Is English righfully the Lingua Franca of our times?

Do you believe that English is rightfully the Lingua Franca of our times?

  • Yes

    Votes: 7 70.0%
  • No

    Votes: 3 30.0%

  • Total voters
    10

Echetlaeus

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It is true that the Brits created a big empire for many years based in trade. Of course this gave space for their language to become the Lingua Franca of our times. To me it seems that English is ill structured and without essence. Sometimes I feel that something is missing.

Your thoughts about this topic are welcome.
 
I'm sure there are similar threads there already. Try finding existing before creating duplicates, please.
 
I'm sure there are similar threads there already. Try finding existing before creating duplicates, please.

Where is it? If this is the case, let the moderator delete this thread LB.
 
I believe English is more popular these days because of American influence rather than the British empire or at least greatly encouraged it. Through history Lingua Franka changed many times for the same reasons. The only difference now that the world has become such a smaller place through easy access of Travel and communications so some kind of common language is needed to avoid the babylon effect.

Chinese is the most spoken language but its insular, and Spanish and French could have been a great challenge and offered a huge resistance for change BUT just my opinion I find that English is becoming more and more acceptable even with all these great languages.
 
One of strongest sides of english language is it's simplicity. It has already a very simplified grammar and is a mixture of other languages like germanic, french and latin. It is a natural form of "Esperanto".
 
I think the easiest to pronounce, most expressive, and good structured, is Italian.
 
I was thinking Ancient Greek, for it is the most magnificent of all languages. Pure Math in it.

BTW Greek >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Latin >>>>> Italian ~ French >>>>>>>>>> other languages
 
One of strongest sides of english language is it's simplicity. It has already a very simplified grammar and is a mixture of other languages like germanic, french and latin. It is a natural form of "Esperanto".


I agree with all of that, much as I love my native language.

English also has, I think, the largest vocabulary of all the languages, partly because it has, indeed, been influenced by so many other languages. So, it's a language capable of great nuance and subtlety, which is one of the reasons that it's a language so very suited to literature.

I've grown to love it, but still, it doesn't have the beautiful sound, intonation and rhythm of Italian.
 
I agree with all of that, much as I love my native language.

English also has, I think, the largest vocabulary of all the languages, partly because it has, indeed, been influenced by so many other languages. So, it's a language capable of great nuance and subtlety, which is one of the reasons that it's a language so very suited to literature.

I've grown to love it, but still, it doesn't have the beautiful sound, intonation and rhythm of Italian.

English does not have the largest vocabulary, but Greek has. It can create any word needed to describe everything in the Universe. We do not need anything from the other languages, but other languages do.

Long story short, we should try to not use barbaric words in modern Greek too (and yes, this is how teachers/philologists call the foreign words in our schools, the so called βαρβαρίζειν).

I know it will not happen, but I dare to dream!
 
Why use the adjective "rightfully". Is this the case about right or wrong?
 
English has by far the largest vocabulary, and I think the most flexibility of any major language, and it benefits by being spoken very widely around the world, as a result of the British and American empires. For example, English is an official language of India. And because the British and American empires provided so much funding for scientific research and so many modern technical inventions were either invented or popularized in either Britain or America, English is the most commonly accepted language of science and technology. However, many people whose second language is English don't realize that they speak a very simplified version of English, or that many of the nuances and complexities of English are hidden within particular dialects of English. It's very easy to learn basic English, but that doesn't mean that three average people from Melbourne, Delhi and Glasgow could sit down and have a detailed conversation about anything without a translator.

I think one of the easiest languages to learn is actually Spanish, since all its verbs are regular. And Spanish speaking people in the Americas seem to generally have a very pleasant, musical accent, although I've learned that isn't necessarily true of Spaniards from Spain.
 
English has by far the largest vocabulary, and I think the most flexibility of any major language, and it benefits by being spoken very widely around the world, as a result of the British and American empires. For example, English is an official language of India. And because the British and American empires provided so much funding for scientific research and so many modern technical inventions were either invented or popularized in either Britain or America, English is the most commonly accepted language of science and technology. However, many people whose second language is English don't realize that they speak a very simplified version of English, or that many of the nuances and complexities of English are hidden within particular dialects of English. It's very easy to learn basic English, but that doesn't mean that three average people from Melbourne, Delhi and Glasgow could sit down and have a detailed conversation about anything without a translator.

I think one of the easiest languages to learn is actually Spanish, since all its verbs are regular. And Spanish speaking people in the Americas seem to generally have a very pleasant, musical accent, although I've learned that isn't necessarily true of Spaniards from Spain.

Proof or it did not happen!
Now we will measure it, so as to see who has it bigger :grin:.

And apart from that, what is English without German, French, Greek and other words that has internally, possibly, from other languages? Is [she = the language] able to express complex ideas on its own (I mean with actual English words, not those that it has borrowed from the other languages)? And above all, how can you say that English can be a language on its own, when it has so many words from the others? Someone can claim that it is not a language, but a mishmash, a combo, of other languages, with the English part being the larger one.

For example why you use phenomenon/a? Do you have a synonym for it (with the exact meaning)? Why equilibrium/a? This are basic words, yet you have borrowed them from Greek and Latin.

Please, elaborate in great detail and praise the Greek language as the most important of all, in the past, now, and for the years to come.
 
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Yes, English language is most known to varied persons in varied country. It is common language of Earth.
 
Echetlaeus, I have such a hard time understanding you. I cant tell if you are being serious or just joking around with all of your posts. It is ok have a strong opinion but when it is obvious for everyone to see that you cannot be objective it is hard to give much credibility to any of your posts. It is ok to embrace ones own culture and history but you are so extreme in your beliefs and nationalistic that I do not think you could even comprahend anything without greek tinted lenses. Have you ever heard of this saying; that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery? Sure the english language may borrow words from everyone but that is the nature of the language, it is fluid and always changing as time passes by. I think that english is spoken by a great many people because we all need a common language to understand each other with and it is that simple. The sheer amount of native english speakers throughout history and that we are spread all across the globe and on every habitable continent helps lend to english being a form of common.

But my question to you would be what do you think is missing in English? Why does it lack essence? If english is so barbaric why would one educate yourself in a country full of barbarians speaking an ill structured language?
 
For example why you use phenomenon/a? Do you have a synonym for it (with the exact meaning)? Why equilibrium/a? This are basic words, yet you have borrowed them from Greek and Latin.
See, it is already an international language by composition

Please, elaborate in great detail and praise the Greek language as the most important of all, in the past, now, and for the years to come.
You are nationalistic extremist and you shouldn't be allow between international community. It even makes me wonder why the heck you've learned English?! To be able to make more enemies?
 
Proof or it did not happen!
Now we will measure it, so as to see who has it bigger :grin:.

And apart from that, what is English without German, French, Greek and other words that has internally, possibly, from other languages? Is [she = the language] able to express complex ideas on its own (I mean with actual English words, not those that it has borrowed from the other languages)? And above all, how can you say that English can be a language on its own, when it has so many words from the others? Someone can claim that it is not a language, but a mishmash, a combo, of other languages, with the English part being the larger one.

For example why you use phenomenon/a? Do you have a synonym for it (with the exact meaning)? Why equilibrium/a? This are basic words, yet you have borrowed them from Greek and Latin.

Please, elaborate in great detail and praise the Greek language as the most important of all, in the past, now, and for the years to come.


As any reasonable person would conclude, it's almost impossible to accurately list all the words in a particular language. However, if you compare the size of an English and a Greek dictionary, you'll see that the English dictionary (if comprehensive) is much larger. And I find it strange that you talk about the English language "borrowing" words from German and French, since English was derived from a fusion of West German dialects with Norman French superimposed on it after the Norman conquest. And there's nothing strange about English borrowing from Latin, since Latin was the lingua franca of the Middle Ages, as well as being the precursor of French. Some words are borrowed from Greek because they express an idea readily - Greek is quite useful for some things but ill adapted for others, whereas English is flexible enough for any task, and if it needs a word it doesn't have, it simply borrows from another language. English is better able than some other languages to digest foreign words, which is one of the things that makes it such a useful language. And the simplified grammer also helps. I'm glad we don't still have all the cases that we originally inherited from German, for example.
 
C'mon bros, you take it so seriously :petrified:
 
See, it is already an international language by composition

You are nationalistic extremist and you shouldn't be allow between international community. It even makes me wonder why the heck you've learned English?! To be able to make more enemies?

Wow, I never thought about it. I never voted the right wing in my life. Ban me now to end my misery sir! I learned English for educational issues.

Seriously now, how can I erase this account in Eupedia. After all, I don't get along well with all you people. So it would be better leave ...:sad-2:
 
Echetlaeus, I have such a hard time understanding you. I cant tell if you are being serious or just joking around with all of your posts. It is ok have a strong opinion but when it is obvious for everyone to see that you cannot be objective it is hard to give much credibility to any of your posts. It is ok to embrace ones own culture and history but you are so extreme in your beliefs and nationalistic that I do not think you could even comprahend anything without greek tinted lenses. Have you ever heard of this saying; that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery? Sure the english language may borrow words from everyone but that is the nature of the language, it is fluid and always changing as time passes by. I think that english is spoken by a great many people because we all need a common language to understand each other with and it is that simple. The sheer amount of native english speakers throughout history and that we are spread all across the globe and on every habitable continent helps lend to english being a form of common.

But my question to you would be what do you think is missing in English? Why does it lack essence? If english is so barbaric why would one educate yourself in a country full of barbarians speaking an ill structured language?

Ua'Ronain, you spoke directly and clearly and I like that. I like the proverb that you used as well.
Nothing is missing in English, as the other people said, it's an easy language to go around. But I do not like the fact that some people act like it's the best language in the world, for example ancient Greek is better structured and has internal logic. That's my only complaint from some people.

And why my posts are like that?
Well, mostly because I want to see how people think about specific topics that are important in my country, and most of the times, people tend to reveal their real nature when the post is intriguing and caustic.
 
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