Language Powers
 

I was just chatting with a friend of mine about language and how learning language is considered the hardest thing a human will ever do. The feat of being completely fluent in more than one is exponentially difficult. Babies are the hardest workers ever, wrapping their brain around all the syntax, phonemes and whatnot of language.
So, I'd say the most important and useful language in the world hands down is: English. Even though it is actually a pretty challenging language to learn, English is the language of business and that's what makes the world go round ya know. But this is where me and my friend disagreed-is Spanish the second most important language? Or would it be possibly, French? Chinese?

English then Spanish.

Chinese is just spoken by 1.2 billion people, I don't even consider it that important globally (politics, business, enculturation).

French is the language of diplomacy. Mandarin and cantonese are spoken by more people than any other language.

Spanish is up there though, but it's not recognized in any formal way to my knowledge.

Italian.

Spaghetti, pasta, pizza, cannelloni, rigatoni, vermicelli, fettuccine...

Do you mean "my friend and I"?

Me see?

;)

True, but much of what might be called the patterns of language are hardwired into babies. The difficulties they tend to face come in where language has evolved away from the instinctive patterns. So, irregular verbs tend to cause children difficulty in all languages. Similar mistakes are noticed in children from different backgrounds and different languages. The English version being such mistakes as "I falled" instead of " I fell".

I think we should all learn Icelandic. Change the paradigm, people!

Hver maður er borinn frjáls og jafn öðrum að virðingu og réttindum. Menn eru gæddir vitsmunum og samvisku, og ber þeim að breyta bróðurlega hverjum við annan.

Ouch!

The reality is 99.9% of people don't actually interact globally in their lives. Who gives a shit if a car mechanic can speak the "language of diplomacy?" We're not all part of a global village, nor will most of us even work in a business situation that will cause us to interact with another country. The most important second language depends on each individual's cultural situation. Around here, it's Spanish, no question.

Do you think there will be a global language on earth in the future? Such as post nuclear war, the few surviving human populous all creating a global pidgin language? Or maybe in thousands of years when we go intergalactic, there will be a "human" language? Like a language that is native to earth, to distinguish from other alien races. Maybe I'm just a nerd....

If that happened, I bet you would see an increase in the number of languages because with civilization breaking down, there would be less travel and less communication. Local dialects would evolve into different languages.

Oh yeah....maybe...then humanity would be screwed on communication.

You mean it isn't already?:eyebrow:

I'm pretty sure I want to learn Mandarin and Cantonese, because I am firmly convinced that one day the Chinese will take over the earth.