Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!klaatu.rutgers.edu!josh From: josh@klaatu.rutgers.edu (J Storrs Hall) Newsgroups: comp.society.futures Subject: Re: ENGLISH/LINGUA FRANCA - GLOBAL E-MAIL COMMUNICATIONS Message-ID: Date: 20 Mar 90 01:29:53 GMT References: <90Mar17.164801est.58582@ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca> <0a1GtPy2aU-MMrIdlz@twain> <2492@rodan.acs.syr.edu> Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 28 >I'm no language specialist so I may be wrong here, BUT, >how many English speakers are there as compared to say Chinese speakers? In very rough terms, there are a billion native Chinese speakers and a third to a half billion English. However, saying "Chinese" is one language is like saying "Romance" is one language and meaning French, Italian, and Spanish. Realize that every pair of adjacent towns from Rome to Paris speaks "the same language"--there is a broad and even spectrum between what we consider different tongues. A better criterion for a lingua franca is, how widely distributed are its speakers and how many people speak it as a *second* language? Knowing the major advantages of English in this regard, I'm still amazed at how often the news services pick up someone in the street in Berlin, or some Politburo member in Moscow, and interview them directly in English. A friend took a trip to China recently, and was often approached on the streets in Canton by people wishing to practice their English! All this to the contrary notwithstanding, I do not expect there to be any "international lingua franca" because I do expect real-time voice-recognizing translators to become available in the next 25 years or so, and probably in the next 10. --JoSH