Will Chinese Replace English As A Lingua Franca?

[@coolbrotherf127]

The main reason why I can't see it changing any time soon is that China is so closed off from the rest of the world in so many ways. Other than international companies that do business with the country, most people just don't really have a reason to learn such a difficult language. We don't get much media exported from China like we do from Japan or South Korea so there's not as much reason to learn the language for that reason either. Plus, with English being the main language for science and technology, Chinese people are learning English to be able to contribute to STEM fields. A lot would have to change to make Mandarin more useful to know than English or Spanish.

[@WorldArchivist]

Even the companies doing business there are pulling out.

[@Labroidas]

Excellent comment! The isolation of China and the lack of cultural exports are really good points. The US established English as a lingua franca 1) through their victory in WW2 and the Cold War, and 2) through their incredibly successful international marketing of their culture that continues to this day. The British Empire helped of course as well. That being said, lingua francas can change quickly, and who knows what L2 language young people will be speaking 50 years from now. Not that long ago, the international diplomatic language used to be french. At some point, English will go the same way as latin and french and lose its international influence, and in our rapidly changing world it's difficult to say when that will be.

[@frenchimp]

Another aspect is that China is not in friendly terms with its neighbours. It's not very popular, generally, it doesn't have much soft power.

[@ommsterlitz1805]

The reason English became a lingua franca is because it was similar enough to French the language of diplomacy all around the world for close to a millennia while still being much easier and simpler to learn than French, Chinese is quite a difficult language to learn and don't have the presence French and English had on other countries, as Chinese is only spoken in China, while the other 2 are spoken in every continent.

[@Bakarost]

Plus china is losing people, demographcs are falling hard so less people less infuelnce

[@rb98769]

I think toppling English as lingua franca would be very difficult. For starters, over 50% of content on the internet is in English. The next two languages are Spanish and Russian, each with about 5%. The internet is probably the most powerful tool in terms of language dissemination these days and nothing comes even close to English on that. There is also the issue of the writing system in Chinese being very difficult to learn, and tones being uncommon among other widely-spoken languages in the world.

[@FENomadtrooper]

The writing system is less crazy when you remember how little English words have to do with their spelling. If I were king for a day, I'd nuke spelling conventions in English and make it so 1 character = 1 sound

[@Matruchus]

Chinese writing is extremely hard. If you want to be basic fluent in Chinese you need to know 2.000 glyphs. If you really want to be fluent in Chinese you need to learn around 50.000 glyphs. English is going to stay basic language for next 50 years at least. It could get replaced by Spanish.

[@FENomadtrooper]

@@Matruchus This is true, but knowing glyphs isn't quiet the whole story. Each character is broken down into things called radicals. There are only 200+ radicals. That's why I said English words have little to do with the spelling. It becomes more comparable. Learning combinations of seemly arbitrary letters to make up a whole word in English, vs learning arbitrary radicals that make up a whole word in Chinese.

[@gtPacheko]

I think Portuguese beats Russian, but I'm not sure. Brazil + Angola + Mozambique alone are incredibly massive.

[@mattecap7714]

@@gtPacheko Portuguese has more native speakers but Russian is the second most used language for online content

[@jaykaufman9782]

This reminds me of a "Fluesterwitz" (whispered joke) that took root in Nazi Germany in 1944: The optimists begin studying English, while the pessimists begin studying Russia. This joke made its way to the USSR where it became an "anekdot" (political joke, anecdote, an entire genre in Russian culture): In the last years of the Soviet Union, the optimists began studying English, the pessimists began studying Chinese, and the realists began studying AK-47 maintenance.

[@musicalneptunian]

Otto from a Fish Called Wanda: if it wasn't for the USA of A you'd all be speaking German.

[@DashieDe]

I had to learn English at school, I know nothing about AK-47 maintenance and have reason to be optimistic

[@evelic]

Sorry, @@musicalneptunian, but it was Russia who defeated the Germans.

[@NewfieOn2Wheels]

​@@evelicRussia probably couldn't have done it solo. Lend-lease equipment, financial/material aid, and reduced pressure from Germany needing to fight on multiple fronts were crucial to the level of success the Soviets experienced during WWII. The allies won the war together.

[@Sedgewise47]

@@NewfieOn2Wheels 🤨Yeah. Something a *lot* of people seem to forget…

[@animeXcaso]

It's literally 20 years that I hear how "chinese will take over" I am still waiting

[@starsoffyre]

I'm ethnically Han Chinese, born and bred in Asia. I've been taught Mandarin in school growing up but I've never quite got the hang of it, likely because I've never really used it much in daily life. Most of the mandarin speakers globally tend to be native speakers and concentrated within China and the greater China region, with very few non-native mandarin speakers (as opposed to English). One of the biggest challenges to widespread adoption is the "network effect" of usage. If people around you aren't using it, you'll probably lose your ability to speak it over time.

[@arsnakehert]

The eloquent nuance/appearance of Romance words in English is pretty funny coming from a Romance language, I've had people laughing thinking I was trying to talk fancy when in fact the Romance words were just the first that came to mind

[@rorychivers8769]

The fanciness perception basically boils down to "Oooh look 'ere at fancypants over 'ere, thinkin' ee knows French an'nat!"

[@nathan_408]

England was conquered by the Normans, so French became the language of the nobles, after that, they took a lot of loan words from Latin to develop themselves into a more erudite language.

[@HEMA90Tanin]

I wouldn't rule Chinese out, if it weren't for their main rival in the region, both culturally and population wise (India), already having English as an official language. Even if the influence of the US and UK wanes, India is just as likely to fill the gap as China is, reinforcing English as L2 for another generation.

[@joselitofilipino9618]

Factoring in the geopolitical situation in Asia does not help the Chinese language's case to be a possible candidate as a lingua franca. China simply made too many enemies (with their aggressive territorial claims and underhanded tactics when it comes to trading) in South, Southeast and East Asia, that it would be impossible to convince other nations to learn the language of China, a country which many of nations in Asia perceive as a threat. I'm not trying to spark a political debate here, I'm just pointing out a really huge factor that will turn down the case for Chinese being a lingua franca, at least here in Asia, especially in Southeast Asia.

[@septimus7524]

​@@joselitofilipino9618 To add to this: China has allot less cultural influence on the world than the West. I mean hell, even their own system of government initially evolved out of an idea written by a Victorian German

[@paulwalther5237]

Even my dad who thought I was wasting my time learning Japanese instead of Chinese back in the early 2010’s when China was on the up and up said it will never be a lingua franca for the simple reason that the writing system is too hard. After spending years studying kanji I’m pretty used to them but I still think he’s right. Chinese characters are just unnecessarily more difficult for foreigners to learn. China would have to literally conquer the world first.

[@bustavonnutz]

Latin script is also very common in established global languages, especially those from Europe, but also including big Austronesian languages like Tagalog & Bahasa too. Japanese script is hybrid, but besides residuals in Korean there are really no other languages that use Chinese script as it's written today. Of course, they could be a regional trade language like Hokkien was historically, but across the world? Not gonna happen.

[@Bakarost]

I dont speak pictures bro

[@rb98769]

The fact that multiple countries that previously used hanzi ended up moving away from it in a way or another is a good hint that it's just not a system that is easy to disseminate. Hanzi is just too tied to Mandarin and other Sinitic languages and their features, it's just not as flexible as other writing systems.

[@samuelteare8160]

And yet we all use Arabic numerals, ideographic symbols, for the world's number system instead of writing out the number(s) in our individual languages. Chinese characters are not as complicated as people think. They are consistent, which can't be said for the written English language. The diverse ways of spelling, pronunciation, and grammar usage in English is vastly more complicated than Chinese, orally or written.

[@MichaelScheele]

@@samuelteare8160, "Arabic" numbers are of Indian origin.

[@MichaelScheele]

I do not think Mandarin will replace English as a lingua franca. No one has a huge incentive to learn Mandarin instead of English, outside of trade. Even with trade, English works well enough. The most populated country after the PRC is India. English is already the main secondary language in India; it facilitates communication between dialect groups within India as well as trade. In Central and South America, they will either stick with their current languages or learn English as a second language. China may be making inroads there, but China is far more distant and few people in Central and South America have relatives living there. Some business people will learn Mandarin, of course. In Africa, if people know a language from outside of their continent, it is bound to be a European language. Learning English for them will be easier than learning Mandarin. In Asia, there's a mix of foreign Chinese populations and territorial disputes that will cloud the picture there. I don't see the two largest economies in Asia outside of China, Japan and ROK, wanting to steer away from English as the US is a critical defense partner against China. With English so prevalent in world culture, Mandarin will have a difficult time displacing it.

[@JohnMinehan-lx9ts]

Also, a vast number of US Citizens/Residents speak Spanish well enough to be able to read Brazilian Portuguese and to have some kind of comprehension of spoken Brazilian Portuguese.

[@diogorodrigues747]

@@JohnMinehan-lx9ts Speaking Spanish doesn't necessarily mean the person is able to understand Portuguese at all, even Brazilian Portuguese. Despite Standard Brazilian Portuguese being more "open" compared to other standard varieties of Portuguese, it still has a very different accent compared to the one of typical Spanish (Brazilian Portuguese has 13 vowels and vowel reduction as well, whereas most Spanish varieties have only 5 vowels and none of them have vowel reduction). About reading Portuguese, that is true, although it should be said that reading Brazilian Portuguese or other varieties of Portuguese is pretty much the same thing. The written form of European Portuguese is actually more similar to the Spanish one as the Portuguese grammar is much more conservative in many ways compared to Brazilian grammar.

[@abrvalg321]

French would say the same in the late 19th century.

[@MichaelScheele]

@@abrvalg321, obviously. Hence the term lingua franca.

[@abrvalg321]

@@MichaelScheele You've missed my point.

[@lucone2937]

The Anglo-American popular culture has a large influence in those countries that don't have any native English speakers. In many European countries English is the first foreign language that pupils learn the at school. I am a native Finnish speaker but I wanted to learn English more than just other school subject. For instance I wanted to understand English rock lyrics, to watch American tv-series and movies even without Finnish subtitles and to read science fiction novels like they were written in English. Later when I was at the university I read a lot scientific and historical literature in English. Besides it is very easy to use computers where most of texts in English even without think about it. As a Finn if I meet a Swede or a German, we shall most likely communicate in English, because it's a neutral language and it's not any of us mother tongue. I think the Chinese language can't seriously challenge English in the most part of the world because it's writing system is far more complicated than Latin alphabetic writing system.

[@tovarishchfeixiao]

But you forget that chinese writing is not works on an alphabetic level, but on a word level. It would be the same as if you were learn how to spell english words.

[@lucone2937]

@@tovarishchfeixiao A Chinese pronounciation is so different compared to any European languages that I can't pick up individual words in Chinese talk. Besides they don't have any common Greek and Latin loanwords that most of Europeans would recognise. If a language uses a Latin writing system I can start to study that language by reading the text and it helps to understand the grammar.

[@tovarishchfeixiao]

@@lucone2937 You would understand the words from context tho. And Chinese grammar is the easiest. Easier than any european language's. English pronunciation is just as far from most of the languages as Chinese.

[@Jonassoe]

I studied English in school, but I *learned* it in front of the TV and on the Internet. Something has to drastically change in the way people consume popular culture for Mandarin to replace English. It's not enough that China becomes the world's dominant economic power, and even that looks unlikely, the way things are going now.

[@nathan_408]

isn't unlikely, China will'be the first economy

[@oleksandrbyelyenko435]

No. Too hard in every way possible. And Japan is too small and distant. Both languages are and will be popular but not to the level of lingua franca

[@Deibi078]

Chinese already shares vocabulary and cognates with many south Asian languages like Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Thai besides these languages not being related like the Indo-European language family and some Chinese vocabulary is influenced by Sanskrit an ancient language of India,

[@darrendin2050]

​@@Deibi078Right. And what is your point?

[@fabricio4794]

My Dream is Japanese replace That language to English..Chinese Mandarin sucks and nihon go idem....

[@stekra3159]

Honesty thure anime Korean dramas alone gives Japanese and Korean edge in the Western world that Chinese does not really have

[@frenchimp]

@@Deibi078 Not sure the 'common vocabulary' helps a lot to learn Mandarin, though. There are plenty of words of Chinese origin in Japanese, for instance, but I'm not sure a Japanese speaker can tell what the relation is with the cognate Mandarin word. The similarities in writing might help, but it might help to make learning Chinese only very marginally easier. Whereas a Frenchman can understand more than a third of English words without putting his thinking cap on. I agree that learning English is harder if you don't already master a germanic or romance language, but on the other hand learning it will make it significantly easier for you to learn another germanic or a romance language.

[@filolinguista5576]

Great insights! One significant challenge I see regarding the rise of Chinese as a potential international lingua franca is its writing system. Learning thousands of characters might seem like a formidable task that could take quite a while. It could be a lengthy process to attain proficiency in reading and writing.

[@LavaWarrior101]

I think one of the reasons English is a Lingua Franca is because of how many countries actually speak it. Besides the USA and UK you also have colonised countries like Australia, India and African countries which speak it. Same reason Russian was the Lingua Franca among Eastern Europe during the Cold War.

[@frenchimp]

Well in Eastern Europe during the cold war you didn't have a choice, you were obliged to learn Russian at school. But I'm not sure that even then it had the status of a Lingua Franca that English now enjoys in the world.

[@ommsterlitz1805]

The reason English became a lingua franca is because it was similar enough to French the language of diplomacy all around the world for close to a millennia while still being much easier and simpler to learn than French, Chinese is quite a difficult language to learn and don't have the presence French and English had on other countries, as Chinese is only spoken in China, while the other 2 are spoken in every continent.

[@rb98769]

Yeah, English is spread widely throughout the world. Chinese is much more concentrated in Asia.

[@KnightofAges]

@@frenchimp And in Western Europe, we must learn English at school. We can choose two foreign languages, but at least one of them MUST BE English. So not really a difference.

[@yakisni]

​@@KnightofAges in Eastern Europe, especially on the Soviet territory, people were forced to SPEAK it in many cases. It served as the language of science and popular culture to the point of linguicide on many territories. English has never played this role in continental Europe

[@S.Tyrannosaurus]

I would say Korean is even more popular now than Mandarin or Japanese just because of Korean Wave alone. Soft power is very powerful.

[@belstar1128]

Its not as popular as japanese but at least the writing system of korean is easy so maybe more people will try to learn it

[@Ithirahad]

If they want Mandarin to become a global language, they have to come up with a new writing system more analogous to hangul (but with tone signs), which doesn't take years of study to learn. The tones are not that unfeasible for people to learn and the language is pretty straightforward structurally, but hanzi are a barrier approximately the size of the Great Wall.

[@MrAranton]

The writing system allowed people from different parts of china (and beyond) to understand each other in writing even when they wouldn‘t have had a clue what the other meant had they been talking to each other. A writing-system that allows you to understand what other write, evn though you don‘t actually speak the same language is kinda nifty.

[@kekeke8988]

@@MrAranton Except it doesn't actually work that way. Not even among just Chinese languages.

[@Ithirahad]

It's definitely "kinda nifty" but irrelevant in a world where we have better things to spend our idle time on than sitting around memorizing characters by rote. If your goal is to make a "lingua franca" for aristocrats and scholars, like Latin or Chinese itself once was, logograms are great. But a true universal language has to be something that average people can gain a working knowledge of quickly and efficiently.@@MrAranton

[@tovarishchfeixiao]

Dude. learning how to write chinese is not harder than learning how to write english.

[@hayabusa1329]

The Chinese have no interest in making their language the lingua franca

[@JeffreyGVny]

Nope, unless it becomes the default for the internet and programming (doubtful). As a spoken language, it’s not terribly hard, but the written would be a huge effort to make people literate.

[@themadmanwithapen]

I think it’s absolutely possible, but as you said, there are a ton of rather unpredictable factors involved, and the changing of a lingua franca is something that takes generations and is usually not noticed as it’s happening from what I’ve seen. I don’t see English being replaced by any other language wholesale within my lifetime, but a few generations from now, absolutely.

[@bendover9620]

Absolutely possible? Nonesense. Maybe for Wumaos, probably, but for their language to be the lingua franca they'd either have to open up to the world and stop their extreme nationalism or they consume the world entirely. If either of these don't happen, even 5000 years from now we'd still be using English.

[@ZestonN]

Mandarin isn't even the lingua franca of China. Most people in China speak Cantonese or another language that isn't Mandarin. Thus, the chances of Mandarin becoming the World Lingua Franca is near zero.

[@meanfan6963]

It all depends on how you define it. Regional lingua francas also exist, and, indeed, Chinese was a regional lingua franca in Asia for more than a thousand years. If you say “global lingua franca” and define “global” as the entire planet, then, no, English will not be replaced anytime soon, for reasons others have already stated. However, if you define “global” as “the known world”, then things get more interesting. I would argue that the first global lingua franca, using the latter definition, was Ancient Greek. It was the language of the elites throughout the known world of the classical antiquity (Europe, Africa and Asia) for the better part of a millennium. It retained that role even during the height of the Roman Empire (Latin was co-equal, but never replaced Greek). This is an interesting example, since it proves that an imperial power can dominate the world physically yet not culturally (instead, the Roman elites learned to speak Greek fluently and were often bilingual). It is also interesting in that Ancient (and also modern) Greek was a notoriously difficult language to learn, yet still became a lingua franca. And when the dominance of Greek in Asia and Africa finally ended around 700 AD, it was only to be replaced by Arabic, another notoriously difficult language. Meanwhile, backwards Western Europe had adopted a bastardized version of Latin and on the other side of the Eurasian supercontinent, Classical Chinese was the lingua franca of their known world.

[@meanfan6963]

(Part 2). After Europe came out of the Dark Ages and began to prosper during the High Middle Ages, Latin started to spread. The Crusades, and the associated first European colonization would spread Latin into areas beyond the ancient Western Roman Empire. Indeed, Latin would reach all the way to China via missionaries. And indeed, the first written treaty between China and a European power (the Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689) was written in Latin (with Chinese, Manchu and Russian translations). So Latin became a global lingua franca during medieval times and would remain so until the 30 years war. After that, the cultural dominance of Louis XIV’s France would cause the French language to become the global lingua franca (and even give its name), a role it would keep until the beginning of the 20th century, when it would be replaced by English. Incidentally, in 19th century America, the educated elites typically learned French (and also Latin and sometimes Greek) as part of their normal curriculum. And arguably, a 19th century educated American’s foreign language skills were considerably better than today. Also, by the beginning of the 20th century, it was clear that the French language was in decline but it was less sure that English would replace it as a global lingua franca. At that time, German was a strong contender, since it (not English) was the primary language of science and technology. English only rose to dominance following Germany’s defeat in WWI.

[@TylPhumin]

6:02 i would find it super cool, if Chinese (and also Japanese) became more "common"/widespread. But there could be a similar compromise that english has, but in the written form. Just use Pinyin (and Romaji) instead of the Hanzi/Kanji(etc). It's already rather common in the respective countries when it comes to tech anyways (like the keyboard uses western letters , so they type the pinyin and it transforms it to the proper hanzi kind of thing)

[@musicalneptunian]

Interesting that you say that. When I studied Mandarin Chinese at school some senior assignments were allowed to be done in all Pinyin rather than in characters.

[@rb98769]

Pinyin is very insufficient as a full writing system. IMO it's really only good for studying the language and typing. There are countless chinese words that are pronounced the exact same (including tone) and mean wildly different things, and you can only really tell them apart from context or seeing how they're written. Something like that probably works better for Japanese, but they already have their syllabaries for that.

[@kekeke8988]

@@rb98769 It doesn't. Japanese is even far WORSE than Chinese in that regard because 70% of the lexicon is derived from Chinese, it doesn't use tones, and it has further phonetic pronunciation simplification (for instance, kan and kuan > both kan in Japanese ) meaning far more homophones. Two give you an idea, there's over 50 different words pronounced koushou. Sometimes words in the same category even have identical pronunciation, like kagaku could mean science or chemistry, or shiritsu gakkou could mean private or public school.

[@tovarishchfeixiao]

English spelling is just as hard to learn as japanese or chinese writing. So it won't really make any difference. And romanized typing exists because that way you not need to search for the kanjis/hanzis on a thousands of buttons on your keyboard, just like as how you not have a separate key to write english words with one button press.

[@Overcrook65]

If soon a plug in the ear connected to an AI translation service is enough to understand most things fairly accurately, perhaps the lingua franca for most people who can afford it would be computer technology.

[@michaelchen8643]

First metetron I applied it to commend you on your language skill in ability. Your English is impeccable I love listening to hear you speak. A bit about myself. I have parents here in the United States no longer here with us one spoke Cantonese, the other spoke only American English, and was of European Ashkenazy Jewish descent. My mother, she herself had a very weak personal connection to French, Canadian and Yiddish. Although neither parent spoke German, I had a real strong exposure to standard German and Yiddish around my childhood, growing up with some of the adults my parents associated with which speaking in front of me. My father of my aunt and uncle would speak Cantonese in front of me, but would not teach it to me. I could not teach it to me emotionally. My aunt arrange for another family friend. My aunt arrange for a family friend to try to teach me Mandarin and she successfully did the very low level. I can handle Mandarin a lot easier than Cantonese. Here in the United States, I live in English language bubble, so where do another language would require me extensive online study or moving to another country. Surprisingly enough, some of the films that were broadcast on television in the 1960s were Italian language films and I found Italian easy to follow and repeat back from what I was here on the television. That is not the case for Spanish and French as the phototactics for harder pick up. Surprisingly standard German was easy to listen to and pick up the words and repeat back just by hearing and the same with the yiddish. I could see if it wasn’t for the child with exposure to Mandarin. It would be very difficult for me. Learn now it’s extremely familiar, and even the writing, the characters of familiar and friendly. The Scripps that is the Gothic script of German I find to be what I would call an eye chart. It is a strange for me to read and recognize quite unpleasant. The Dutch language in the sounds produce fort, although I have a recognize a few words in here and there and find unpleasant and Hard to follow. Now why am I going to all the trouble to tell you about what I like and dislike about Howell Anglic sounds and whether or not can I follow along hearing the word and then pronouncing it back? The Mandarin Chinese language will never, and I repeat, never culturally appealed to as a second language L2 to other people world, because the writing system is not a literary phonetic language. It is a pictograph. And the sounds are not easily picked up and repeat it back my most people. It would be easier for most people to learn Mandarin and Cantonese. This is because the sounds in mandarin are fewer as a total language in Cantonese, and are in my opinion, more audibly, pleasant to hear. I hope that you actually read these comments and don’t just lost over them. Here is comments on KZbin.

[@michaelchen8643]

Password to me by English speakers from South Africa, who lived under the Afrikaans dominant government before 1994 in South Africa They were forcibly required to learn the Afrikaans language Almost all these English speaking, South Africans dislike the Afrikaans language with a passion They refused to speak it Several of them say the sound of the Dutch like language, they fight this tasteful Not my feelings, but there’s So, with the language sounds in unPleasant imposed on a people it will be rejected in a long-term

[@michaelchen8643]

The Romance languages that were exported because of an army. The navy were talking Spanish French, and Portuguese are generally loved as an L2 language by the people who adopted them in other parts of the world. I am married to a woman who speaks Spanish. My daughter also speaks Spanish, and she also speaks fluent French because she loves the French language.

[@michaelchen8643]

I personally tall south Americans from Brazil and Argentina of German dissent, who prefer to speak Portuguese and Spanish above German, and, of course speak fluent English They study German, and some of their family never speak German, but they themselves just refuse to adopted or embrace the German language I even got to meet Brazilians or just send an American immigrants from the Civil War speaker form of American English fluently. It’s quite cute.

[@michaelchen8643]

In 1995 a toured of Italy for the first time with my now wife We were visiting my wife’s cousins in Milan And walking around the streets of Milan and Rome I was struck by the number of people who had very little English language skills So yes, if you were born in 1982 this was a little more than a decade. After that experience a low level of English skill I’m just the people I would meet running into Italy. This was especially true, what I was taking a train from Milan to Rome

[@matteo-ciaramitaro]

I think spanish has a higher chance to become this than Mandarin. The problem with Mandarin in the modern era is that there are no closely related languages outside of the country where mandarin is spoken, so it is difficult to learn and only spoken in a single country. Mandarin was historically a lingua franca in east asia, so many chinese words end up in the other languages, providing a nongenetic relationship, but outside of that region, it is more difficult. I think Spanish on the other hand is only lacking one component, and that is to have latin american countries rise up the way china has as an economic powerhouse. If this were to occur, it would quickly become a language learned for business reasons, especially when americans commonly learn spanish as a second language anyway (even though most of us are terrible at it)

[@dennis771]

Brazil don’t speak Spanish and you take away Brazil latin America GDP is less than Japan.

[@vulkanofnocturne]

The people the Romans conquered were Celts so I'm not sure how much effect Latin would have on the English language. The Anglo Saxons came much later. The Romance influence would come mostly from the Catholic church and Norman conquest IMO.

[@frasenp8411]

I think Spanish would be more likely since it is spoken in many countries and is similar to many languages (including English vocabulary-wise) as well as already being learned by many world wide in schools and somewhat very actively used online and having some part in pop culture 👀

[@MonographicSingleheaded]

am sorry bro but there are two languages simply incompatible with me on a mental level. Spanish and German. lol

[@frasenp8411]

@@MonographicSingleheaded 😂 so which are compatible with you? 👀

[@belstar1128]

Yea but i noticed that Spanish speaking countries have similar issues as America right now

[@aatuhussa2652]

It also seems that in some situations Spanish has already taken over the role of a lingua franca. I'm a Finnish-speaker myself and just the other day ran into a bunch of Americans and even though I speak pretty ok English, it turned out that the communication was smoother in Spanish. Usually I of course try to speak to people in their native language if I can. Regardless, I've found myself using Spanish with Americans, Brits, French, Arabs, Chinese and a whole bunch of other nationalities. As these interactions become more common, more and more people will start learning Spanish, which in turn creates a positive feedback loop and in my opinion gives Spanish a very real chance of becoming the dominant global language in a near future.

[@xaverlustig3581]

Might be a bit US centric view. Over there almost all your close neighbours except Canada speak Spanish or Portuguese. But there are very few Spanish speaking countries outside of the Americas. Even in Europe where Spanish originates, there is but one country that speaks Spanish, it's on the fringe and its cultural impact on the rest of the continent is limited. (no offence Spain)

[@euripidesrovespeare5569]

Woudn't an important measure of the dificulty of a language be how many hours of study does it take to a native to be fluent on it? Perhaps the amounth of school hours dedicated before starting college? My preconception is that the oral part of the languages are similarly dificult but the writen parts are substantialy different (btw sorry for my poor english)

[@otherworlder]

i think democracy plays a big part. take Cantonese for example it was planted in the soil of democracy in British Controlled Hong Kong and the movie and music industry flourished from the late 70s onwards.

[@gregcampwriter]

Its writing system and pitch accents are strikes against universal usage, but China does have the hard and soft power to make Mandarin necessary in the developing new cold war.

[@Magnulus76]

Chinese isn't the only tonal language. You can find tonal languages all around the world, they just aren't typically found in Europe.

[@gregcampwriter]

@@Magnulus76 Where did I say that Chinese is the only tonal language?

[@kekeke8988]

@@Magnulus76 Is there even a single tonal language in Europe? There are a lot in Africa, Asia, and formerly America.

[@Magnulus76]

@@kekeke8988 Some Scandinavian languages like Swedish have tones (two), though the tones are relatively simple compared to Chinese or Vietnamese.

[@frida507]

Let's make Swedish the new lingua franca. I's so much fun to hear people slaughtering IKEA product names! 🤣

[@animeXcaso]

valhalleluja

[@musicalneptunian]

The new Swedish dialect will be called BJORN after Benny and Borg 🤣

[@thorthewolf8801]

No, I cant see that happening. For starters, its too difficult. China has no soft power to extend its culture abroad. Not to mention that most of its neighbours dont get along with it well, so even if you believe that the asian area will rise in importance, the players there will prefer either english or some other language just to deny chinese. Also worth a mention in my opinion that we already are too invested in english. The keyboard layout hasnt changed in countless years because so many fast writers already invested their time in it, that it just didnt make sense to change it. I think a similar case can apply, so many people learnt english because its the lingua franca, there would be resistance to learning another one.

[@hayabusa1329]

This. There is no reason to change the lingua franca just because another country is becoming more powerful, language has nothing to do with a country's power

[@ashleybennett4418]

Nope. Too hard to learn.

[@ashleybennett4418]

China has very little cultural influence

[@zahleer]

@@ashleybennett4418 This. People don't really get how this works. We're praising for a new global language when we have to think how it's going to happen and IF it's happening ALREADY. Mandarin has no opportunity here. I'd bet for Spanish moreso than Chinese. It's the easiest after English (grammar wise) and pronunciation wise it's much easier than English.

[@JeanMarieDuchesne]

​@@ashleybennett4418I mean they are effectively colonising the world as the British did. Except they do it by settlement via migration instead of conquest. So given enough time, it's not an impossibility.

[@EchoLog]

I see a Desert Punk, Firefly, The 100 style kind of future "common" tongue being born of all the lingua francas. English creoles have proven popular and easy. Not from the top down, by policy, but from the bottom up, through creativity. Trust in governing bodies is waning world wide, while drive to have a hand on the reigns of the future is rising.

[@phralvim]

It is not a great obstacle I am from Brazil and I know many people who learned chinese for business and some others to work in China.

[@keiotyk1951]

The most likely situation for Chinese is for it to gain cultural relevance similar to Japanese. It's just not as functionally simple as English is, and so cannot replace English. Characters are just not convenient. You need conversion algorithms on computing devices; searching dictionaries for characters is often a rather tedious process; pronunciation is not clearly linked to the character. English isn't perfect, but mispronunciation doesn't automatically prevent communication, spelling is close enough to pronunciation that you can reference a dictionary most of the time, and use on electronic devices is relatively simple. Having lived in Japan for about 12 years now, characters can be useful and interesting, but that doesn't stop them being flat out problematic at times. Not to mention, English native speakers stop learning spelling in a directed fashion usually by the end of primary school. Japanese speakers are still learning to read and write their own language when they finish school at 18... There's something to be said for economy when learning to read and write your native language. So, while there's a strong cultural reason to learn Japanese, it won't replace English. And I think the same applies to Chinese. So long as Chinese culture starts following on from Japanese and Korean culture in the production of animation, comics and television, etc, there'll be a strong interest in learning Chinese as an L2 or L3.

[@outerlast]

before english, it was dutch that played the role of international language. i remember i was surprised when finding old document in japan written in dutch. then the guide told us that dutch was also found in islamic empires and in malay archipelago. it was because of giant trading corporation or something, and it was larger than the british one. so transferring from dutch to english might be much easier in those areas than having to learn new system of language like mandarin etc

[@amj.composer]

7:01 brother I think you meant "garners", garnish means to put garnishings or seasonings on your food. Good video!!!!!!

[@kilanspeaks]

To this day, I still struggle with English’s chaotic spelling and pronunciation, now you want me to learn a tonal language? 😭 If we’re to have a new language, please let it be a phonetic language without tones, grammatical genders, tenses, etc.

[@mariusamber3237]

Indonesian is the closest to your description. It has no tenses, gender, tones, complex conjugations, and is phonetic for the most part, with a few minor quirks here and there. However, it will not become a lingua franca; maybe in South-East Asia, and in a looong time (Mandarin is more likely to take that role though).

[@kilanspeaks]

@@mariusamber3237 hahah I’m Indonesian but I don’t see our national language being the lingua franca of Southeast Asia, English is enough for now. If you know anything about how native Southeast Asians see China and ethnic Chinese in general, you would know that it’s not likely that Mandarin is going to be the lingua Franca of the region.

[@LuDa-lf1xd]

Spanish is the more easy on the phonetics side i think, and Japanese maybe.

[@kilanspeaks]

@@LuDa-lf1xd I’m learning Spanish at the moment, and while it’s true that the spelling is relatively easy as it is similar to Indonesian, the grammatical ganders and the tons of conjugations make me question my life decisions 😂

[@CZpersi]

You mean like Czech? Our language is a phonetic language, but also one of the hardest ones in the world.🤣

[@dantemeriere5890]

One point you didn't mention is technology, and it's a particularly potent one. Kanji/Hanzi are simply inferior when it comes to computers. The obvious part is that having over 2 thousand characters to express basic ideas is a problem not just when it comes to designing input devices but also when using them, making the process needlessly harder without any benefit. One of the main ways to input Kanji characters is to learn the roman alphabet and just type it in romanji, the other main way is to find characters based on number of strokes. That's part of the reason why even to this day the Japanese still struggle to incorporate computers into their society, something a lot of people are unaware of. The less obvious part is that for the better or worse the core of computer science is effectively in English, everything else is a translation layer. That's why programmers write code in English, be they Chinese or not. This means that for any of these pictographic languages to become a true lingua franca technology itself will need to not just change but be reinvented from pretty much scratch. It's easier to imagine Chinese merging with English, at least in the next several decades. If we look at the past, Chinese was a kind of lingua franca, where thanks to hanzi people could communicate through text. Different languages pronounced the symbols differently but the idea was still understood(still aplies today). I read somewhere they would exchange important letters using hanzi, mainly between Korea and Japan. That means that while Chinese "kind" of achieved the status of lingua franca in the past, even then people still didn't SPEAK it as a lingua franca. At the end of the day, even when it could've been adopted it still wasn't. If it were to be a lingua franca today, I'd imagine similar would happen where only some aspects of it, probably hanzi, become standardized.

[@Jay_in_Japan]

What are you talking about? Classical Chinese was very much the lingua franca of the Sinosphere. And LMAO, "the Japanese still struggle to incorporate computers into their society" 🤣 You've never been here evidently

[@francegamble1]

Chinese exported their hanzi into many countries. It is how Japanese received an official written language, and Korean adapted the symbols as well. Also, we use a pinyin keyboard on our phones, and there is also the writing keyboard. Mandarin keyboards aren't too difficult to use. I write to friends on discord with it all of the time. 再见👋

[@dantemeriere5890]

@@Jay_in_Japan "What am I talking about"? I'm talking about the repeated surveys the Japanese government has conducted over the years to conclude japanese society is largely computer illiterate, including the younger generation:「私たちは1995年から5年おきに2015年まで、全国の13～69歳（95年のみ13～59歳）の男女を対象に情報行動の大規模調査を続けてきた。 I'm talking about the fact the japanese need specialized training to use computers: 「パソコンの苦手な若者でも（企業などで）少しトレーニングをすれば技能はすぐに獲得できるだろう。 I'm talking about this: 「中学校などの情報教育ではパソコンの代わりにタブレット端末を導入しているところも多く、タイピングなどの技能が十分に身についていないケースがある。 I'm talking about this: 「東大生に限ればみなパソコンを問題なく使いこなしているが、非常勤で教えに行っている別の大学などの様子を見ると、自分のパソコンを持っているという学生は非常に少ない。 I'm talking about the fact that even today, in 2023, the number of households that own computers in Japan is 69%, which is well below the usual for other similar coutries, such as the US at 95% and UK at 93%. I'm talking about the fact that even amongst the households that do own computers, the computer is not being used. I'm talking about the fact that in practice, it's around one third of the population that can actually use a computer effectively. I'm talking about the fact Japan is still largely a rural society that prefers pen and paper, mainly in part due to the requirements of raw memorization in schools. What about you, what are you talking about?

[@kekeke8988]

Japanese keyboards have kana on the keys. I don't think it's a factor at all. You hit space bar after typing and choose the appropriate kanji from a list of homophones. Easy peasy. If anything, computers make kanji more viable than ever before since you don't even need to know how to write it by hand and it's super easy to look up the meaning of characters now if you come across a character you don't know.

[@paulwalther5237]

I hadn’t heard that Japanese people struggled with computers so much. I think typing Japanese is pretty easy considering. Is it because they have to type on a romaji keyboard?

[@MaxMilanoPix]

Another reason English has been popular, appart from its relatively simple sintax, is how forgiving native English speakers are with different accents and poor English spoken by new learners. Not the case with French and High German.

[@peterlacerda3398]

Too late. Timing is everything. Battle is over.

[@CZpersi]

Considering the hostile attitude of China to foreigners, difficulty of the language, systematic extermination of the Chinese traditional culture by the CCP (cultural revolution etc.), limits on free speech and thought, I am going to argue that the odds are against the Chinese language becoming a lingua franca. China lacks the "soft power", which allowed English to spread after the WWII. And third-world nations in Africa and Asia are starting to realize that Chinese neo-collonialism is no better than the European one. Nobody likes to play with bullies.

[@KAYZO.IV-VII-MMII]

I see Mandarin as a potential Lingua Franca exclusively to East Asia (except for Japan and Korea and maybe Philippines) since some parts of ASEAN countries have adopted Mandarin, at least to have influence, for both education and communication in daily life like Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. However, It's not going to be anytime soon for Mandarin to replace English since English is the language used for Science and Mathematics which play a major role in research and studies, and above all, the way how the universe works. Also, Mandarin has little to no influence over western education and, in my opinion, it's pretty effing hard to learn if your native language has no Mandarin influence in it. Sorry for my bad english and please don't hesitate to correct me if I'm wrong.

[@kilanspeaks]

Regarding the three Southeast Asian countries that you mentioned, Mandarin Chinese is only widely spoken in Singapore. It’s somewhat true in Malaysia, but only Chinese Malaysians speak it (but not all of them do). It’s incorrect when it comes to Indonesia, where most Chinese Indonesians (who only comprises a tiny fraction of the entire population) don’t even speak it.

[@KAYZO.IV-VII-MMII]

@@kilanspeaks i see, thanks for the info dude... I thought it is somewhat true on Indonesia since... I have Indonesian friends that speak Mandarin...

[@kilanspeaks]

@@KAYZO.IV-VII-MMII your friend is an exception to the rule, good for them for knowing a foreign language. There must be Mandarin speakers in every country, but it’s a question whether it’s common or not. Please don’t come to Indonesia and expect locals to speak it 😁 But yes, you can easily find Mandarin speakers in Singapore and Malaysia.

[@WineSippingCowboy]

Not The Philippines 🇵🇭. I was there last year, 2022. The national language is Tagalog. The lingua franca there is American English and will stay that way for decades! It is useful because British Commonwealth 🇬🇧 nations India 🇮🇳, Bangladesh 🇧🇩, Myanmar 🇲🇲, Malaysia 🇲🇾, Brunei 🇧🇳, Singapore 🇸🇬, Australia 🇦🇺 and New Zealand 🇳🇿 have English as an official language. They communicate with Filipinos in English.

[@tdoran616]

English is far more likely to become the Lingua Anglica of Asia. Lingua Franca is the outdated way of saying it btw

[@gabrielmonte4670]

Would you be able to mention here where you picked this information from? I'm trying to write an article about it and it's been an arduos job to find trustworthy sources of study

[@c0mpu73rguy]

With enough time I can see that happening eventually, but not right now and maybe not even in our lifetime.

[@cnervip]

based on the L1+L2 number of people if some language would replace english would be, mandarin, hindu or spanish but on the writing system alone it would be spanish IMO, just because if you know english is easier to learn spanish and probably uses the same writing system that you are already use( i'm purposely omitting romanization just because the "cultural baggage" that a writing system has respecting that said language, and early childhood learning methods). for me a native spanish speaker with an above average english level for my country(let's say not so terrible bad, or less) and the differences in phonetics, rules and exceptions between both languages an english word that I don't know and isn't a cognate I can know how to write it when hearing or know how to say it when reading just because the writing system is engraved in my brain from my formative years

[@SergioLeonardoCornejo]

I hear so many people saying that since the 90s but all signs indicate it's not practical.

[@musicalneptunian]

There was a chance in the 90s. Chinese language was cool. The policy in western countries was to make Mandarin Chinese the main foreign language taught, even ahead of things like Japanese. But China as a country blew it; look at how people like SerpentZA are treated on his channel. China doesn't want to know you unless you are a useful idiot for their CCP propaganda.

[@keithkannenberg7414]

Rather than give my opinion on the question I'll raise a related question. Has China's Belt and Road Initiative spurred significant growth in the numbers of Chinese L2 speakers around the world? With this program China has invested around the world in an attempt to increase the countries political, economic and diplomatic influence around the world, which correlates with the factors mentioned in the video. Language would seem to follow. If there hasn't been much growth as a result it might suggest either the language is too objectively difficult but maybe just that there hasn't been sufficient time for the influence to take hold. I don't know the answer to my question. Wondering if anyone here does.

[@jankris4138]

Language dominates when the culture of a specific country dominates...

[@ShadowBlitz776]

Pretty much

[@bruce1998168]

Chinese grammar is very simple, but writing may be difficult for foreigners, just like drawing all the time. If foreigners want to learn Chinese, they should learn grammar first.

[@PattyBG1103]

Metatron, interesting but I think of Roberto Benigni taking his Chinese exam in Il mostro

[@WolfyLex-jj2ll]

Ironic, after the end of this video a Temu ad popped up 😅 Talk about Chinese influence 😂

[@greendsnow]

Have you ever watched a Chinese show on TV? Big Bang China? How I Met You Chinese Mother? Game of Chinas? No? Ok then, Chinese won't replace English.

[@zachchen9564]

I’m a native Mandarin speaker, to be honest, I don’t really care. And I can speak English, one of the easiest languages in the world (Mandarin also)

[@joshhiebert5474]

China is far too xenophobic to exert the kind of cultural and economic influence to become a common language and that's only becoming more prevalent with their current geopolitical behavior. Japan will continue to exert cultural influence but with how much the west is pushing for dubbing of anime now, I could see that diminishing from that angle, plus their continuing population decline could see a drastic decrease in the economic and cultural output of their nation. It's hard to say if they will be able to maintain a global cultural appeal in the future. Also they seem to really like to use loaner English words in Japan so who knows how that will affect the future of the Japanese language.

[@stariyczedun]

Worse than xenophobia and insularity of the Chinese and their culture is the fact that their cultural output is greatly stifled by censorship in the mainland China. I tried to find something of my liking to watch or read from China and it's all very sterile and boring. Japanese or American culture wins big time here.

[@yadediuburekyolu8481]

@@stariyczedun I think it’s far more likely that you simply don’t know what to look for. Can you speak and understand Chinese to begin with?

[@stariyczedun]

@@yadediuburekyolu8481 I don't know Mandarin apart from numerals and some phrases, my family is from a town on Chinese border. I was thinking about learning it but to sustain the commitment I need some killer printed or media content to keep me hooked in. I tried to find something but to no avail. I love good non-fiction history or science books or some avant-garde weird stuff. It feels like somehow my tastes are exactly what is prohibited by Chinese censorship. Albert Camus in French, Leonid Andreyev in Russian or some really weird Japanese manga and anime.

[@stariyczedun]

​@@yadediuburekyolu8481 btw I grew with mainland Chinese TV channels and the stuff they aired was really boring. It had Soviet / North Korean vibes and there were a lot of commercials. It was in 90s and early 2000s but I'm not sure how much it changed since then.

[@yadediuburekyolu8481]

@@stariyczedun If you would learn Chinese just for the sake of enjoying Chinese media, then I agree that it probably isn't worth the effort, especially if your current proficiency is very low (meaning you aren't fluent and cannot read or write/type). If you don’t already have some foundation, then it will be a really long time after starting to learn Chinese before you can read anything comfortably in Chinese beyond grade-school children’s books-Chinese is notorious for being difficult to learn for beginners, though it does become very easy beyond the beginner level. I would keep in mind that Chinese media, since China is aware that it is very behind in cultural exportations, is generally designed to cater toward a Chinese audience; this is why non-Chinese speakers and people who don't live in the Chinese mainland will have a harder time navigating through Chinese pop culture. Based on your comments, it sounds like Three Body most closely matches your preferences, though this series is actually relatively famous internationally, so you are probably aware of it already. The author Liu Cixin has some interesting works as well. Other than that, I am really not sure. I myself am not terribly familiar with Chinese media and culture. Link Click is an interesting anime, but again, you have most likely heard of it already. Currently, most Chinese shows are period dramas and Wuxia action shows, and in my opinion, the popular ones are actually pretty good; however, these do not sound like something you would like. If you are interested nevertheless, you can find a lot for free on KZbin, but titles are usually in Chinese, meaning you would have to type in Chinese or know the English name to search for them. If you want, I could give you recommendations.

[@musicalneptunian]

Surely for Mandarin Chinese to take over from English it has to dominate the post internet world; it has to be used in phones, tablets etc. I don't see that happening soon; the Chinese characters would be a strong impediment to any English person doing SMS in characters. But I see a decline in English that is amenable to another language raking over. For instance I've seen English grammar simplify enormously such as "could of" become almost acceptable and common whereas in my day a red pen was put though it. If a language can satisfy that need to simplify while being easy to learn with cultural cut through, then I could see English being replaced. The closest replacement so far has been the emoji; it's cut through where German, Hindi and Mandarin Chinese have not.

[@zahleer]

Spanish is highly likely and not for the reasons you might think. It's already getting simplified thanks to lazy learning coming out from SOME (not all) English speakers in the U.S and native speakers are tapping into American (gringo) society. They're coming in waves and waves and they'll gradually make up for a big chunk of the population. I see Spanish becoming popular in the next years.

[@sluggo206]

@@zahleerI I couldn't believe it when I saw in Spanish "Vidiendo es creyendo" (literal translation of English "Seeing is believing") instead of "Ver es creer" (to see is to believe -- the normal form).

[@frida507]

"Could of" is not acceptable! But I get what you mean. It will be simplified

[@tompeled6193]

Language change isn't simplification. Just because a dialect isn't spoken by the people in charge doesn't mean it's "unintelligent".

[@zahleer]

@@sluggo206 some people say "llámame p'atras" literally "call me (to) back" That's what I call lazy learning, you can't just do that in Spanish at least I who uses lots of borrowed words, wouldn't mix up grammar of my native language that way. Caribbeans do it and they're native in most cases. Guess I'll be a grumpy language grandpa

[@The_Wandering_Nerd]

It would sure be nice if there was some sort of culturally-neutral auxlang everyone in the world could agree on that was easier to learn and less culturally problematic than either English, Russian, Arabic, or Mandarin... something like Esperanto but with less Eurocentrism :)

[@AIha.b0mb.and.h00r.suppIyer.]

Its baseless. In india 30% of population can speak English ( not fluently) most of us didn't even know that Mandarin in China's language. Social media is actually spreading english language We had language war in India. We don't want hindi as national language but most of us support english to connect people of different language.

[@Languagebeta]

I started learning Mandarin, because I love the music, (G.E.M.(鄧紫棋) is the best artist ever) I find the writing system very beautiful, and the grammar is farly simple, this is my second language, because I'm personally very interested by their pop culture, and I don’t like kpop, k dramas, or anime/jpop much, but I love Cpop, and want to know more about Chinese culture

[@Languagebeta]

Though I have this connection to the language and culture, most people like anime or kpop more, so they opt for Japanese or Korean, so I doubt Chinese will ever become a world language

[@BozheTsaryaKhrani]

what about one of the subsaharan languages or hindustani since they are the only countries that are above replacement level chinese is very localized to a dying out country and ethnic communities

[@joannis46678]

With that writing system? Never in a million years.

[@torelly]

Yo Metraton, I believe you made a mistake. Before the Romans, there was no English language or any other Germanic language in the British Isles. Cheers!

[@rodrigovaccari7547]

I think he just didn't word it correctly. I'm positive he understands the anglo-saxon migration.

[@torelly]

sure, i agree@@rodrigovaccari7547

[@GholaTleilaxu]

He did a kefitzat haderech.

[@jefferywilliams4533]

I think the trend for the last 2000 years will continue. It may swing away from English, but it will remain a language based off the Latin alphabet. The simplicity of it, just makes it more readily available.

[@xaverlustig3581]

You can write any language in the Latin alphabet, including Chinese.

[@LuDa-lf1xd]

Not really. English for example have more phonemes than Spanish and even with the same alphabet we have problems with the pronunciation. TRHOUGH I still can't make my mouth pronounce that thing.

[@akl2k7]

​@@LuDa-lf1xdThat's not an English word. Did you mean through? It's pronounced thru if you did.

[@DashieDe]

​@@xaverlustig3581It certainly doesn't contain enough letters for all sounds used in other languages so there will be problems with that

[@xaverlustig3581]

@@DashieDe The Latin alphabet doesn't contain enough letters for most languages, but it's used anyway. For example it has no letters for the sh and th sounds. So English came up with combining two letters to write these. Similarly French added accents, German added umlauts, and Vietnamese added a gazillion markers (I think they're overdoing it).

[@Alan-lv9rw]

This guy is brilliant.

[@Deibi078]

I started to learn Italian just because of you, also what I like about Italian is that unlike portuguese and french Italian doesnt have ugly simbols and points here and there, it doesn't have nasal sounds and it only uses the base latin alphabet and the accent is marked like the stress in Greek lol

[@christopherellis2663]

You lack something

[@Deibi078]

@@christopherellis2663 tell me

[@belstar1128]

It does have accents but not many .i think almost every language has them apart from English Dutch Indonesian Swahili. and some other obscure African and south east Asian languages .

[@tyreesetranh4074]

Italian makes limited use of accent marks, but by doing so it often fails to indicate the stressed syllable in a word, as well as vowel quality (although this last feature can differ according to the speaker). There's no way to tell from the written word where the stress is in "credere," "cadere," "tragedia," "trenodia," or "esercito," for example.

[@Jerald_Fitzjerald]

i don't think a language can be "too well established" to be uprooted; history is rife with dead empires that thought they would last forever and be the peak of civilization, as well as their languages. that being said, i find it hard to imagine that Chinese would be the next lingua franca because at least currently there are too many factors that you mentioned here that aren't really working in its favor. i feel like the most likely aspects are economic and maybe cultural, but China is so isolationist right now politically and culturally that they have a disproportionately small cultural influence on countries outside of China compared to the US. personally i don't find learning to read to be that particularly large of a challenge compared to speaking and listening, although learning to write is a whole different beast. however, the ability to physically write is honestly kinda a dying necessity, and typing in Chinese is no more difficult than typing in English (once you've learned how to do either one ofc). ultimately i think the biggest obstacle to China's progress and cultural impact, and by extension the capability of Mandarin to become a lingua franca, is the CCP. if China wasn't on its own intranet and was rather on the wider internet with most everyone else, i think they would be exporting a LOT more culture just by proxy. the pop music scene is a big cultural export of Korea and Japan, and China has just as much capability to capitalize on such a thing, if only the government didn't prevent the flow of media in and out of the country

[@FrancescoRossi-q4s]

An interesting question. I agree with you on the main points: in the near future, I think English will maintain its lingua franca function, while Chinese will improve its position, but not become the new lingua franca, unless something unpredictable happens. Re the written English language, I think the main English speaking countries should make some effort to simplify the spelling of words like through > thru , night > nite, where there is no conflict of pronunciation. They should also accept most of Noah Webster's simplified spelling solutions like colour > color and choose either -ise or -ize. Of course, this will not be simple, as everyone will defend their own local versions. Re Chinese, although China - the Central Kingdom - will probably become the number 1 country in the near future, as you say the Chinese language has none of the advantages of English outside of China and the nearby countries. I think that Mandarin will almost certainly grow within China, at the expense of the regional languages, and it will be studied by more people in East Asia: Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Mongolia, Thailand, etc. Re Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Hindi-Urdu, Indonesian-Malay, and possibly Swahili in East Africa, I think they will maintain their regional strength in large areas of the world: Latin America, Middle East-North Africa, Indian sub-continent; South East Asia, for example it is said to be an easy language and it is even more so for speakers of a related language like Tagalog in the Philippines.

[@jsoliv]

Chinese folks learn English to conduct international business. Maybe one day mandarin will be the world's lingua franca, but our generation, our kids generation and even our grandkids generation will not see that happening.

[@hayabusa1329]

I think Hindi might take over Mandarin

[@azammohammed9567]

I hope not because their writing system and tonal structures of their language are too complex to master. I was learning Mandarin but I stopped 😐

[@basti6643]

I don't know if it will ever become a Lingua Franca but I do think that some chinese characters are going to become recognizable by many people and taught in school, like idk 禁止 or some more basic ones that would serve as international written communication

[@MarcPagan]

Can't see anything but English remaining as the required language of international pilots, and air traffic controllers that handle international flights, even in China.

[@DaccVideo-c1x]

One thing to keep in mind is that China's population is projected to significantly decrease, maybe even halve over the next 50 years. The demographic decline is a factor the reduces the likelihood that it will become a lingua franca.

[@rorychivers8769]

I'd make a case that it's far more likely that some sort of intermediate auxiliary language like Interlingua would have a chance of displacing English from centre stage, than Chinese. Since we're all effectively connected to each other in an unprecedented way thanks to the internet, and everyone can learn any language they like with very little barrier, I would not be at all surprised if languages that are close together begin strongly influencing each other over time, to the point that 2-300 years later, the differences between them become negligible, in the same way that the many different English dialects melted away, or German dialects made way for Hochdeutsch. Then at some point, people will begin to ask themselves, "what is the Modern Standard Arabic" equivalent of our languages, something neutral that everyone can understand, even if not speak at home. This could conceivably happen in different regions of the world at the same time, different broadly similar language groups blending together, or electing a prestige dialect, to the point where the need for a global lingua franca doesn't necessarily make as much sense, because a smaller set of regional languages become much more attractive to learn. Of course most people hate this idea, because it assumes that many languages and dialects will simply disappear from existence. But, I mean, well, English has disappeared from existence several times, and English is yet still here.

[@tovarishchfeixiao]

"interlingua". Good joke. Conlangs has no chance to be in that position. Because there is no economical, cultural, political power behind it.

[@rorychivers8769]

@@tovarishchfeixiao Talk to me in my peasant backwater inselaffe language some more, I love it when you lower yourself to my level

[@mnk9073]

Short answer: No. Long answer: Basic English is so easy to learn that you can teach it to a reasonably intelligent monkey with enough dedication. It's intricacies are actively dying out due to mostly Americans not knowing/using them anyway, looking at you irregular verbs. Not to mention it is written with the alphabeth rather than a plethora of signs.

[@sluggo206]

English's intricacies aren't dying out.

[@belstar1128]

English is not very easy you are probably dutch or Norwegian if you think that.

[@mnk9073]

@@belstar1128 It has no gendered verbs, one article, you become intelligible by using only three tenses and thanks to cultural imperialism and the internet you can use it on a daily basis; whether you like it or not.

[@musicalneptunian]

@@sluggo206 They are. The subjunctive used to be far more common even 100 years ago and it was hard to learn.

[@tompeled6193]

​@@mnk9073Russian has no articles.

[@jackdeniston59]

Nope. Its the network effect. Chinese is in China. English is in........everywhere else

[@Oera-B]

R.: No. I'll make sure of that.

[@caleb7475]

Given they will soon have a rapidly decreasing population I don't see this as possible. I speak mandarin really well and only use it for fun at the Chinese grocery store. Like no opportunities at all with it.

[@trayamolesh588]

As someone who has learned mandarin to a relatively high and literate level, as well as some Japanese for fun - the arguments about the difficulty of a language for foreigners to learn are almost entirely moot when it comes to the actual argument being presented. For instance, mandarin syntax is entirely isolating - this aspect of the language is laughably simplistic compared to say more fusional languages like Russian. There, I just made a random argument in favor of Mandarin being fit to be a lingua franca. To the point: the raw linguistic difficulty of a given language is irrelevant compared to the socioeconomic forces that set the stage for a language to be acquired by subsequent generations. The 'language' or culture doesn't care whether adults can learn a language as a foreign language - if there is enough opportunity/prestige then children will naturally acquire the language from a very early age via bilingual schools, cram schools (like english in east asia), parents finding opportunities for them to learn it (foreign exchange programs, vacation study programs, entertainment options, etc). Once the economic and cultural forces have enough inertia behind them, it is the KIDS who will be doing the real bulk of the language acquisition and the adults mostly serve as chaperones to get the kids to the language or vice versa.

[@stevens1041]

Will never happen. Mongolia conquered the biggest land empire in history, and very few people speak Mongolian. I can speak some Chinese and took the classes as a kid--in China, English is valued. They have pinyin (roman letters) for dealing with the international community, for example, for aviation or business. Plus, there is the issue of ASEAN not wanting to be a colony of any East Asian country--not Japan, not China.

[@donnarenzetti5426]

I sure hope not for all the reasons you mentioned!

[@Lvestfold4143]

French would have a better chance at reclaiming the lingua franca title than Mandarin ever has a chance at obtaining it. The writing system is too difficult and the country is mostly isolated aside from their colonization of Africa. The Chinese will likely have to pick up French to converse through many of the African countries

[@exploatores]

I think Chiese is a bit to special as a good lingua franca. it´s a huge learning curve for a lot of pepole. the question is if next global lingua franca. don´t have to use the latin alphabet. then at least a large part of the world has that.

[@Kokozaftran]

Not in a hundred years, which by then I'm dead.

[@D4WADE]

Metatrone I would like to emphasise that English is one of the easiest languages to learn( no cases and gendered words)

[@zahleer]

No tones, no palatal consonants, no characters, one and only writting system, no click consonants, no weird conjugations, no weird nasal sounds, no glutinative words, tons of germanic/romance vocabulary, tons of consistency rules, TONS of content to learn it from... I really don't know what else to say it really is an easy language to learn but as every language it gets really tricky to master.

[@belstar1128]

No its not very easy if you are not from europe.

[@D4WADE]

I said “the easiest” to learn, and not “very easy”. If you have an example of a easier language to learn I would like to know.

[@kekeke8988]

@@zahleer It has palatal consonants. What do you think ch/sh/ j /y is?

[@zahleer]

@@kekeke8988 of course it does. I bet there are just a few languages with no /j/ sounds. Those are easy because are common to a lot of languages. I'm hispanic and we have no "sh" sound and yet it's not a big deal for me to pronounce it. However palatalized consonants in Russian are a nightmare because they're a lot not just a few like in English.

[@IanBoakes]

The economic influence of China would be countered by the combined financial power of at least eight of the other countries in the top ten for GDP. If given a choice between voting for English or for Mandarin to use as a business language, the USA, Germany, India, the UK, France, Brazil, Italy and Canada would all actively prefer English. I don't know which language the Japanese would opt for but they are the only other major country in question. That, along with geographical and cultural considerations, lead me to think that English will remain in the top position for at least most of this century.

[@RedactedBrainwaves]

I find it hard for chinese mandarin to become lingua franca. They already adopted english as their own international language and there isn't a lot of cultural exchange to be had with the chinese for now since China is still a very isolated country.

[@IIARROWS]

Culture has never been a reason for a language to reach a status of lingua franca. We have 0 cases for that so far, power has always been the case. In the past I thought Chinese was the next language to study, in my lifetime I expected to see the shift. But now I don't think it's the case, one reason being the structure of UN, with the 5 permanent members thing which is outdated and wrong, and won't change unless a war destroys NATO. Another is globalization, diffusion of internet. I also think that, not in my lifetime but a few centuries, we'll get to a universal natural language, for how languages are already constantly melding, accelerating the process.

[@1stBroly]

Yes. The roman philosophy and literature and culture in general has been culturally colonized by greek culture especially after conquering greece

[@ThunderKristof66]

Let's bring back Latin as Lingua Franca! Roma Invita! Roma Aeterna! Roma Caput Mundi!

[@musicalneptunian]

But what did the Romans do for us?

[@jackmellor5536]

Mandarin is spoken in Taiwan and Singapore aswell as China

[@glaucofavot9904]

First of all, thank you for your hard work. Looking at today's world situation with migrants from Latin America moving to different countries worldwide, a possible future "lingua Franca" could be Spanish. Why Spanish? The influence of Latin American culture in the United States movies and music industries and being a language that could be easier than Korean, another country that has recently had a lot of influence in pop culture, make Spanish learning appealing. Several Chinese and Japanese teachers were interested in learning Spanish to broaden their market. In my opinion, all these could be factors that could boost the importance of this language in the future.

[@jamescorbett5729]

No because reading Chinese is a huge hurdle. Even if I cannot pronounce English perfectly, I can have a go at reading it.

[@its_dey_mate]

This was a valid question a dcade ago, no it won't. It is too difficult for the entire world outside of East and South-East Asia. The Soviet policy won't change being very closed off and we just found out just how much the PRC is pumping out the population numbers.

[@dt1458]

from my experience in East Asia, I doubt it. Good luck convincing Korea to adopt Chinese en-mass.

[@Pdor_figlio_di_Kmer]

Considered the difficulty of both spoken and written parts of the Chinese language, and with no offence meant to China nor Chinese people, I think it's easier that ITALIAN may become lingua franca in a whatever future rather than Chinese. Seriously, I think that it's the Chinese people that will have to accept the need to adopt a lingua franca that is already in use or that it will become such in future. Theirs is just too bloody complex, MUCH more than Japanese, and Japanese already doesn't fuck around as complexity goes. Inside their national borders then Mandarin for everyone, and oranges too (this is a joke that only an Italian will get) for those who want them, no one is going to ask them to change their way of life (their government considered, most likely it could be THEM asking such to US), but outside? Chinese Mandarin as a lingua franca? I just don't think so.

[@spaghettiking7312]

French has a better chance, honestly.

[@MaxMilanoPix]

English wasn't spoken in Britain when the Romans arrived. It came after the Romans left with the Saxons and other Germanic tribes when it became Old English, a pure Germanic language. Only after the Norman invasion and the introduction of Norman French for over 300 years do we see Middle English being adopted. French and Latin were used in law and untill the 1700s.

[@marlowefardell7871]

I'm a native English speaker learning Mandarin. I think its difficulty seriously hinders it (I'm loving it partly because it is so hard, and I enjoy the semantic/conceptual intricacy of the writing system), but I want to point out, contra some commenters, that it's actually really easy for a Mandarin speaker to type. Using a pinyin keyboard, you don't need to press as many keys to enter a given word, and the grammar means you have fewer prepositions, articles, conjugations (zero), etc. to type. Like in most places, people no longer need to handwrite much. I think the biggest factor in Mandarin's spread or lack thereof is Chinese politics. For one thing, they have a huge effect on its cultural exports. Although I enjoy many Chinese cultural products, as several Chinese people have told me, China's current political system stifles creativity (e.g., Xi coming down on boy bands recently, censorship and self-censorship of film and TV) and therefore its production of works that appeal to outsiders. In addition, although China is certainly revanchist, it has never been as expansionist as English-speaking cultures. Its political leaders' main goal is to maintain control within (what they consider) its own borders. Its international and trade policy is all about that. It doesn't need to dominate the world to achieve that, so I doubt it will try to become the world police, however ruthless it otherwise may be. (Side note: I'm no communist-party stan, but I wonder if a free-market, democratic China could be more expansionist, starting foreign wars because its profit-hungry corporations wanted greater access and had its elected officials in their pockets.)

[@magyarbondi]

I understand what you're saying, but disagree with your insights on China's trade policy and economy. It's very expansionist. But I don't want to go into politics, just look at the situation of battery manufacturing.

[@marlowefardell7871]

By expansionism I meant expanding territorial or political domination. China's international trade and industrial policy is certainly robust. But the CCP opened up China's economy expressly to benefit its own society, just a different means to the same supposed goal of socialist progress, not to find new markets for private companies. My point is that even ruthlessly cornering key markets isn't aimed at dominating the world. It's all to maintain the domestic economic growth that provides its leaders' main claim to domestic legitimacy. And they are quite content to block any trade overnight if it threatens domestic social stability at home. The approach is ultimately inward-looking.

[@CZpersi]

I agree with you on many points, but... China is not expansionist? I think Phillipines, Vietnam and many other countries would dare to disagree. China is an imperialist state, very much similar to collonial powers of the 19th century.

[@Magnulus76]

@@CZpersi Vietnam doesn't fit in with imperialism in the western sense, since at one time Vietnam was part of China and was always part of the Sinosphere culturally, even when it achieved independence. It's sort of analogous to how France or England were influenced by Rome.

[@marlowefardell7871]

@@CZpersi From the reference to the Philippines and Vietnam, do you mean the South China Sea dispute? I definitely agree that China is aggressive and unjustified there, but I'd file that one under revanchism, like Alsace-Lorraine. I think 19th-century-level colonialism would require Chinese gunboats in those countries' actual ports and forced concessions of land. But maybe you mean something I haven't read about?

[@VitorEmanuelOliver]

I think chinese will grow a little bit in importance. But not much, considering their economical zenith has already been reached, and from now on they're only going down. The USA may decline demographically and economically, but India is growing by the day, and they speak english. Part of the arab world is also growing in importance, and seeing how many immigrants from this part of the world are spread in europe and the Americas, maybe we should pay more attention to it.

[@shaifunnessa7816]

Indian Chola dynasty history please make video

[@tomhalla426]

A problem with Mandarin is that it is tonal, and as someone who knows English and fairly bad Spanish, I cannot hear the tones. There are some sounds in Spanish I know I cannot do right, like the v in Havana, but Chinese is an order of magnitude worse.

[@tompeled6193]

Practice makes perfect. Also: Spanish "b" and "v" are pronounced exactly the same.

[@marczhu7473]

Lingua franca charge only when there major breakthrough in science/hegemony as they keep the innovation behind that language barriers in history (from Latin to French then German then English) 😅

[@Ukitsu2]

Last thing I read about the next Lingua Franca was that sub-saharan African population was groing so much faster than the resto fo the world that French was going to be, once again, the Lingua Franca of the world. I like the language and I'm slowly learning French, but I thought it was too good to be true... that it was a group of way too patriotic French people who exaggerated some math and... no... it happends that the research (there's two actually) and the paper are from Harvard, the MIT, the Finantial Times, Oxford, etc. Not the most French of institutions. Can't find them right now (one was pay-walled). But if we are going towards a language multipolar world, all the better. Languages are beautiful and great for brain health and mutual human understanding.