2009/8/23 Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com:
Anyhow as I said before, language shift is very much related to attitudes and perceived language prestige. When doing business abroad, English is often the language of communication between Chinese companies and local employees and businesses. The day the Chinese begin to insist on doing business with only Chinese speakers is the day the world decides to learn Chinese. It is essentially a (bad) attitude of "We are better than you and so we do not need to learn your language, you should learn ours" that has resulted, I think, in the dominance of English.
"But Europe is filled with foreigners!"
Mark