

Data Suggests the Language of the Future Could Be French - lambtron
http://www.forbes.com/sites/pascalemmanuelgobry/2014/03/21/want-to-know-the-language-of-the-future-the-data-suggests-it-could-be-french/

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nopinsight
The influence of a language is not determined by the number of its speakers,
but their power and cultural influence. Given the myriad challenges facing
sub-Saharan Africa, it is unlikely to give French much more influence even in
2050, which is just one generation away from now.

The only possibility is if sub-Saharan Africa can pull off the feat of China
(lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty in one generation), but with much
less supporting global economic and environmental climate, and questionable
governance institutions. Altogether, the chance is slim.

(Also, even the projected 750 million speakers by 2050 will likely be smaller
than the number of Hindi speakers then.)

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PeterWhittaker
The study predicts the following changes in 40 years:

* a 20% drop in the use of Mandarin

* a 38% drop in the use of English

* a 17% increase in the use of Spanish

* a whopping 167% increase in the use of French

Hmm, hmm. Yeah, no. Don't learn French. If you already know English, learn
Spanish. It's easier to learn, the grammar is gentler, it's widely used,
people who speak it tend to be a little more relaxed when it gets mangled by
the rest of us....

(Full disclosure: French is so close to a mother tongue for me it's not even
funny, and is a mother tongue, along with English, for my daughter. Spanish is
my third strongest language, much stronger than the few others I've learned
and sort of lost.)

~~~
pacofvf
according to this study: [http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/world-2050/assets/pwc-
world-in-2050...](http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/world-2050/assets/pwc-world-
in-2050-report-january-2013.pdf)

Mexico will be the 7th economy in the world by 2050, Spain and Argentina 15th
and 20th respectively.

In the US 1/4th of the population will be Hispanic in 2050, although this
doesn't mean that 1/4th of the population will be Spanish native speakers, at
least promises a high level of Spanish proficiency, source:
[http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/12/16/with-
fewer-n...](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/12/16/with-fewer-new-
arrivals-census-lowers-hispanic-population-projections-2/)

If I could bet I'd put my money on Spanish.

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father_of_two
Oh the languages again. Many people don't know that it was the US, and not the
UK, who mostly contributed to the spread of English -- of course one might
argue that US talk English in first place due to the UK. That world-
wide'fication started after the WWII. In Europe, for instance, the number of
students learning English as first foreign language only surpassed French ones
by the 50s and 60s in most countries (sorry, can't point now to the document
in which I saw this info).

Why was it so massive? Due the huge world-wide US influence associated with
the mass communication that was being established as mainstream by that time.
It were the movies, the TV shows, the music. On tech it were the electronics,
then computer science and then internet. Suddenly it was a snowball: the
aeronautics, the navigation, the research papers, the international treaties,
you name it... all in English.

We've got to a point where if a given music is in its original language, it
runs the risk of being mostly unknown, but if it's translated to English, it
might be a huge success (see Claude François's Comme d'habitude vs Frank
Sinatra's My Way, just to name one).

No language can ever surpass English until all this shifts to that language,
and that's very unlikely to happen. US made it big at the right time, now it's
too late change that.

~~~
wodenokoto
You should look into the business of kpop. They don't give a flying fuck about
English, when they have Japanese and Chinese markets.

If you make your music in English you run the risc of being mostly unknown in
the second d and third largest economies in the world.

~~~
father_of_two
wodenokoto, don't get me wrong. I'm not even a native English speaker, let
alone an US or UK citizen. But this issue is just overwhelming.

I recon that Asian countries, not only Japan and China, but also India, for
example, are not so exposed to US as Europe, or America (continent) or Africa.
I guess this has as much of cultural as historical -- for instance, Japan has
always been a pretty much isolated culture historically speaking.

------
vorg
> French will be present on all continents, and particularly predominant in a
> continent that, by 2050, should be a fast-growing economic powerhouse–Africa

6 years ago, Rwanda changed its language medium in schools from French to
English, and more French Union African countries may follow. Virtually every
African I meet from a French Union country speaks English just as well. If
there's any sudden decline in world population in the next 35 years, it will
probably be in sub-Saharan Africa. Mandarin's making inroads in Africa with
the huge influx of Chinese workers there over the past 20 years.

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ryanatkn
"The study’s methodology is somewhat questionable, since it counts as French-
speakers all the inhabitants of countries where French is an official
language, which probably won’t be the case. And almost certainly, as a second
language, English will remain the lingua franca"

Sounds like the study measures colonial vestiges and not real world usage.

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tlianza
"Mandarin, despite being excruciatingly hard to learn for most Westerners..."

Mandarin is hard to learn, period. Even if you're born and raised in China and
it's the only language you know, it still takes a long time to learn.

No need to single out the Westerners :)

~~~
wodenokoto
Bullshit. 3 and 4 yeah olds in China talks just as much as any western child.

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Fiahil
This sound ridiculously like a piece of propaganda. The article doesn't even
link to the study.

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leaveyou
"French will be present on all continents, and particularly predominant in a
continent that, by 2050, should be a fast-growing economic powerhouse–Africa".
I find this very hard to imagine. Anyway, "en 2050 je serai dans la tombe".

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magic_beans
French in Africa is vastly different from French in France. So if you want to
learn French to prepare yourself for 2060, learn African French.

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leroy_masochist
Author: Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry

no, really

------
_deh
Formidable argument.

