On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 5:02 AM, Milos Rancicmillosh@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 1:53 PM, David Gerarddgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I remember reading in Isaac Asimov's autobiography how, as a chemist in the 1940s, he had to learn French and German well enough to read papers in those languages. So the lingua franca in a field varies with time as well as field.
English is the last lingua franca. In 20-30 years we'll have good enough translators and in 20-30 years it is not big enough period of time for changing lingua franca.
If someone knows someone, putting eight billion dollars a year into English-language teaching in Africa, China, Australia and elsewhere would be a good place to start.
-Stevertigo