English should be the language of the world

[yankees rule]

Oh yea? We speak french up here in Canada, why don't you blow us up? Come on now, don't be shy. I dare you. Come on now. I'm waiting. :thumb: :tongue:

Come on its a joke. or is it? You don't know maybe the bomb is on it's way now you never know what a man that we'll just call GWB will do because he hates everybody whose country he can't spell, and he has trouble with Chad, you'll just have to wait and find out.


Disclaimer (The views expressed in this post are in no way similar to the views of pokegym, yankees rule, or The United States... Except maybe the deep south.)

 

[Rew]

I vote for Pig Latin... :tongue: :lol: :tongue:
Drew

I with him.

Ia on'tDa eeSa ayWa hatTa eWa ouldCa etGa heTa holeWa orldWa oTa oDa hatTa...

<Rew<a

 

[Matias]

because we ca blow up any country that speaks freanch, spainish, japanies, or russian.
Ya Bombs!!!:lol:

I know, violence is the only way you can find to impose power right? Its so easy to have "da bombz" when you dont let other countries (such as north korea) have them. Im not saying they should, my point is, why do we have them? Is that fair in case some kind of war begins?

I agree on having a "langueage of the world" but why english? For example, Chinese (Mandarin) is currently spoken by 885 million people and Spanish by another 332m. English is on third place with 322m. I guess you chose English simply because its your language. What if we decide to make Chinese the Universal language? Would you agree on that? Less people would have to learn it...
English already is the language of the world in the international affairs, but I think each of us should be proud of our own culture and never let so many awsome languages die just because of globalization.

 

[sceptilerancher]

we should all speak swahili

 

[ryanvergel]

I know, violence is the only way you can find to impose power right? Its so easy to have "da bombz" when you dont let other countries (such as north korea) have them. Im not saying they should, my point is, why do we have them? Is that fair in case some kind of war begins?

I agree on having a "langueage of the world" but why english? For example, Chinese (Mandarin) is currently spoken by 885 million people and Spanish by another 332m. English is on third place with 322m. I guess you chose English simply because its your language. What if we decide to make Chinese the Universal language? Would you agree on that? Less people would have to learn it...
English already is the language of the world in the international affairs, but I think each of us should be proud of our own culture and never let so many awsome languages die just because of globalization.

Um... your stats are SO off they're not even funny.

The US has 295m people. UK has 60m people. That's 355m people. Even if 15million DIDN'T speak english for some strange reason, we're still at 340 million people. I won't even count any other english speaking countries like Australia or Canada.

How many people speak English?

* English has official or special status in at least seventy five countries with a total population of over two billion
* English is spoken as a first language by around 375 million and as a second language by around 375 million speakers in the world*
* speakers of English as a second language probably outnumber those who speak it as a first language
* around 750 million people are believed to speak English as a foreign language
* one out of four of the world's population speak English to some level of competence; demand from the other three-quarters is increasing.

Back to back posts merged. The following information has been added:

English is the internet language, is the language spoken by the RICHEST country, and is one of, if not THE, most popular language choice to be taught in other countries. In 10-20 years, it will be a second language, or first language to probably 1-2 billion. I think English is the obvious choice for the universal language. Mandarin might be spoken by more people, but how many of those people even communicate with the outside world? You have to consider that the US has more people that have the internet/watch television/etc. If we have 250 million that communicate globally, and China only has 200 million that communicate on a global level, English is a more popular language on the global level. Not to mention that millions of people are learning English as their second language already. As long as English speaking countries, and countries that teach themselves English are running the world market, it seems to be a very good choice to make it the universal language.

Let's face it. Money talks. The US is the richest, so we will talk the loudest/most, in the ENGLISH language. If anyone else wants to get money, they'd better speak our language, ENGLISH!

 

[Ky00ber the III]

Chinese, speaking as a chinese myself, isn't easy for people who have not touched it. The characters are derived from pictographs, so you roughly know what it means, but the words and the way they are spoken have compelety no bearing on each other, so you can learn to speak it without learning how to write it. However, words with similar radicals are usually said similarly, but then again 1 word can have up to 3 different pronuciations. the word for "one" can have a different pronuciation depending on the word after it.


Anyways, I'm better with English, so I'm all for it as the language of the world =D

 

[Pablo]

Yeah lets get rid of thousands of years of civilization and culture that have defined the world and the people in it.

 

[pat460]

I vote for Pig Latin... :tongue: :lol: :tongue:
Drew

e-mei o-tei

 

[Marril]

English is the hardest spoken language to learn/master in the world. Chinese (I forget which dialect; probably both) the hardest written.

 

[ryanvergel]

English is the hardest spoken language to learn/master in the world. Chinese (I forget which dialect; probably both) the hardest written.

I'd say that Japanese is the hardest spoken language.

 

[Kempley05]

A universal language is perfectly logical, however why English? I doubt that English is spoken more than Mandarin, or even Hindi, or prehaps if you look at Catholism, Latin. We've already tried Esperanto, and who has bothered to learn that.

Apart from anything how can you even suggest that you should wipe out so much culture and national identity for everyone apart from the few who speak English. Thats so insulting to to like 11/12 people in the world it's not even funny.

 

[Myn_donos]

I know, violence is the only way you can find to impose power right? Its so easy to have "da bombz" when you dont let other countries (such as north korea) have them. Im not saying they should, my point is, why do we have them? Is that fair in case some kind of war begins?

deterrent. if we have "da bombz" and they don't you think they are going to start a war?
be like a Fokker DRI against a F-22 Raptor, one is state of the art, one is a tri-plane from WWI... if you were the Fokker and you were gonna start a war, i dont think you would pick a war with the F-22 Raptor.

having something others do not in warfare is called a deterrent.

And who says war is fair? war is never fair, only in the minds of the weak should war be "fair". (that was not a flame or an insult, just an observation) people who think that way are living in the 1860's, where armies lined up against the other, and fired, taking turns till 1 army was gone, thats foolishness. hit and run is the way to go, the best way to win, is to make sure they can't fire a shot back.

now to get back on topic.

Mandarin would be a good language to learn, 5 years ago or so when my aunt spoke some to me it sounded really intimidating... it doesnt seem so bad anymore, i would be all for it.

 

[survivor]

How could you people say English is hard to learn? I find French and Japanese one of the hardest languages to speak.

 

[ryanvergel]

A universal language is perfectly logical, however why English? I doubt that English is spoken more than Mandarin, or even Hindi, or prehaps if you look at Catholism, Latin. We've already tried Esperanto, and who has bothered to learn that.

Apart from anything how can you even suggest that you should wipe out so much culture and national identity for everyone apart from the few who speak English. Thats so insulting to to like 11/12 people in the world it's not even funny.

Mandarin
Hindi
English
Spanish
Russian

That's the order of most-spoken language.
Now, consider, like I said earlier, which languages are being taught the most? Over 750 million people are learning to speak English. On top of that, which countries literally control the world- both economically and militarily? English speaking nations. English is the money language, and the world runs on money, makes sense for English to be the language.

Why do you have to lose culture because you speak a different language? No one ever said anything about using english exclusively... No one said people couldn't be, I don't know, BILINGUAL. What you're saying is that anyone who is bilingual has lost their culture, which is just stupid.

Introducing a second language does not wipe out a culture.

 

[Lord9511]

LoL, no, no, no and no, for a 2 reasons:
1) I can't TALK English very well.
2) The problems that it'd cause. Most "tribes" or ppl aren't ready to leave their own language.

 

[ryanvergel]

LoL, no, no, no and no, for a 2 reasons:
1) I can't TALK English very well.
2) The problems that it'd cause. Most "tribes" or ppl aren't ready to leave their own language.

You don't have to LEAVE ANY LANGUAGE. Where did anyone suggest that!?
Becoming bilingual does not mean you have to abandon your native tongue!

 

[Archonn]

To me, an universal language needs to be rich. One example i can remember is about the word "Saudade", a Portuguese word. It roughly means "the 'i miss someone/something' feeling", so if you are with "saudade" of someone, then you miss that someone. Notice that, since "Saudade" is a feeling, you can use it alone, without mentioning who/what you miss, very much like saying "i'm furious.", or "i'm in love.". But in english, since this feeling is expressed by a non-intransitive verb, you must always specify the cause of the feeling, you can't say "i'm missing". Therefore, regarding this feeling, Portuguese is a superior language than English, as you can express it in more varied ways. Actually, people here in Brasil say that the word "Saudade" is exclusive to our language, but i'm not sure.

So, to me, a universal language should be the one who support the most expression of ideas, for only this way it would be able to sustain the cultural diversity in our world.

Oh, and introducing second languages does wipe out cultures. Considering a national scale, when you introduce a second language to a people, usually one of the two languages tends to fade, and its culture with it. See what happened with the Native Americans... The main problem with being bilingual is... why knowing two languages when i can know only one? For example, Portuguese people who came to Brasil absorbed the native languages that existed here, mostly the Tupi-Guarani.

 

[Kempley05]

Mandarin
Hindi
English
Spanish
Russian

That's the order of most-spoken language.
Now, consider, like I said earlier, which languages are being taught the most? Over 750 million people are learning to speak English. On top of that, which countries literally control the world- both economically and militarily? English speaking nations. English is the money language, and the world runs on money, makes sense for English to be the language.

Why do you have to lose culture because you speak a different language? No one ever said anything about using english exclusively... No one said people couldn't be, I don't know, BILINGUAL. What you're saying is that anyone who is bilingual has lost their culture, which is just stupid.

Introducing a second language does not wipe out a culture.

Firstly thanks for the list, however despite the fact that 750 million people a leaning to speak English, 1 billion+ already have learnt to speak Mandarin.

Not sure if I get your point about economy and language, the worlds economy is indeed run largly by English speaking countries, however look at the economic growth of China, a non-english speaking country is competing at the very highest levels of the worlds economy.

And what about the logistics of it, how would you go about teaching 5/6ths of the worlds population English? surly it would be easier to teach mandarin, the wealthier English speaking countries could print books etc. for themselves, whereas the rest of the world could not afford to do so. I'm playing devils advocate here but I'ld be interested to hear what you think.

And you don't loose your culture because you speak a second language, however theres no way it would stop there, if everyone speeks english as a second language, would the same people who argued for that, argue that it should be a first language, and that the other language was therefore obsolete?

 

[homeofmew]

hehe, Yes, well other contries to teach English, but I agree it is a very outragous view. I also live in the United States and we have problems with people speaking other languages as well, I mean I can go to McDonalds or Dairy Queen and they talk Spanish. I live in Houston and there are latinos who do not know English at all. Some of them are prolly Illegals =/.

I would perferr Japanese, Japan is ruling most of the technology industry and Japan is known for its business and advancedments much more than the United States, and I nor many people know Japanese.

 

[moza]

I said it once and I will say it again: English cannot be it because it cannot perfectly translate everything(like the Portuguese example).

"All your base are belong to us"

gg.