2009/8/23 Mark Williamson <node.ue(a)gmail.com>
I disagree. All languages that have had a chance of
becoming world
lingua francas - English, French, perhaps Spanish, are some recent
examples - were not only the languages of economic or political
powers, they were also the languages of vast colonial empires.
The only language that has become a world lingua franca to date is English,
and although British colonialism was clearly the original reason for this,
the dominant form of English over much of the world now is American English.
The U.S. has never had a vast colonial empire, so surely the supremacy of
U.S. English owes more to the economic and cultural dominance of the U.S.
than any other factor. If, in the future, China becomes the dominant
economic power in the world, then I don't think there's any doubt that
Chinese will supplant English as the most widely used language in business
and many other domains.
Chinese has a very large speaker population but the
number of speakers outside of the Han ethnic group and/or the PRC is
negligible. Almost all non-Han speakers of Chinese are ethnic
minorities in the PRC, virtually all Chinese speaking people outside
of the PRC are ethnic Chinese.
The numbers are small compared to English, but they're growing, and the
Chinese government has made an effort to promote the spread of Chinese. A
lot of people outside China are learning Chinese, though probably only a
small proportion become proficient in it.
What could the motivations be for an aspiring
professional in for
example Congo be to learn Chinese? There are few and almost all of
them are related to business dealings with China.
Another motivating factor could be to work for Chinese companies in Congo -
maybe not likely now, but Chinese companies are becoming increasingly
involved in African countries, and this may be more likely in the future if
those companies get a more favourable reputation. Tourism is a further
possible reason, though I doubt many Chinese tourists visit Central Africa
just yet.
Hindi is in a similar position - it has quite a large number of
diaspora speakers, but outside of a single country
and/or national
origin, it has virtually no reach.
Hindi in a completely different situation since, apart from having fewer
native speakers, it hasn't become the dominant language throughout the main
country in which it is spoken, and AFAIK it isn't widely learnt as a second
language in other countries. This could change in the future, though.
The main thing that could stop Chinese becoming a global lingua franca is
the development of translation technology, which is advancing rapidly.
Still, I think most of the arguments against it are based on misconceptions
about why English is currently the dominant language, and often-antiquated
stereotypes of China.
Richard