China spend an annual $60 billion on English services. Soon the the number Chinese English speakers will outnumber the world’s native English speakers. What effect will this, and the increasing economic importance of China, have on the English language? Will we see a dramatic increase of Chinese loan words entering into English. If globalisation will create one interlocked world, will it also result in a language fusion? Like in the movie Code 46 – or I suppose, Clockwork Orange?
I *can’t *resist…
It’ll be called ENGRISH!!!
And now, I’ll return to my luddite hole.
(Once again points to the inherent awesomeness of Firefly)
-Joe
So we’ll speak 1880’s American western English, but with modern Chinese cuss words. 
From observation, I’d say that the majority of the business-oriented world will speak a form of internationalized English - that already exists all over, and is the reason thatm, say, a Dane can go to Thailand and communicate perfectly with the locals in a simplified version of English albeit with a few regional variations; however, at home, people will continue to speak their own language/s.
China itself still has hundreds of local dialects, even though Beijing requires everyone to speak Mandarin.
One thing that’s hard for Americans to understand is that it is very common all over the world for people to speak their particular vernacular at home or in their tiny little region, but also speak a more cosmopolitan language at school, in business, or when dealing with strangers.
So in France you have lots of people who don’t speak Parisian french as their first language, even though almost everyone can speak or understand it, people in Spain might speak Basque or Catalan rather than Castilian spanish, the “Italian” spoken in Milan is pretty much unintelligble to people in Sicily, in some african countries dozens of unrelated tribal languages are spoken but official business might be conducted in a European language, or in the language of one dominant ethnic group. Sometimes these minority languages might be related to the majority language, like the various flavors of Romance spoken across Europe, or they might be completely different, like Basque.
And this happens even in countries that we percieve as ethnically homogenous, like Japan. So the existance of a global cosmopolitan language that most people around the world can speak doesn’t mean that everyone will speak that language as their first language. Given the persistance in Europe of local “dialects” that are incomprehensible to the speakers of the majority language, it seems pretty unlikely that 200 years from now Chinese and Americans will both be speaking a Chinese/English creole.
I thought that, except for a couple of minor not-quite-entirely-Japanese ethnic anomalies (the Okinawans and the Ainu and that’s about all), everybody in Japan spoke exactly the same Japanese.
There’s certainly a large accent difference. I recall a girl from Fukuoka laughing her head off at a girl from Kagoshima because of her “Kagoshima-ben”. They’re both on the island of Kyshu, only a few hundred miles apart.
And even in England, I personally have a hard time understanding people from, say, Newcastle in the north-east.
My daughter spent a year studying in Osaka. The Kansai dialect is pretty distinctive and instantly brands anyone who speaks it.
And for a preview, look at Engrish.com.
Nope. The idea of having one national Japanese language only began to be propogated by the Japanese government in the late 1800s during modernization when they formulated one based largely on the Tokyo dialect and spread it through the newly centralized education system. Many dialects still survive however, even if everyone also speaks the official standardized language. Although usually mutually intelligible, dialects can have significant differences in accent, vocabulary, and grammar.
My pet theory is that the adaptability of English is going to lead one day to a sole language on the planet. Granted, I would imagine such a time would be very very distant. It may be called “English” and, I believe would be a direct descendant of the English that is spoken today. I imagine incorporating Spanish into English, and the gradual adaptation of the rest depending on immigration trends in the future. This is an American-centric view, granted, and an assumption that America will remain an economic force for years to come, thereby giving it leadership in the development of the international language of business.
That’s a valid point, but how true will this remain in the future? A lot of these regional languages are dying out; few French people, for instance, still speak Occitan, even within the borders of its traditional home. Catalan (at least in Spain - obviously less so in its small communities in France and Sardinia) has the advantage of a strong nationalist movement behind it, and I believe a majority of people in Catalonia speak it, but it’s not an overwhelming majority. It was one thing for a regional language to survive a couple hundred years ago, when people traveled a lot less, but it’s quite another thing for one language to be used within formal or official spheres and another within the home - people simply don’t hang onto languages that are no longer useful. Catalonia is economically strong, strong enough to have some liberty to encourage immigrants to the region to learn the language and strong enough that natives have the luxury of using it in their work. But in poorer places, those without nationalist movements and important industries, regional languages have eroded. How many speakers are there of minor languages like Aragonese or Asturian? When people face a choice between speaking the majority language in their daily lives or speaking their own language but losing out on opportunities, they’ll choose the former. Kids don’t use languages they associate with backwardness and poverty.
As long as their are country borders, there will be different languages. If some English filters into Chinese and some Chinese filters into English, it won’t necessariliy be the same words and the grammar probably won’t change. I agree with **Excalibre **that a lot of localized dialects are threatened, but they’re threatened by the majority language of the country, not by English.
You haven’t been to Barcelona much lately, have you? I don’t really feel like digging out census data, but if by “overwhelming” you mean over 50% then the amount of people in Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencia who speak Catalan/Valenciano interchangeably with or in preference to Spanish is overwhelming.
Achieving this, specially the “preferentially” part, has had a high price for Catalonia: in the early '70s, anybody from NE Spain who didn’t live in a college town would try to get into the ones in Barcelona or into Deusto (in Bilbao, basque country). When the public universities decreed that 20% of the grade for any course (including 1st year courses) would be “catalan spelling and grammar”, the decline in out-of-region applications was lightning-fast. This led to a decline in the general level of those universities and their prestige, but ah, the students sure speak a lot more Catalan than they used to.
Deusto has also declined somewhat, but due more to bombs than language issues; last I checked the classes were still in Spanish. Last June, there was a report on the Spanish-speaking channel of the Basque-government-owned TV saying that a lot of students from other regions don’t want to apply for Basque country colleges because they’re afraid they may get harassed for not speaking Basque. The Basque government seems to be too busy flying the flag to worry about things like “not scaring good brains away” but employers are another thing.
Do a lot of people in Basque country speak Basque to the exclusion of Spanish? I remember not hearing all that much of it on the street when I was in San Sebastian, and when I did, it seemed to be older people. Everyone I met spoke to me in Spanish, but that is because I was speaking to them in Spanish.
I was in Pamplona for the San Fermin, but I don’t really think that the crowd was representative of the area during a normal period of time.
I contrast that with Barcelona and other parts of Catalonia where most of the people I heard on the street were speaking Catalan.
Can get ahead of the curve on this, and make it a Class C felony to use the word “Cripertunity?”
Unless, of course, someone’s “up in they grill” or they just need to “git’er done.”
But I don’t consider that “overwhelming”. That’s precisely why I drew a distinction between a “majority” and an “overwhelming majority”. Even within the relatively small Catalan-speaking area, not everyone speaks the language. I know that Catalan nationalists have made great strides in encouraging use of Catalan, and I applaud them for it, but I have my doubts as to whether this situation, with only 60% or so of the population speaking the language, can remain stable over time.
Does anyone have any numbers for the percentage of the population of Catalunya who primarily speaks Catalan? My impression when I was there a few years ago was that in Barcelona, you have a good chance of being spoken to in Spanish, but once you leave the City and go somewhere else like Lleida, people will assume that you speak Catalan and most likely will switch to Spanish once they see that you don’t speak Catalan. In a few restaurants in Barcelona, I had to request a menu in Spanish since the one that they set out at the table was Catalan. I had a friend from Catalunya and among his family and friends they spoke primarily Catalan with one or two exceptions.
I’ve also thought the same. Think it’s time to dust off the Esperanto books and tapes and start making converts?