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Russian is past, Chinese is future? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| andee Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6871 days ago 681 posts - 724 votes  3 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Korean, French | Message 49 of 150 12 February 2006 at 2:12am | IP Logged | ||
This is not the case here in Western Australia. Sure, a lot of schools tend to offer Italian because of our large Italian population and French and German are minority languages as far as schools are concerned. Whereas virtually every school in this area has Japanese, Indonesian, or Mandarin - sometimes two of the above - and also to a lesser extent Vietnamese. I was lucky enough to study French at primary school, but when it came to high school, my first school had Italian and Japanese and my second school had Japanese, Indonesian, and German. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6737 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 50 of 150 12 February 2006 at 10:36am | IP Logged | ||
1. For an individual, firstly, based on how much he needs the language to make a living in his chosen profession, and secondly, whether he feels he needs the language for the more frequent recreational travel and entertainment to the extent that not knowing the language would have a noticeable impact on his quality of life. 2. For a country, whether it is important to have significant skills in the language among the population in order for the nation to prosper. Edited by frenkeld on 12 February 2006 at 10:44am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cthulhu Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 7017 days ago 139 posts - 235 votes Speaks: French*, English, Mandarin, Russian | Message 51 of 150 12 February 2006 at 12:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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^I've repeatedly indicated that I'm talking about importance in the general sense, not the parochial; not importance *to* an individual person or country, but overall, in an objective sense, the big picture. On a global scale, for a planet instead of an individual or a country, what kind of criterion for judging the importance of a language would you use?
Andee: I didn't realize Australia would be such an extreme exception, though I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Still, that's all it is, an extreme exception, a good start but still just a tiny corner. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6737 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 52 of 150 12 February 2006 at 1:50pm | IP Logged | ||
I consider this an ill-posed question. There is no other world language besides English right now, and until that changes, which it may, all other languages are going to be only regionally important. Perhaps it is very parochial of North America, South America, and Europe to feel little need for the Chinese language right now, but that's the way it is. Australia, by the way, seems to be simply following the pattern found elsewhere of emphasizing regionally relevant languages, aside from English, in their educational system. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cthulhu Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 7017 days ago 139 posts - 235 votes Speaks: French*, English, Mandarin, Russian | Message 53 of 150 12 February 2006 at 2:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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^ I don't feel it's such an ill-posed question. All languages are world languages, English is just foremost among them. There's no reason you can't compare other languages on the same scale by the same factors; they'll all fall far short of English of course, but you can certainly establish their position relative to each other.
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| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6737 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 54 of 150 12 February 2006 at 2:48pm | IP Logged | ||
It is ill-posed in that people in different regions come up with different answers. So, to decide on the "absolute" answer, you have to rate the relative significance of the opinions of people in different regions, a question the answer to which may also end up depending on the region! Even if we simply try to come up with some sort of weighted average, taking into account the size of the economy, population, number of countries where spoken, how many want to study it as a second lanaguage, etc., we can argue indefinitely on what the right weighting of the varios factors is. And then we can get into an argument of whether to use just the present-day figures or account for future potential as well. So, I really feel that it is not well-determined what the second language is right now in any absolute sense. Mind it, I am not saying China as a country is not important, I am only discussing the importance of the Chinese language, at the present moment, outside China itself. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Skandinav Hexaglot Senior Member Denmark Joined 6681 days ago 139 posts - 145 votes Speaks: Danish*, English, German, Russian, Swedish, Norwegian | Message 55 of 150 12 February 2006 at 4:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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I would say that on a global scale English is (becoming) a lingua franca, which is something else than a foreign language (e.g. Japanese)
All other languages are regional languages and within any given context subordinate to English. Even to a Mongolian or a Nepalese English is as important as Chinese Mandarine. In a European context, for example, I would rate Chinese Mandarin after English, German, Russian and French. Probably somewhere on line with Arabic and Japanese. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6737 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 56 of 150 14 February 2006 at 10:23am | IP Logged | ||
The US neighborhood is not as language-rich as Europe, and Spanish is pretty much the only major local/regional foreign languge. This leaves more room for non-European langagues, and the study of Mandarin is in fact growing quite sharply. Even in my not very big city (Tucson, Arizona - with suburbs, the population is about 850,000), there are now a few schools that will teach Mandarin from early grades, and I've read about such schools in North-East. It remains to be seen how popular Mandarin will become. My guess is that if it results in genuine, rather than hypothetical, economic opportunities for individuals, its teaching will increase substantially. Otherwise, European languages (Spanish aside) may remain more popular, aided by the heritage of the US residents. Edited by frenkeld on 15 February 2006 at 8:56pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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