireland has English and Irish.
Irish? Isn’t it called Gaelic?
Gaelic is the language family and includes Scottish, Welsh, and another language I believe (Brittain from Brittainy?). Kind of like how Spanish and French are romance languages or English and German are Germanic languages.
This. It’s the same with forcing „wokeness“ on people. To safely implement change, the transition needs to be slow and steady.
Logical thinking I would think English should stay. It is by far the most known foreign language in Europe.
English if we want ease of communication (and is the most likely path forward)
Esperanto if the goal is to teach it to a whole generation: it is designed to be easy to understand when you already know one European language (especially a latin one I think?)
Chinese if the goal is to speak the language of the dominant non European power in the next century
Question is, what should be the criteria for deciding which other language?
If it is for the sake of current global usability, English remains top.
If it is for geostrategic considerations, Spanish, French and Arabic would be the languages to cover South and Central America, large parts of Africa and West Asia.
If it is for population dominance inside the EU, it would be German, which probably will ruffle some feathers. If it is for population dominance in Europe, it should be Russian, which will ruffle a lot of feathers.
We should start using Toki Pona.
I want to learn this. So cool
It’s super easy to learn, but extremely hard to express stuff with.
To say “I love bricks” you’d say “poki loje lon sinpin li poki tawa” which translates directly to “red box on wall is lovely to me”.
A vid by Half as Interesting on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d6bGAw5yt8
Hll, thats discouraging
Is this some kind of ragebait? I speak French but if you look at the attitude that the French have towards their language and compare that to their average commandment of the English language, why should we do that to a whole continent?
If you ask me people in the EU should be raised bilingually and learn English from kindergarten on. All administration and official stuff should be bilingual. That would be a way for the EU to remain competitive. But no, we rather go down the Nazi route, way to go.
Given how western society is doing, Mandarin might not be a terrible call.
Isn’t it the most difficult language to learn for Westerners?
if by westerners you mean english speakers, then yes, it’s known to be one of the more difficult ones. it’s ultimately subjective, but what people find hard about mandarin is 1.the writing system 2.tones
what also doesn’t help is definitely lack of exposure, chinese popular media isn’t very popular in the west
Also Chinese people are confused af if you try to speak Chinese with them. I tried several times and they were just looking at me like wtf are you doing. It’s probably a combination of not really getting why a foreigner would start speaking Chinese with them and me being extraordinarily bad at doing it too.
Westerners = Europe, USA, Australia, New Zealand
1.the writing system 2.tones
Indeed. I just looked it up and the writing system is logographic. To my knowledge, not a single Western language is logographic and more alphabetic. The tonal system is also rare (not sure if exists at all) in Western countries.
To me, those are two major differences that are difficult to overcome.
Having a big economy who’s inhabitants never have to invest time into learn another language is a huge advantage for this economy. It’s not a level playing field. Today there is no reason to still support English. In Europe we should use Esperanto or another easy to learn equivalent.
Today there is no reason to still support English
This forum bringing together people from different countries, is in itself proof that there is a reason. Many people are already comfortable if not fluid in the language. How many folks speak Esperanto already?
How many folks speak Esperanto already?
As many as Lithuanians, Latvians, or Basque, and twice as many as Estonians.
I’m too lazy to learn another language. Pick from English and Polish, alright?
It made us Brits lazy. There’s little reason for people to learn other languages due to English being so popular as a second language.
Don’t get me wrong, there are people. But I don’t know many people that can speak other languages. I am actually envious of others that do.
It simply amazes me when someone can speak multiple languages.
As a tri-lingual belgian I feel that so much. (more of a poly-lingual because I speak 5 languages)
I’m super fluent in belgian dutch and belgian french, so whenever I swap (which I do without thinking, I will always answer in whatever language is spoken to me) people
🤯
I’m now over 10 years out of school where i learned english and started to learn another language. Now with an adult brain it is quite facinating to self observe how the brain is slowly rewired to adopt to the new language and how the longer you stay on track the faster the learning becomes.
G’day from Australia, please don’t cut our borderless monolingual Island off. Kiwi’s probably feel similar too.
Don’t kid yourself, if you would speak English over there, how come I barely understood this Australian who told me he’s been “leggin’ it barefoot since he stacked it near the servo and now he’s flat out like a lizard drinkin’ and tryin’ to find a dunny before he cops a fair dinkum blue”.
This is clearly fabricated, you’re missing way too many swear words.
I felt that. Not Australian, but I felt that.
Anything but english or french. Yes, I’m willing to put up even with brainfuck as a spoken language
TIL brainfuck is a thing. The stuff people come up with 🤣
Lojban! Though esperanto maybe is more reasonable.
As another person said, this is bad use of terminology. Lingua franca is decided by the people through natural use, not by governance.
I don’t think such categorical distinctions are useful. Languages have been forced upon people for a long time. Italy, France, Germany, Spain, UK, and probably many other countries have forced their preferred language upon their people. Conquered peoples have had languages thrust upon them with no way to resist.
Yes, cause many people do speak “broken” english and its compared to french or other languages easy to learn.
