We're actually much closer than we ever have been before.

Which language *should* we all speak? English? Chinese? Spanish? Latin? Klingon? Sindarin?

Abge is right. Go through Europe and most everyone speaks English or German. All of Latin America speaks one of three languages - English, Spanish, or Portuguese. Large portions of Africa still speak French and English in addition to their native languages. I would say that right now you could communicate with 80% of the world using one of 8 languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Arabic, Mandarin, Japanese and Hindu

I would also say that you can speak to 50%+ of the world using only English

Don't forget Russia, goldfinger. Everyone from Serbia to Mongolia can understand quite a bit of Russian.

That's an incorrect statement actually Synapse. Everyone in the older generations can understand quite a bit of Russian, but certainly not everyone. I can say this from personal experience, and I have many friends and family in Ex soviet countries, or the surrounding area.

Since the breakup of the soviet union, the younger generations learn English instead. I'm Lithuanian and Everyone above the age of 30 is fluent in Russian, almost nobody under the age of 20 speaks it well. But they're all fluent in English now instead.

Same applies to other countries, like I know when my Dad went to Bulgaria, he said he communicated with the older generations in Russian, but the younger generations in English. They knew absolutely no Russian at all pretty much.

While there are countries where Russian is still dominant such as Kazakhstan and Ukraine. For the most part, the younger generations in European countries at least are no longer speaking Russian. I can't speak for Asian affected soviet countries, I presume Russian is still somewhat more dominant there, but that's only my guess.

Well I learnt Russian for my time spent in Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro etc, got a few strange looks but everyone understood me.

International language of business is pretty much English.

But really, there is no need for a "global" language; the idea is just sci-fi fantasy.

People that want to communicate find a way - such as businessmen learning English to succeed. But I truly have no need, ever, to communicate with anyone in Botswana...

Until you end up on a plane with a shot pilot and a Botswanese who knows how to fly a plane but doesn't know where the land is, and you do...

Why would the world *want* to speak just one language? Languages have their own beauty and represent the beauty and the culture from their countries of origin. If the world all.spoke.one language, mankind.would be greatly diminished. The mystery hidden in Mandarin. The romance if French. The passion of Italian. The gusto for life of Spanish and the beer-hall robustness of German. The people, the nations, and the language make upvthe culture. Let us *not* do away with it.

Draug - this is the desire of those who would have us live under one government, who would force us all to follow one set of rules and have one single belief, who think that Utopia is uniformity of outcomes.

@Steephie...then I laugh at the gods for their cruel trick and die, I guess. As it is, everyone is going to die someday; if my failure to understand the Botswanese pilot is the cause of my demise, so be it. But if he is a commercial pilot, Mr Botswanese will know **English**...

Cxu? Miaj kredaj ideoj estas Esperanto esti la internacia lingvo.

Ou, Fraçais sur cette idée...

Esperanto was a failed attempt at the one world language.

And we are not bothered in the least that we can not understand you - if what you said was important, you would have made yourself understood, as it is clear you can understand us.

You point, therefore, fails to be made...

I just said that French and Esperanto could be options, more or less. (In their respective languages) so they were not important in the least. This was to point out that other languages have tried and failed in the past, and that something will eventually usurp English (but not for awhile anyways).

At least Esperanto tried, but it was a failed idea from post-1920 on.

And French is a good secondary to know after English if you go by Geographic area that the languages cover.

The whole world will integrate their speech on the internet with a mixture of numbers letters and lols.

English suceeded as a global Language because the United States succeeded internationally as an economic superpower -- if you wanted to thrive and participate in the global economy with the US, you learned English.

Esparanto failed because it was some half-baked, feel-good liberal construct meant to enforce unity and peace upon humanity, and there was no logical reason for anyone to participate in it.

If there French were a country worthy of any respect, and grew their global influence, then people would naturally learn their language. As it is, fewer and fewer people learn French than in the past, just in my limited observation - what's the point?

If anything would overtake English, it would probably be Chinese given the growing strength of their global economic (and potentially military) influence...except that the Chinese learn English, as we are still the economy they chase.

Interesting enough, the whole "what language do we speak now..." discussion is just a further indicator the Free Markets work: i.e. the things that survive and thrive are the things people want and need to better themselves by choice...not the things people are told to do and ordered to possess.

"Interesting enough, the whole "what language do we speak now..." discussion is just a further indicator the Free Markets work: i.e. the things that survive and thrive are the things people want and need to better themselves by choice...not the things people are told to do and ordered to possess."

Interesting idea, but don't forget that the British conquered half the known world long before the United States became an economic power. The world has been speaking English long before the colonies were established, mostly because their colonial overlords spoke the language. Not exactly what I'd call "free market".

2WL - yes...free markets, again.

I will also point out that the French and Spanish were quite the colonialists as well. Less successful, I will point out, and thus their language, as a global language, has not been as successful.

When the US came along as an English speaking country and started stretching it's economic wings, and countries determined that it would be a good idea to join in with the US's economic prosperity, coutnries decided to learn English....The number of English-speaking Chinese is because of the free market success of English-speaking nations, pure and simple. there is no other reason the Chinese earn English in such large numbers, and they learn it because they want to, because they want to participate in what we have going on.

It truly is the free market in action.

And if and when the US economy becomes a global joke , English will lose its hold.

Ik stel voor allemaal Nederlands te leren.

Google translate totally screwed that up.

"I will also point out that the French and Spanish were quite the colonialists as well. Less successful, I will point out, and thus their language, as a global language, has not been as successful."

Ermmm, all the Spanish colonies still speak Spanish. The French ones (for the most part) still speak French. Its a fairly standard rule. And so many Chinese speak English because so many Chinese that we meet (or at least I have met) internationally come from either Shanghai or Hong Kong - long time bastions of British colonialism.

I was going to include Russian, but then I'd have to include Pashtun and Telugu as well (since they have more speakers)

We are not talking about who still speaks language X. We are talking about what is the closest thing we have to a GLOBAL language. ENGLISH, the language of the US, is the most universally spoken language, and the US happens to have the largest, most influential Global economy.

That is the correlation.

The Chinese speaknig English are not all coming from Hong Kong....please. The Chinese school **teach** English for a specific reason -- global economics.

The point is that, while we need one language as accepted for business, each nation *should* retain it's heritage through language.

@Draug -- isnt' that the funny thing, though? Our country - driven by whackos on the left, usually - has gone through the diversity/Multi-cultural thing where everyone is supposed to be a hyphenated-american....and yet, when people have a different belief or different morality or different anything, they get their undies in a bunch...

That's what happens when you have no principled ideology to drive you - like freedom - but instead always live to enforce outcomes.

If you think about it, what is it that drives someone's desire for a universal language? There is a reason people want it, usually having something to do with some vague notion of "fairness" or other such nonsense...but it is driven by their philosophy of forcing other to behave in a particular manner in order to enforce their version of fairness or whatever.

Actually, your "one world government/utopia" is why so many fucktards want it. But I want diversity. I want communists and anarchists and athiests and Christians and.Jews and Muslims and I want democracies and monarchies and even socialist countries and countries with free market economies. I think the diversity makes us a greater whole than uniformity and that challenging ideas and competition makes mankind stronger. Ants have uniformity. They all work for the nest and have a hive mentality. Bees do to. The individuals can't think for themselves. But man has already achieved so much more than the ant or the bee. Why? Because competition and diversity drive us. Conformity stagnates us.

@SpeakerToAliens - I agee we should go with Sindarin, but it might be good to know a little Quenya as well.

@Draug - I agree.

I actually agree with draug in that respect

Let's not forget the Bible story of the Tower of Babel and what happened after that. :-)

It is kond of ironic that I view conformity as bad for progress but God's words in the story of Babel (which was more than just a tower but a whole magnificent city) makes it clear God thought "nothing will be impossible" for mankind (implying becoming God would he possible) which ia jist one more argument against the OT being factual and one for it being a series of stories meant to edplain their history amd.origins to a primitive early man millenia ago.