will chinese replace as the world`s international language?

MiG-29 · Jun 9, 2011

latenlazy said:
That's because Chinese is an entirely different language family group than the European languages. There is as much variation within the Latin and Germanic languages as there is within different dialects of Chinese.

Chinese has much an opportunity of being dominant in an area of the world where a different language family is spoken as much as English had a chance to succeed in places like India, Singapore, or Hong Kong, or French in Vietnam. Again, the adoption of a language has nothing to do with the level of difference, and everything to do with which international entity is dominant.

i think in east asia Chinese might become dominant, i even see chinese replacing Japanese as the most wanted language in Asia, there is a chance chinese culture might become dominant again in Korea or Japan and even malasya, but beyond that i see no future for Chinese unless they develop an alphabet like Latin

solarz · Jun 9, 2011

The idea that Chinese won't become a lingua-franca because it's harder to learn as a second language than English is not supported by history.

Ease of use does not determine which language becomes widely used internationally. French is one of the more complicated languages around, yet it was the most widely used language in Europe 200 years ago.

I would also say Chinese is one of the easier languages to learn. There are only a few hundred commonly used characters which is all you need to understand 99% of written communication in Chinese. Chinese grammar is also ridiculously simple and straightforward, with none of that verb tenses and pronoun variations in Latin-based languages.

MiG-29 · Jun 9, 2011

solarz said:
The idea that Chinese won't become a lingua-franca because it's harder to learn as a second language than English is not supported by history.

Ease of use does not determine which language becomes widely used internationally. French is one of the more complicated languages around, yet it was the most widely used language in Europe 200 years ago.

I would also say Chinese is one of the easier languages to learn. There are only a few hundred commonly used characters which is all you need to understand 99% of written communication in Chinese. Chinese grammar is also ridiculously simple and straightforward, with none of that verb tenses and pronoun variations in Latin-based languages.

For me who i am a spanish speaker, french is much much easier than Chinese, and i just need less than 3 letters more to learn to speak french, European languages are more widely used around the world, so Chinese only can be easier for the languages similar to Chinese in the Sino-Tibetan languages group or Japanese that uses chinese characters

French is a language derived from Latin therefore very similar to italian or spanish so it is not hard for me to understand it.

latenlazy · Jun 9, 2011

MiG-29 said:
i do not agree, humans can not make as many sounds as the total number of chinese characters, therefore a computer keyboard will use sounds, not characters, so you can have a keyboard of 30 letters to write any language.

about the kanjies used in japan, used as single elements i am not wrong, however japanese uses different combinations to express diferent meanings for example the word subway 地下鉄　another compound word meaning ground down iron, as single elements they will mean nothing unless you know they mean subway, for a Western person like me, does not make any sense unless we are told about it, so my learning of Japanese writing system will requiere me much more knowledge of Japanese Phonetics, and Chinese Characters, so definitively Japanese will be harder than english to learn, second Chinese does not use Hiragana or katakana which ease the learning of japanese, so i would rate Japanese easier to learn than Chinese, and still Japanese is unable to compete with english as an international language.

And what about a system that uses radicals to build characters? Typing need not be restricted by pronunciation. Early attempts to adopt a character based typingsystem by China was hampered by its incompatibility with already established Western systems for typing, and not by ease of use. Furthermore, that argument ignores new phonetic systems implemented into the language. Using keys which are coded for Zhuyin is very popular in Taiwan. I have many Taiwanese friends who prefer using Zhuyin when typing in Chinese.

You're ignoring that these combinations of characters are in fact different meaning combinations. 地下铁 (or in Chinese 地铁) means underground railroad (铁 in this instance being shorthand for 铁路, meaning iron/steel road). For a Westerner like you that may not make much sense, but the reverse also holds true for a Chinese person learning English. For example, even if you learn greek and latin roots for English, something like archaeology broken down to its roots means "begin speech". You'd have to be familiar with the language system to know that "begin" is colloquially now understood to mean "ancient", and "-ology" stems from "logos", which used to mean speech/to speak, but now means "logic". Even then "ancient logic" makes no sense unless you understand that "-ology" colloquially refers to a scientific study/field/theory. Character and root meanings are difficult to learn and understand in any language without a system of colloquial meaning that needs to be learned. The main point is that this does not prove to be a barrier for universal adoption of language, since we see countries with completely different language systems that adopt English and French as international languages despite the difficulty of transitioning from one system to another.

Finally, you keep ignoring the fact that there is a phonetic system in Chinese (Pinyin and Zhuyin, which only vary in how they represent the basic sounds of the language).

latenlazy · Jun 9, 2011

MiG-29 said:
For me who i am a spanish speaker, french is much much easier than Chinese, and i just need less than 3 letters more to learn to speak french, European languages are more widely used around the world, so Chinese only can be easier for the languages similar to Chinese in the Sino-Tibetan languages group or Japanese that uses chinese characters

French is a language derived from Latin therefore very similar to italian or spanish so it is not hard for me to understand it.

Your argument so far seems to be that Chinese is too difficult or different a language to learn to be adopted as a lingua fraca, yet European languages are lingua fraca in places where the language base has no relation what so ever to the European language family.

latenlazy · Jun 9, 2011

MiG-29 said:
i think in east asia Chinese might become dominant, i even see chinese replacing Japanese as the most wanted language in Asia, there is a chance chinese culture might become dominant again in Korea or Japan and even malasya, but beyond that i see no future for Chinese unless they develop an alphabet like Latin

So why is it that English is adopted in places like Singapore and Hong Kong, when they're completely different from the native languages there? It's certainly not the ease of learning English, as learning English for a Chinese speaking person is just as difficult as learning Chiense for an English speaking person.

Spartan95 · Jun 9, 2011

latenlazy said:
Ask anyone from Singapore or Hong Kong if they find either English or Chinese difficult, and they'll simply say "neither" because they grew up with both.

That's not true.

The majority of ethnic Chinese in Singapore find Chinese harder to learn as compared to English. Perhaps 1 of the reasons for this is due all the other subjects being taught in English (subjects such as Maths, physics, chemistry, geography, etc).

With regard to Chinese as a language, learning basic conversational Chinese isn't too difficult. Learning how to recognise the basic characters is a bit harder, but not too difficult either. Learning how to write basic Chinese is even harder, particularly for those who don't actually write it in a day-to-day basis. Now, trying to use Chinese as a language for business dealings (scrutinising contracts, understanding legal terms, etc) is even more challenging.

While the rise of PRC will make Chinese 1 of the more widespread languages, it will be difficult for Chinese to displace English as the main international language within this century for the following reasons:

1. International business and legal institutions have been using English for a long time. And this has been refined over the years. Trying to translate that into Chinese will be difficult.

2. International scientific community uses English. Trying to convert the teaching of advanced scientific concepts from English to Chinese will be a monumental effort as it will also require the translation of all previous scientific work into Chinese.

3. There is also the matter of the 1+ billion population in India that uses English (in addition to EU's 500 million, US' 300+ million, etc).

Having said that, there's nothing stopping Chinese from being 1 of the working languages in UN and other international organisations. But, I'm not holding my breath to see a UN Resolution issued in Chinese just yet.

latenlazy · Jun 9, 2011

Spartan95 said:
That's not true.

The majority of ethnic Chinese in Singapore find Chinese harder to learn as compared to English. Perhaps 1 of the reasons for this is due all the other subjects being taught in English (subjects such as Maths, physics, chemistry, geography, etc).

With regard to Chinese as a language, learning basic conversational Chinese isn't too difficult. Learning how to recognise the basic characters is a bit harder, but not too difficult either. Learning how to write basic Chinese is even harder, particularly for those who don't actually write it in a day-to-day basis. Now, trying to use Chinese as a language for business dealings (scrutinising contracts, understanding legal terms, etc) is even more challenging.

While the rise of PRC will make Chinese 1 of the more widespread languages, it will be difficult for Chinese to displace English as the main international language within this century for the following reasons:

1. International business and legal institutions have been using English for a long time. And this has been refined over the years. Trying to translate that into Chinese will be difficult.

2. International scientific community uses English. Trying to convert the teaching of advanced scientific concepts from English to Chinese will be a monumental effort as it will also require the translation of all previous scientific work into Chinese.

3. There is also the matter of the 1+ billion population in India that uses English (in addition to EU's 500 million, US' 300+ million, etc).

Having said that, there's nothing stopping Chinese from being 1 of the working languages in UN and other international organisations. But, I'm not holding my breath to see a UN Resolution issued in Chinese just yet.

Is that for people who are ethnic Chinese in Singapore or people who speak a different language? (All the Singaporeans I know are ethnic Chinese, so my examples will be a little skewed, though I do not think it damages the external validity of my arguments, as I'm trying to indicate that "difficulty" is not the reason China cannot become a lingua fraca). Either way, the fact that all the formal institutions in Singapore use English supports my point of view that it is not inherent properties within a language that prevent it from being internationally adopted, but in fact the orientation of the dominant institutions.

Trying to scrutinize business and legal language in English is just as hard. Ask any common by stander in the US to read a legal document and tell you what it's saying, and they would be just as confused. Similarly, a native speaker of Chinese will have equal difficulty deciphering legal and business language in Chinese without education and proper exposure and experience. For a person who has acquired conversational English from a different language family the exact points are true in reverse. There is symmetry here.

I agree completely with the rest of your points. I'm not saying that Chinese will become a lingua fraca. I'm merely saying that "difficulty" will not be one of the reasons it doesn't.

I myself doubt that Chinese will acquire the same kind of universal adoption that English and other European languages have, but whether it does or not is a matter of how much influence and power China has in the international environment. With a sufficient power draw and influence to shape international institutions, it's a possibility.

MiG-29 · Jun 9, 2011

latenlazy said:
And what about a system that uses radicals to build characters? Typing need not be restricted by pronunciation. Early attempts to adopt a character based typingsystem by China was hampered by its incompatibility with already established Western systems for typing, and not by ease of use. Furthermore, that argument ignores new phonetic systems implemented into the language. Using keys which are coded for Zhuyin is very popular in Taiwan. I have many Taiwanese friends who prefer using Zhuyin when typing in Chinese.

You're ignoring that these combinations of characters are in fact different meaning combinations. 地下铁 (or in Chinese 地铁) means underground railroad (铁 in this instance being shorthand for 铁路, meaning iron/steel road). For a Westerner like you that may not make much sense, but the reverse also holds true for a Chinese person learning English. For example, even if you learn greek and latin roots for English, something like archaeology broken down to its roots means "begin speech". You'd have to be familiar with the language system to know that "begin" is colloquially now understood to mean "ancient", and "-ology" stems from "logos", which used to mean speech/to speak, but now means "logic". Even then "ancient logic" makes no sense unless you understand that "-ology" colloquially refers to a scientific study/field/theory. Character and root meanings are difficult to learn and understand in any language without a system of colloquial meaning that needs to be learned. The main point is that this does not prove to be a barrier for universal adoption of language, since we see countries with completely different language systems that adopt English and French as international languages despite the difficulty of transitioning from one system to another.

Finally, you keep ignoring the fact that there is a phonetic system in Chinese (Pinyin and Zhuyin, which only vary in how they represent the basic sounds of the language).

I think you are confusing some factors, when i learnt the word Archeology, in Spanish Arqueologia, as a child i never needed to know its greek roots and etymology, if i am learning english i can right away know archeaology means arqueologia, now with Kanjies you are writing ideas not sounds, why? an average child of 7 in any spanish speaking country is able to read and write, you can learn to read and write spanish in few hours, but i can not learn to read and write Japanese or Chinese in few hours, there is no way i can do it, as an alphabetic system, the Chinese and Japanese use of chinese characters change due to the phonetic use of each language, so even for a Japanese Learning chinese is not as straight forward.

One of the reasons Japanese people use Hiragana is to accomodate for japanese phonetics into Chinese characters.

solarz · Jun 9, 2011

Spartan95 said:
That's not true.

The majority of ethnic Chinese in Singapore find Chinese harder to learn as compared to English. Perhaps 1 of the reasons for this is due all the other subjects being taught in English (subjects such as Maths, physics, chemistry, geography, etc).

With regard to Chinese as a language, learning basic conversational Chinese isn't too difficult. Learning how to recognise the basic characters is a bit harder, but not too difficult either. Learning how to write basic Chinese is even harder, particularly for those who don't actually write it in a day-to-day basis. Now, trying to use Chinese as a language for business dealings (scrutinising contracts, understanding legal terms, etc) is even more challenging.

While the rise of PRC will make Chinese 1 of the more widespread languages, it will be difficult for Chinese to displace English as the main international language within this century for the following reasons:

1. International business and legal institutions have been using English for a long time. And this has been refined over the years. Trying to translate that into Chinese will be difficult.

2. International scientific community uses English. Trying to convert the teaching of advanced scientific concepts from English to Chinese will be a monumental effort as it will also require the translation of all previous scientific work into Chinese.

3. There is also the matter of the 1+ billion population in India that uses English (in addition to EU's 500 million, US' 300+ million, etc).

Having said that, there's nothing stopping Chinese from being 1 of the working languages in UN and other international organisations. But, I'm not holding my breath to see a UN Resolution issued in Chinese just yet.

1- Legalese is difficult for a lay-person to understand in *any* language.

2- The international scientific community used to use Latin, but that changed. The transition doesn't need to be monumental if most of the people involved in the transition phase understand both languages. It's perfectly possible for English to be "phased out", so to speak.

Chinese isn't going to be an international language any time soon mainly because Chinese culture isn't as ubiquitous as American culture.

will chinese replace as the world`s international language?

MiG-29

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solarz

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MiG-29

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latenlazy

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latenlazy

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latenlazy

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Spartan95

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latenlazy

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MiG-29

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solarz

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