Which language would be the best international language?
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M$12 Answers
Anyway, the current international standard seems to be English; and, it has a lot going for it. English has a huge, rich vocabulary. It is completely up to date in all technical and scientific fields as the leaders in those fields have been using it. It has an enormous, rich, literature. However, it does have the baggage that comes with such a long and widespread history: difficult and unpredictable grammar and spelling.
Politics aside, the only competition would be from a purpose-built international language. The one which has stood the test of time is Esperanto. It's strengths and weaknesses are the reverse of those of English. It has logical, predictable, easy grammar and spelling. However, it is not widely used except by enthusiasts and hardly any literature is native to the language (although a lot has been translated).
Esperanto sites are a good place to find discussions of your particular question, as anyone who likes Esperanto is interested in the debate about a best international language. They have their own flag, by the way:
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M$One important reason: Already for some time, non-native English-speakers vastly outnumber native English-speakers. Therefore, English is the first and only language that is being spoken by more people as a second than a first. This is remarkable. The inventors of Esperanto were dreaming about such a widespread acceptance, but with English, it's a reality.
Interesting Article about how nowadays' English is increasingly shaped by non-native speakers: http://www.newsweek.com/id/49079
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M$
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M$
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M$
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_English
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M$
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Personal Experience
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M$
The only problem is that it's a pain in the *** to learn.
The most commonly used language when dealing with matters of science and diplomacy internationally is French.
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M$
English has also borrowed extensively from other languages, from early Celtic to Latin to middle German to French to various Native American languages, and that process shows no sign of stopping, thanks to British colonization all over the world. This means that many speakers of other languages will find at least something in English they can get a handle on.
I would love to say French, because it's much more regular in spelling and grammar, and it is also widely spoken in former French colonies. But its vocabulary is much smaller because it has not done as much borrowing--especially after its Language Congress started regulating it many generations ago.
And then, music is supposed to be the universal language...but try writing a legal contract in Opera...or heavy metal. Or Bob Dylan. Could make for really fun courtroom scenes.
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M$
However, I've been to 15-20 countries in the last three or four years and I can tell you that almost every country I've gone to the standard language of business was english. In Japan, China, Greece, and Korea for example, I didn't need a translator except in rare circumstances.
In many countries english is being taught in schools at a young age, and with the spread of english-based websites, you're going to see a large percentage of people under the age of 30 being able to speak english.
Pop culture such as movies, music, and magazine are also pushing this trend.
That being said, the population of China is much larger than that of America--in fact all countries--so it will remain a powerful language for some time to come.
It's my belief that in another 50 years the majority of the planet will speak english.
The Wikipedia has a list of english speaking countries by %:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population
This graph shows: "Percentage of the population with a knowledge of English"
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M$
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M$
unfortunately, it's getting increasingly difficult to find native speakers. I know only four people who learned Yiddish as their first language and learned it from parents who were native speakers, too. And three of them are way beyond 70 years old. Interesting: one of them is a rare example of a non-jewish native Yiddish speaker. She grew up in a village with a jewish majority where Yiddish was the predominant language.
French is the language of diplomacy.
C++ is the language of geeks.
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M$
