
The world's most influential languages - jfaucett
http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/reprints/weber/rep-weber.htm
======
vorg
These ranking ignore the fact Spanish and Portuguese are much closer to each
other than any other two languages in this top ten listing.

Although Spanish and Portuguese are now two separate unintelligible languages,
they were virtually the same 800 years ago. Someone literate in one can easily
learn the other; it's probably the same with fluency. Machine translation
between them is probably _very_ accurate because of their relative closeness
and the huge volume of sample data for _both_ languages. Also... Because of
geopolitics, Brazil and the rest of Latin America can easily negotiate
compromise agreements where they say "put the administrative center for this
in Brazil and make Spanish the official language for it".

So perhaps there's more of a case to consider Spanish and Portuguese to be
_one_ language for these rankings, than there is to lump all the
unintelligible Arabic dialects (Morrocan, Egyptian, Levantine, Iraqi, and
Gulf) into one language, or the unintelligible Chinese dialects (Mandarin,
Cantonese, Wu, Minbei, Minnan, Xiang, Gan) into one language.

~~~
pjmlp
Yes, as Portuguese I also have an issue with his bias for Brazilian
Portuguese, as there are many more countries speaking the language.

\- Portugal

\- Brazil

\- Angola

\- Mozambique

\- Green Cape

\- Saint Thomas and Prince

\- Guine-Bissau

\- East-Timor

Probably a few others might still use some dialect of the language as well.

Actually Portuguese was the same as Galician not Spanish. Spanish is actually
Castilian from Castile region. In 1516 Ferdinand II declared it as the
official language of Spain, hence Spanish.

But you're right about the language similarities.

~~~
zalew
I spoke Brazilian Portuguese and even back then it was relatively hard for me
to understand Portuguese the original due to pronounciation/accent differences
(by relatively hard I mean I had to focus). I had less problems understanding
Spanish, say, in Uruguay. To this day, although I forgot the language, I can
easily spot a Brazilian in a crowd of talking people while it takes me a
moment to recognize someone speaking European Portuguese.

> many more countries speaking the language.

maybe more, but not with 200 million people

~~~
dguaraglia
Hah, that's something that always amazed me: I lived in Brazil for 7 years
(coming from Argentina) and became fluent in Brazilian Portuguese in the
process. Funnily enough, I don't have any problem _at all_ understanding most
Portuguese people, whereas my wife wouldn't be able to understand half of what
they said. How does _that_ work? :)

~~~
pjmlp
Having a few Brazilian friends, I would say they have some hard time getting
our pronunciation, whereas foreigners seem to be more open minded, kind of.

I have lived this experience with French. I have less problems to understand
French Canadian than my French friends.

~~~
zalew
American English is also easier to understand for most foreigners than some
accents of English (and I mean only the ones from England).

------
hcarvalhoalves
What? The USA doesn't have an _official_ language (like in one recognized by
government)?

That's news for me, and it's interesting to think on the implications. I'll
point that next time an american complains to me on the web to "speak
english".

~~~
mhartl
There have been various attempts to make English the national language of the
United States, but they have all failed, due in part to being perceived as
vaguely racist or xenophobic. This is especially strange considering that
virtually every other country does have an official language (or languages).

That said, you (and your potential interlocutors) will likely benefit from
using the _lingua franca_ , which is currently English, whether or not you're
exhorted to do so by an American.

~~~
corin_
> _This is especially strange considering that virtually every other country
> does have an official language (or languages)_

My assumption for why it isn't strange is that most countries had an official
language (whether at one point it was decreed, or if it just happened
naturally) before a huge amount of immigration happened in the way that it has
in America, i.e. that now there are huge numbers of Spanish speakers in a
number of states.

~~~
NonEUCitizen
That there are huge numbers of Spanish speakers in a number of states is not
due to immigration. Most of these states spoke Spanish before they had an
influx of English-speaking illegal immigrants. The English speakers (helped)
split these states off from Mexico and made them join the USA. (Okay, the
reason they spoke Spanish is due to the prior illegal immigration of Spanish
conquistadors).

Which is why, in Silicon Valley, you have city names like San Jose, Santa
Clara, Los Altos, Palo Alto, San Mateo, San Bruno, and San Francisco; and road
names like Junipero Serra, San Antonio Road, and El Camino Real.

~~~
anamax
> That there are huge numbers of Spanish speakers in a number of states is not
> due to immigration. Most of these states spoke Spanish before they had an
> influx of English-speaking illegal immigrants. The English speakers (helped)
> split these states off from Mexico and made them join the USA. (Okay, the
> reason they spoke Spanish is due to the prior illegal immigration of Spanish
> conquistadors).

The Spanish influence was largely via the Catholic Church. There's a whole
chain of cities about a day's walk apart in CA, each with a mission.

That said, the Spanish weren't the only "invaders" for very long. Folks from
other US states started showing up within a couple of decades. Spain made an
official land-grab, extending from Mexico, but eventually lost a "war".

Also, even during the "Spanish" days, Spanish was only the language of those
cities. The natives didn't switch, and there were a lot more of them (at that
time).

------
Locke1689
Is this a winner-takes-all, network effects situation? Are we going to see the
entire world speaking English as at least a second language in the next 50-100
years?

~~~
jimmyjim
The research the article talks about was done in 1990, so the dynamics as to
the influence of top-spoken languages may well have changed.

Chinese is presently the most spoken language in the world (native and
secondary speakers combined), so if you suspect the winner is going to be a
winner in some 'network effects' situation, it might be Chinese. [1] Chinese
also has a very strong internet presence. [2]

On a slightly unrelated note, what is interesting is that Hindustani, despite
being one of the most spoken languages, has such little influence. Unlike for
Chinese or Russian, there is relatively little resistance in it being
completely dominated by English as the "business language" in the very areas
that the language is native to.

[1]: Some schools in African countries, located near areas where there is
Chinese involvement, are teaching Chinese: [http://igitur-
archive.library.uu.nl/student-theses/2012-0601...](http://igitur-
archive.library.uu.nl/student-
theses/2012-0601-200602/A.Hoogenbosch%5B1%5D.pdf) \-- elsewhere in Americas
and Europe there has also been a noticeable bump in people trying to pick up
Chinese as their second language.

[2]: <http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm>

~~~
tokenadult
_Chinese is presently the most spoken language in the world (native and
secondary speakers combined)_

It was a claim like this that motivated me to begin studying Chinese back in
the 1970s. But if we are talking about one language community, all of whose
members can genuinely converse with one another, today English just might have
more speakers than (standard) Chinese has. Social science surveys by the
Chinese government suggest that only just more than half of China's population
is conversant in standard Chinese,

[http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-03/07/content_5812838...](http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-03/07/content_5812838.htm)

and that squares with the experience of most travelers in China, and most
Chinese-speaking people who know a lot of Chinese people outside of China,
that there are still quite a few nationals of China who are not readily
understood when they attempt to converse with other nationals of China.

Influence of a language depends on a lot more than just raw number of
speakers. Sometime way back in the early 1980s, the Xerox company did an
estimate of language influence weighted by the per-capita domestic product of
persons speaking various languages, which of course boosts the ranking of
English (and also of Japanese, at that time) as compared to Chinese.

Looking at what happened to Russian (my apologies to the authors of the first
couple comments posted here), I would actually expect the influence of Chinese
to decline by 2050, while the influence of English, both from the core
strengths of the "inner circle" English-speaking countries (Britain, the
United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand) and the outer
circle of countries where English is co-official, and from the unparalleled
use of English as a worldwide interlanguage. When someone from Korea meets
someone from Japan while both are in Taiwan, either might speak the language
of the other, and I have seen that done both ways, but when they want to
include a local person in the conversation, unless they really are in Taiwan
as students of Chinese, they will likely resort to English to speak to one
another. And so it goes with all kinds of unlikely combinations of ethnic
groups in all kinds of places all over the world.

I am not at all ethnocentric about my sole native language, General American
English, and I am second to none in urging Americans to acquire other
languages for additional international understanding, but every mash-up of
language groups that happens day by day in today's world is likely to
accelerate the spread of English and to increase its influence.

~~~
jimmyjim
> _It was a claim like this that motivated me to begin studying Chinese back
> in the 1970s._

Back in 1970s, interesting! Some questions, if you don't mind:

1) The Chinese language seems to be the odd duck in that it demands
significantly more time to get a good grip of it. I've read a number of blogs
where the language-learner in the end regrets having spent time learning
Chinese[1], (something I seldom see for other languages). My question for you:
if you had to decide at this point, in this day and age, would you go ahead
and spend the time learning Chinese?

2) What interesting employment opportunity can be expected do you think, after
having learned Chinese? I've read over and over again that every big Chinese
company has strong ties to the Chinese gov't, and that no foreigner has ever
been able to successfully pull it off (a good example is Zuckerburg -- even
though the guy himself speaks a bit of Mandarin and has a Chinese girlfriend).
Does that pretty much rule out entrepreneurial success in China for
foreigners?

[1]: [http://thelinguafranca.wordpress.com/2008/05/27/why-you-
shou...](http://thelinguafranca.wordpress.com/2008/05/27/why-you-shouldnt-
learn-chinese/)

------
Fred22
Indonesian/Malay is spoken by around 268 million people. It is sometimes rated
as the sixth most widely spoken language in the world, yet George Weber barely
mentions it.

Indonesia itself has 237 million people, of which almost 100% speak
Indonesian/Malay.

The Indonesian/Malay language is a huge gaping hole in George Weber's
research.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_numb...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_number_of_speakers#Indonesian.2FMalay_estimates_.28total_number_of_speakers.29)

------
leonastra
Спасибо за статью. Печально, что русский язык не входит в десятку наиболее
используемых языков в Internet.

~~~
asparagui
Просто начните холодная война снова :D

~~~
guard-of-terra
Sorry to ruin a joke, but this sentence is not valid.

------
PostOnce
Fig. 3 lowest estimate for # of English speakers is < 300M? What?

Current population of the Anglosphere (Australia / Canada / New Zealand /
United Kingdom / United States) = 435M; I'll eat my hat if <75% of the
population of these countries speak English. That's saying nothing of all the
other Europeans, Indians, Chinese, Africans, and Latinos that speak English.
Like the Dutch don't also speak English!?

What the hell was that estimator smoking?

Hell, the max estimate there (~500M) is probably closer to a reasonable
minimum.

~~~
AngryParsley
The figures in the article are from 20 years ago. Back then, populations were
smaller and many countries were just ramping-up English education for
students.

~~~
PostOnce
I didn't catch that, thanks. Curiosity killed the cat, so:

Population of Anglosphere in 1992: 364M... <300M speakers still seems very low
even 20 years ago.

------
meric
"It should be a sobering thought, however, to any triumphalist impulse that in
100 AD Latin looked set to dominate its slice of the world forever."

The winner of the "Top Language of 100 AD" should go to Chinese circa 100 A.D.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Xenic>

The following languages are heavily influenced by written chinese:

Korean <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanja>

Japanese <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji>

Vietnamese <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_language>

As well as a variety of other languages (though the regions where they are
from are now considered part of China):

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_characters#Other_langua...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_characters#Other_languages)

Moderately influenced:

Mongolian <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_language>

Thai <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_language>

Here is a picture of Han China and Roman Empire circa 100 A.D.

[http://www.roman-empire.net/maps/empire/extent/rome-china-
co...](http://www.roman-empire.net/maps/empire/extent/rome-china-
comparison.html)

Written Chinese still dominate its slice of the world.

While not all chinese are conversant with Standard Mandarin, (I am not),
almost all of them can read and write chinese.

~~~
archangel_one
You can make a similar list for Latin though; the Romance languages are (by
definition) descended from it; that's Spanish, French, Italian and Portugese,
and English and German are heavily influenced by it. That's a significant
majority of the score of the top ten languages from the article, so you can
argue that by their standards Latin is more significant, even though it's no
longer really a living language in its own right.

~~~
meric
Good point; I thought the article missed out on analysis about indirect
influence by a language through influencing neighbouring languages. Would've
been nice have read about Latin's influence on other languages rather than
have it being a mere footnote.

------
zik
I wonder about the credibility of this article given that it talks about
"Chinese" as if it were a single language. There are many spoken languages in
China (most notably Mandarin and Cantonese). They share a common written form
but if you're talking about the "most influential language" surely the spoken
languages should count for something.

~~~
mbell
Where do you draw the line? Is Latin American Spanish separate enough from
Spain's Spanish? Is French different from Canadian French? American vs British
English?

Even southern US English vs northern US English? Being from the north and
visiting the south regularly I can attest that its very difficult to
understand the 'deep locals', granted its sort of a French-English creole.

Northern German vs Southern German? I was in Munich for Oktoberfest 4 years
ago and I was surprised to find Bavarians speaking to northern Germans in
English most of the time. They told me they couldn't understand each other and
hated each others accents so using English was easier.

It seems extremely difficult to determine and relatively arbitrary where the
distinction between 'explicit' languages is made.

~~~
hetman
The various languages in China do not begin to even approach anything like
mutual intelligibility. They are not dialects but separate languages, much in
the way Spanish and Romanian are different languages even though they both
started as Latin.

------
mhartl
Strange that they didn't include quantity and quality of media available in a
given language, unless it's somehow covered under "Socio-literary prestige"
(which is never precisely defined). This metric may be English's biggest
source of influence.

------
alister
Looking at the advances in machine translation and speech recognition in the
last 10 years, how long before fluency in English becomes irrelevant?

If any English that you hear, see, or read is instantly and perfectly
translated to your native language, and vice versa, then all languages get
equal footing. (Except perhaps for some primitive languages.)

~~~
rogerbinns
Perfect translation is going to be hard. For an everyday most common 5,000
words that may be ok but anything outside of that would require the invention
of many new words when English likely already has them. They don't really mean
anything in English either - for example "quantum mechanics" are just two
words, and have to be learned even for English speakers. When coming from
another language you may as well use whatever words others are already using.
You can see that happening when other language speakers adopt English words.

There are other factors - English speakers readily adopt words from other
languages as needed. This makes it a lot easier to expand. Compare with the
Académie française:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acad%C3%A9mie_fran%C3%A7aise>

Look at what people all over the world are constantly bombarded with -
Hollywood's output is shown (and popular) everywhere. As are words like Coca-
Cola, McDonalds, Nike and Apple. Even Bollywood is including increasing
amounts of English in its output. Popular entertainers in various countries
have also taken to singing some or all of their songs in English.

Look at generating input. There is a bias to a reasonably small number of
symbols. A 500 key keyboard isn't practical (although variations exist).
Having many modes and switching amongst them isn't that pleasant either. We
already see people dropping case from English where is it mostly cosmetic. (Of
course voice recognition is always around the corner but isn't practical in
many environments and has always been around the corner.)

It is acceptable to speak English "badly" - did I tell you about the time
that: the mat cat sat upon? I've heard from speakers of other languages that
just getting the gender wrong in a sentence is enough to make it extremely
hard to understand.

My prediction is that the number of speakers of English as a second language
will continue to climb since it is the most friction free way of communicating
in many circumstances, and that will rapidly lead to their kids adopting it as
a first language. Heck all the people I know who have a non-English language
as their first language have their kids speaking English as their first
language.

TLDR: English makes a very good lowest common denominator

~~~
Datonomics
There needs to be an international version of English designed so that it is
simple to learn. For instance: one sound = one letter and all verbs conjugate
the same.

~~~
rogerbinns
You would enjoy Bill Bryson's book Mother Tongue. At one point (several
hundred years ago) English was going through a period of simplification and
rationalization but it was also during that period that dictionaries,
newspapers etc become popular. Consequently some words had already become
consistent and some hadn't and we are somewhat stuck with poor timing.
[http://www.amazon.com/The-Mother-Tongue-English-
That/dp/0380...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Mother-Tongue-English-
That/dp/0380715430)

Esperanto is an attempt at a equal international language for all.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto>

Because English and English speakers are happy to adapt and change, the
simplification is happening. Look at text messaging where superfluous extra
words and letters get dropped, as does case. Even Hollywood is careful to keep
language simple in their popular movies aimed at a worldwide audience.

~~~
Datonomics
Thank you for the recommendations. How do you think English speaker would
respond to a version of English which had changes like: Each sound had its own
letter and all spelling was phonetic?

------
perfunctory
I find Fig. 13. (Rise and fall of major languages: the historical dimension)
quite interesting.

