[Foundation-l] The problem with native languages vs. the lingua franca

[stevertigo]

On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 5:02 AM, Milos Rancic<millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 1:53 PM, David Gerard<dgerard at 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