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English also has a lot of secondary speakers, is spoken in many different countries, and has huge numbers of people learning it, and is spoken in more different countries than any other language, making it the most useful language for communicating internationally.

Some useful facts here

You are right about the invalidity of the fragmentation argument.

If you ask google about "most widely spoken languages", you can find a number of good articles on the topic. Currently the first hit is http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/languages.htm, which gives a number of rankings of the top languages, depending on just how you phrase the question. They point out that the number of native speakers isn't necessarily the best way to judge the importance of a language. By that simple measure, Mandarin is the top language. But it isn't used much outside of east Asia. English, French and Spanish have fewer native speakers, but are more important in most of the world, for a number of reasons.

Anyway, you can learn a lot of interesting stuff about the topic by reading a few of the things in the above google search. It's a lot more complex than you might think, especially if you live in one of the parts of the world (e.g. the US) where most everyone speaks the same language.

http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/worldlang.htm

try to understand what it means for everyone to adapt english as a second language for business reasons, how that bleeds into the sciences and the arts...

now project into the future in terms of loan words, bleeding into other languages: taglish, franglais, etc...

the future is all english. its inevitable. its simply a matter of something set in motion in the colonial era. its not a good thing, nor a bad thing, it just happened, and can't be controlled, or stopped, nor changed by future developments: the die has been cast

so why do you have such an indignant little silly chip on your shoulder about all of this? no one is doing it on purpose

ps: it's been nice interacting with you... IN ENGLISH (thanks for proving my point!)

pfffft

nice to interact with you in english, the language of international business, and therefore, the language that every school in the world puts some sort of emphasis on

http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/worldlang.htm

do you think we still would be first touristic destination if we dropped our cultural identity ? and for what ?(cultural irrelevancy my ass, as if culture could ever be irrelevant) and please we do not need to fight to retain our culture, it sustain itself on its own pretty good imo

the japanese have been pretty busy studying, incorporating, and adapting western ways for over a century, and there is no such thing as no japanese culture. in fact, its pretty easy to identify japanese culture, and japanese culture is very strong in its own right

the value and strength of a culture is derived in fact from this cross pollination with other cultures. meanwhile, if you isolate or protect a culture, you weaken the culture

culture stands on its own, it requires no support, regardless of how INSECURE the people of that culture are:

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-184761138.html

I don't know. Somehow I think Chinese might edge out spanish... http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/worldlang.htm Unless you think the Chinese won't vote.

Most people speak English? I don't think that's true. Sorry, mate.

(Yes, your point is lost.)

as you can see from many comments here, the general opinion from "engineering" in the US is that learning a foreign language is a waste of time.

from a pure practical sense this viewpoint can be well supported as for almost all engineering jobs in the US a foreign language will be of very little benefit, and even abroad the majority of engineering positions will be English -> i.e. you don't _need_ it as virtually all educated people you would interact with speak English.

As an undergrad i wanted to continue with my foreign language from high school and was heavily discouraged by the engineering department, "it's a waste of time and you should take only required math/science courses to finish ASAP". (i took 3 semesters anyway)

but i would recommend learning a foreign language for the following reasons:
1) learning a foreign language broadens your perspective on language in general as well as your own language (and often culture) it also allows you a more objective perspective when dealing with others who are not native English speakers.
2) similar to programming, once you learn 1 foreign language, additional language are easier
3) it contributes to a more well-rounded classical education (i.e. helps overcome the "geek who can't relate to others" problem) and provides insight into new types of thinking/learning
4) if you actually want to live and work in a foreign country, knowing the basics is a huge boost
5) it's fun! (particularly then using what you learned when you travel)

as also previously mentioned, the best case is through immersion by doing a study abroad or foreign internship. i tried to do a study abroad but was not allowed by the engineering department where i was told i would lose my scholarship if i did not take at least x engineering credit hours AT the university every semester (and foreign credit did not apply so no chance)

in my case i studied some German in high school, then 3 semesters in college, then made virtually no use of my German as i worked in the US. after 7 years i took a job in Germany and had virtually no problems quickly becoming quite proficient in the language. (first position was English, all subsequent positions primarily in German)

as to the language of choice: the most important aspect is choosing one that interests you so there is a high chance of your using it (i.e. interest in traveling/living there). the next factor maybe the number of countries/people using the language, so something like Weber's weighted list:
      1. English (37)
      2. French (23)
      3. Spanish (20)
      4. Russian (16)
      5. Arabic (14)
      6. Chinese (13)
      7. German (12)
      8. Japanese (10)
      9. Portuguese (10)
    10. Hindi/Urdu (9)
http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/languages.htm

German is not as difficult as it's made out to be as spelling is phonetic, and once you learn the rules there a FAR fewer exceptions than many other languages (e.g. English). The Germans are particularly friendly to English-speakers and the level of English knowledge is high, so you can get by without, but if you WANT to learn then it's very supportive.

Spanish, within the U.S., is spoken by at least ten percent of the population (around 32 million domestically, plus Spanish is spoken by approximately 330 million worldwide), so that's a good starting place.

As it's a Romance Language, Spanish is an excellent gateway to Italian (around 60 million world-wide), Portuguese (together with Brazilian Portuguese, around 170 million), and French (80 million), not to mention all the second cousins (Catalan, Romansh, etc.)

Since the OP appears to read/write English, there's also German, Dutch and a host of tangentially related languages (Swedish is semi-related, I think, going by the swedish subs sometimes included in DVDs and the like, might not be so difficult to learn. Plus, think of the dating opportunities while visiting...)

Spanish, within the U.S., is spoken by at least ten percent of the population (around 32 million domestically, plus Spanish is spoken by approximately 330 million worldwide), so that's a good starting place.

As it's a Romance Language, Spanish is an excellent gateway to Italian (around 60 million world-wide), Portuguese (together with Brazilian Portuguese, around 170 million), and French (80 million), not to mention all the second cousins (Catalan, Romansh, etc.)

Since the OP appears to read/write English, there's also German, Dutch and a host of tangentially related languages (Swedish is semi-related, I think, going by the swedish subs sometimes included in DVDs and the like, might not be so difficult to learn. Plus, think of the dating opportunities while visiting...)

Spanish, within the U.S., is spoken by at least ten percent of the population (around 32 million domestically, plus Spanish is spoken by approximately 330 million worldwide), so that's a good starting place.

As it's a Romance Language, Spanish is an excellent gateway to Italian (around 60 million world-wide), Portuguese (together with Brazilian Portuguese, around 170 million), and French (80 million), not to mention all the second cousins (Catalan, Romansh, etc.)

Since the OP appears to read/write English, there's also German, Dutch and a host of tangentially related languages (Swedish is semi-related, I think, going by the swedish subs sometimes included in DVDs and the like, might not be so difficult to learn. Plus, think of the dating opportunities while visiting...)

Seems like Arabic will be the official language of France before too long.

Try 600,000 [US Arabic speakers], by the last census.

Such numbers are notoriously variable, as they depend on your definition. Here's an interesting article on the general topic. They mention that different studies differ by around a factor of two for the number of "speakers" of English, Spanish and Hindi. I've read a number of similar discussions that mention such problems as whether children are counted (probably not if you're counting voters or looking to hire translators) or whether there's any sort of social or political stigma to knowledge of a language (as often happens with minority languages).

But your other points are quite relevant. Translation is a difficult job at best, and doesn't usually pay what it's worth. When you add in social stigmas and official repression, it's not at all surprising that government agencies might have problems hiring translators for an "enemy" language. Even when there are people capable of doing the job (perhaps with a bit of training), they often have good reasons to not want to get involved.

. . . Samenuk was named a distinguished alumnus at his high school alma mater, Saint Ignatius in Cleveland, Ohio, earlier this year.

http://www.ignatius.edu/advancement/alumni/Awards/ default.shtm

Sorry, I couldn't figure out how to link this properly; this is my first comment.

You are completely incorrect. Mandarin is spoken as a native language by more people than speak English as a second language. A simple Google search will demonstrate that there are roughly 800 million native speakers of Mandarin today, and over 1 billion speakers (including people who speak it as a second language). By contrast, there are only 500 million or so speakers of English in the world today, which includes people who speak English as a second language. I know, you're thinking to yourself, what about India? In reality only the educated in India speak English well enough to be considered fluent by any standard -- and with poverty as widespread as it is in that nation, it should be hardly surprising that most people there are not really conversant enough to be considered real secondary speakers.

Of course a simple google search will verify all of this, but since this is Slashdot and people are lazy, here is a rather involved article on the topic.

I will grant that at the rate people are learning English these days, English may one day pass Mandarin, but it's going to take a while.

http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/languages. htm

Chinese outnumbers all other languages in the world. I think they're just preparing to take over the internet.

Over the next 20 years the majority of web pages will shift from English to Chinese anyway

It depends who you ask. Things apparently get complicated when you start talking about second languages. For example, English is spoken in many countries where Spanish is the official standard and Spanish itself has a large footprint in the country with the most native Anglophones.

1 - Chinese* (937,132,000)
2 - Spanish (332,000,000)
3 - English (322,000,000)
4 - Bengali (189,000,000)
5 - Hindi/Urdu (182,000,000)
6 - Arabic* (174,950,000)
7 - Portuguese (170,000,000)
8 - Russian (170,000,000)
9 - Japanese (125,000,000)
10 - German (98,000,000)
11 - French* (79,572,000)

(BTW, there are several other versions of the top languages on the linked site, but NONE of them show native French speakers outnumbering Portuguese speakers, so :p The asterisks indicate there are more than a single version of the language included, since Chinese "dialects," for example, are mutually incomprehensible and ought to be considered separate languages, IMHO.)

Back on topic--Lula is doing a great job, even if some of his leftist buddies feel a bit betrayed (re. GMO soybeans, for example) and the official embrace of open software is really going to help people. There are internet cafes running Linux, so those without computers still have opportunities to learn. In the US, many people are willing to pay extra money for software to save themselves some labor. In Brazil, labor is the cheapest resource there is, so people are more willing to take the time to learn how to use Linux rather than pay a Microsoft fee. Eventually Linux will be as easy to use as Windows, but I don't know how good that is. The farther you are abstracted from what the computer's doing, the less you understand what's going on under the hood. How much you want to bet that Brazilians learning Linux hands-on are going to be way more likely to know how to troubleshoot a malfunctioning internet connection than someone who only knows XP.

I think you're referring to this.

Let us compare the top spoken language statistics. Comparing the nearly 3 billion speakers of the top 11 languages to the 500k users of Icelandic, I'd have to say that's one of the weirdest, to put it politely, reason to slag "M$" ever. (Not that there aren't plenty of others.)

(Do you even speak Icelandic?)

And I came up with this obviously acedemic images of the Euro. I'm sure that no matter what is put into place by the creators of the drivers, there will always be a way around them.