English Has the Scientific Edge -- For Now (axios.com)

For centuries, science was a multilingual affair, powered by French, German, English and other tongues. But since the early 1970s, English has become the undisputed lingua franca of scientific papers, conferences, and discourse. From a report: English-speaking countries now have a huge leg up in technical research, including the current rages -- artificial intelligence and quantum computing. But, while English is highly unlikely to be dethroned, its advantages are eroding due to an increasingly healthy research environment in China, the fast transmission of research papers across the internet, and AI-aided translation technology that is shrinking the language barrier. [...] The dominance of English gives native speakers a huge advantage, says Michael Gordin, a Princeton professor who specializes in the role of language in technological advance.

Comments

Not entirely

[WindBourne]

There is a good reason why Chemistry majors have to learn German. Basically, it remains (well, it did back in 2000) the main research language for Chemistry (though not bio-chem, which was English ).

Re:Not entirely

[jabuzz]

Going back a bit further everything was in Latin.

Re: Not entirely

[Anonymous Coward]

And msmash is a moron.

Re:Not entirely

[gweihir]

That has been over for a while now. The last German-language Chemistry journal shut down something like 10 years ago.

Re:Not entirely

[Anonymous Coward]

Going back a bit further everything was in Latin.

I will end this right now: in the beginning everything was (and remains...) Greek!

Re:Not entirely

[Anonymous Coward]

Before that, it was all Greek to me!

Thank you, thank you. I'm here all week.

Re:Not entirely

[Oswald McWeany]

Going back a bit further everything was in Latin.

Indeed, and that wasn't a bad idea because most learned men of most (western) nations knew Latin.

I'd argue Esperanto might be a better language for scientific papers going forwards. It's perhaps the easiest language to learn (of the well known languages), it is, itself very scientific in how it is put together. Has a smaller group of root words, but they can be combined more easily than other languages. It wouldn't take much to make Esperanto the language of the learned it is so easy to learn.

It is mostly based on European languages; but even China sees value in it- they post official in Esperanto too- and have the most learnersof Esperanto of any country. It truly is a global language though owned by no nation but accessible to anyone.

Re:Not entirely

[cashman73]

I teach chemistry at the college level in the United States, and we do not require our chemistry majors to take German. My PhD program had a foreign language requirement back in the late 90s when I started, but no specific language requirement. Since I am a computational chemist, they allowed me to substitute a foreign language with a computer programming course. I guess computer languages were foreign to most faculty at the time,. . .

Re:Not entirely

[cashman73]

I don't speak Greek, but if you're a scientist and don't know the Greek alphabet, that could be problematic,. . .

Re:Not entirely

[Oswald McWeany]

As a further observation. Russia and China might object to "English" on political grounds (and the West would certainly bristle at the complicated Mandarin and be politically opposed to learning Russian).

Esperanto gets rid of politics when trying to come up with standards.

Re:Not entirely

[WindBourne]

Yupe, You are right about no German required for ACS. Interesting that there are no more German based journals.
I just checked Colorado State (alma mater) chem curriculum for ACS, and apparently, no longer required.
Kind of a bummer. I did not have to do that since I only had a minor, but I thought that it was useful.

Re:Not entirely

[The Original CDR]

Before the Tower of Babel, it was all Akkadian.

Re:Not entirely

[pgmrdlm]

I was thinking that asian, german, or even some eastern european countries would be up there first

Re:Not entirely

[superwiz]

it is, itself very scientific in how it is put together

Which is why it's not a language. Languages needs to develop and to have concepts which are fused into one (by becoming interchangeable) or split into multiple ones (through increased subtlety).

Re:Not entirely

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations, you just used language to fail to communicate any meaning.

Re:Not entirely

[superwiz]

That's funny. Why is it that every Russian wants to hide being Russian by pretending to be perennially British? "Oswald McWeany"? There is no "the West" as a form of political thought. That's modern Russian state's political mythology.

There is also no "proper" Russian language. The idea that anyone outside of Russia would object to learning Russian for political reasons is just weird. The only question is what is the better Russian to learn? Certainly the Russian Federation (with its population of only 145 million) does not have any more monopoly on normative Russian than UK has monopoly on normative English. Ukraine, for example, can develop its own version of Russian, as a state language, and instill it with different norms.

And while the methodology of secondary math education is better in Russia than it is in most of the US (education is simply not uniform in the US and cannot be compared as a whole rather than district-by-district), the French math education is competitive against Russia despite being quite different. Chinese secondary math/science education is almost identical in methodology to the Russian one, but, of course, it's in a different language.

Re:Not entirely

[Anonymous Coward]

Before the Tower of Babel, it was all Akkadian.

I (the anonymous you replied to... and a Greek as you may suspect!), with my "in the beginning everything was Greek" hyperbole, was refering to the "scientific edge" part of the article's title - but since you mentioned it: the Talmud teaches that the Torah can be translated adequately only in Greek.

Re:Not entirely

[superwiz]

Only if you don't know anything about Esperanto. It attempts to have a 1-1 relationship between words and concepts. And I pointed out why that's a fool's errand.

Re:Not entirely

[Anonymous Coward]

I know a fair amount about Esperanto, and your claim is utterly false.

Re:Not entirely

[Anonymous Coward]

You're talking to cre1mer. He can only understand ideas presented in the language of corny marketing drones.

Re:Not entirely

[Anonymous Coward]

Here you are accusing this user of being creimer while ignoring creimer's comment. Sad.Just fucking sad.

Re:Not entirely

[nmr_andrew]

You're half right. When I started my Ph. D. in Chemistry in 1993, there was no more formal language requirement, and for a number of years prior to that grad students had to show working proficiency in one of (IIRC) German, Russian, French, or Japanese.

OTOH, there are still German chemistry journals. Angewandte Chemie publishes in both German and English, or did last time I bothered to look at the non-international version. AFAIK, several other journals such as Zeitschrift Naturforschung are still published. I think some of the journals require that the abstract appear in both languages.

Of course, many of our German colleagues speak English as well as if not better than most Americans speak English.

Re:Not entirely

[Anonymous Coward]

Going back a bit further everything was in Latin.

Actually, it wasn't. Not totally at least.
Science as we know it now (as opposite to the "natural philosophy" /or just 'philosophy'/) is a relatively modern(-ish) invention. It was developed when 3 major ethnic languages + one auxiliary were raising to the power. French, German, English and Latin. They all had, for most of the modern time pretty much up to the 1 world war, roughly equal share in the science (although Latin started loosing its importance in the latter part of XIX centuary; Russian rose somehow but not much).
Since second world war it is English that dominates. Russian was important, but it is not anymore. approx. 96% of all scientific journals are written in English

Re:Not entirely

[Hognoxious]

Languages needs to develop and to have concepts which are fused into one (by becoming interchangeable) or split into multiple ones (through increased subtlety).

No they doesn't. Stop lying.

Re:Not entirely

[Anne Thwacks]

However, time has moved on.

English is the market leader because it is the language with the largest vocabulary by a very large margin. With this comes a culture of being very specific by choosing from a large number of words with quite similar meanings (despite the best efforts of many whose vocabulary is very limited).

Many other languages have far smaller vocabularies, and have cultures where being specific is not highly prized. This makes them less suitable for science and engineering,

In my relatively limited experience, Chinese falls into this category. German is certainly less specific than English in matters relating to time.

However, if you wish to deliberately obfuscate, I highly recommend Pidgin English - see https://www.bbc.com/pidgin for the official BBC version. Try using that for your next PHD on thermodynamic processes involving sub-atomic particles (or the benefits of a Vegan diet for Youtube users). I assume you can still claim it was English if you can cite the BBC. No be so, abi?

Re:Not entirely

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd argue Esperanto might be a better language for scientific papers going forwards.

Esperanto wasn't good enough for that 100 years ago, it's even less now.

It's perhaps the easiest language to learn (of the well known languages),

The easiest- for whom? (Not for everybody if you are going to say it).
And one would argue that, even for someone who speaks English and English only Esperanto is the easiest. Even Ido is simpler.

it is, itself very scientific in how it is put together.

There is nothing "scientific" about it. Even it's spin-off language, Ido, is better for various scientific use ("better" doesn't mean "perfect" or even "good enough").

Has a smaller group of root words, but they can be combined more easily than other languages.

More easily, and yet it's less clear when compared to other languages (again, even to Ido)

It wouldn't take much to make Esperanto the language of the learned

good luck with that. keep trying for another 130 years or so.

it is so easy to learn.

that phrase has absolutely nothing to do with your previous phrase.

It truly is a global language

not as much as English, French or Spanish. Or even Arabic (MSA)

though owned by no nation but accessible to anyone

neither is English

Re:Not entirely

[Anonymous Coward]

As a further observation. Russia and China might object to "English" on political grounds (and the West would certainly bristle at the complicated Mandarin and be politically opposed to learning Russian).

Esperanto gets rid of politics when trying to come up with standards.

... and yet English literature (scientific one) thrives in those countries. In China it's simplifies communication among groups of scientists that not necessiraly speak the same language.

Re:Not entirely

[rtb61]

The unreality of saying it is easier to make people learn a second language that just sticking with English, yeah kind of fucking stupid, which is exactly why Esperanto is exactly where it is. I remeber coming across an old text about battle English, the created language which merged together a series of other languages to make communications on the battlefield possible across a variety of nationalities.

English ain't even English in reality, not a regional tongue but an assemblage of regional tongues, mainly European but as it spreads further gaining other words and continually changing.

For Russians and Chinese it makes sense to create their version of English to make it easier to learn for their citizens but still allow global communications, which of course craps all over the corporate main stream media distortions about the world and who is really causing the trouble and who are really the victims, this made possible by language differences, those people victims of the predatory US, not being able to readily publicly speak to the rest of the world.

Suck it up, English and it's variations are the language that will dominate but cheer up, based upon the English of the past, it will not be the current English but one that is crafted in the future out of for example Russia English and Chinese English just like the English for dummies American English. So they add in the cultural expressions and some of the most used words and if they are accepted they tend to spread globally.

Re: Not entirely

[Anonymous Coward]

Your point is well takenâ"early synthesis papers are heavily German. But, as a recent chemistry major at a school with a/the top ranked chemistry program, there was no such requirement...and no one I knew there learned German for this purpose.

Re:Not entirely

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet more lies you spout without a care in the world of being accurate or not.

Re:Not entirely

[gweihir]

Sure, the Journals did not shut down. But they either switched to English or now allow English in addition.

Re: Not entirely

[Anonymous Coward]

English is popular because of history of the last 70 years not because of a âoehuge vocabularyâ there are much older languages with a much richer vocabulary (and very long history in science) like Arabic for example. English didnâ(TM)t even exist yet when they were doing science in Arabic.

I wouldnâ(TM)t say English has a particularly rich vocabulary in fact most of its scientific vocabulary comes from Latin

Re:Not entirely

[Anonymous Coward]

[ about Esperanto...]

>>_ It truly is a global language

>_ not as much as English, French or Spanish. Or even Arabic (MSA)

>>_ though owned by no nation but accessible to anyone

>_ neither is English

English may not be owned -- and that is really a problem, because it has no underlying logic and grows in any direction, and eventually will lose its "language" characteristic -- but accessible to anyone it sure is not.

Everyone who is well-versed in language learning frown at English, while all those who have a hard time will favor it -- either because it's already their first language or because they mistakenly think it is easier to learn just one additional one.

There is not much sense in comparing Esperanto to English, such is the difference in complexity. Esperanto is like riding a tricycle, while English would be like using a competition motorcycle... it's great until you fall.

Inexperienced people can speak Esperanto, meanwhile skilled long time native English speakers sometimes fail at using it (as can be seen in lots of Youtube videos).

Vocabulary? Ask the Japanese how easy is to adapt a new word from a foreign language.

About the wider discussion, most scientific articles in English are junk, because of the use of US/Imperial units (feet, inches and other body parts). That is totally unscientific.

Re:Not entirely

[Anonymous Coward]

>_ The unreality of saying it is easier to make people learn a second language that just sticking with English, yeah kind of fucking stupid, which is exactly why Esperanto is exactly where it is.

What do you mean? Most people don't have English as a first language, so they cannot stick with it. A couple of Google searches say English native speakers are 4.4% of the world population (that is, a 0.04 share of the number of living people -- not exactly much, heh?). Google "number of native english speakers in world" and "world population 2018", if you don't believe me. We're talking native speakers here because you've mentioned not learning a second language.

And why learn English in countries where you're exposed to e.g. French culture?

>_ English ain't even English in reality, not a regional tongue but an assemblage of regional tongues, mainly European but as it spreads further gaining other words and continually changing.

That's why it's not English and that's why English is not as important as you believe it to be.

For a while, French was the most used world language but its time passed... guess what will happen to English? What will be the next? Mandarin? Japanese? Korean? I got no idea (but according to my daughter, Korean is easier).

I guess English will hold for a long time in certain niches, just like French is still important in diplomacy, but I think Esperanto would be a less painful way. I specially recommend it over English as a way to get a more faithful translation of works from most countries.

Re: Not entirely

[SG83]

English is popular because of history of the last 70 years not because of a âoehuge vocabularyâ

English was used for science long before it become popular.

there are much older languages with a much richer vocabulary (and very long history in science) like Arabic for example.

what are arabic words for TV, hadron collider, epigenetics, stereochemistry etc? btw, while arabic was popular amongst the philosopher during the middle ages (much more than latin tbh), since the Renneisance Arab speaking word ceased to produce anything worthy. How many Nobel Prize winners are Arabs?

English didnâ(TM)t even exist yet when they were doing science in Arabic.

and yet pretty much all the science is done in English now, for hundreds of years almost none done in Arabic. funny, innit?

I wouldnâ(TM)t say English has a particularly rich vocabulary in fact most of its scientific vocabulary comes from Latin

there is more words in English of greco-latin origin than there were words in ancient greek (not surprisingly, we know now a bit more).

Re:Not entirely

[SG83]

Most people don't have English as a first language, so they cannot stick with it. A couple of Google searches say English native speakers are 4.4% of the world population (that is, a 0.04 share of the number of living people -- not exactly much, heh?). Google "number of native english speakers in world" and "world population 2018", if you don't believe me. We're talking native speakers here because you've mentioned not learning a second language.

... which still takes it to the top of the most commonly spoken languages. Moder Standard Arabic, or Chinese isn't "native" to most Arabs or Chinese, respectively. Beside- what's "native"? Is English "native" in Scandinavia, where it is spoken quite often "better" than in the UK? Beside- English is the one of very few (if not the only one) lingo which has more L2 speakers than L1. and the ratio is like 4:1 or more.

And why learn English in countries where you're exposed to e.g. French culture?

In these countries one learns French. Than one realizes that they are better off with English and learn it. Remember- we are talking about the scientific world. Like it or not, French is almost non-existent there.

>_ English ain't even English in reality, not a regional tongue but an assemblage of regional tongues, mainly European but as it spreads further gaining other words and continually changing.

there is Standard English, like it or not. French or German aren't "French and German in reality" they are- to a degree- constructed languages, taught at school as a part of unification of country. Regional dialects differ, quite a lot.

That's why it's not English and that's why English is not as important as you believe it to be.

It's unrelated to what you wrote before. And yeah, English is important.

For a while, French was the most used world language but its time passed...

Even in diplomacy, French was never even close as popular as English is in the sciences. Not even close. None language ever was- not Greek, not Arabic, not Classical Chinese nor Latin.

guess what will happen to English?

God thanks there is no Royal Academy for English, and English words (and syntax, and grammar) change their meaning over time (slowly). I don't have doubts that English still will be a leading lingo in sciences in 100 years or more. But it may be a different English to the one we use as a standard. Beside- one doesn't have to wait for that. Already European English differs a bit from the one used in the UK and USA.

What will be the next? Mandarin?

Most scientific journals in China are written in English (with Chinese regionalisms).

Japanese? Korean?

Why do you think any of those countries would become powerhouse for science? Why would you think other countries would accept these languages for using them in science?

I got no idea (but according to my daughter, Korean is easier).

script most certainly is.

I guess English will hold for a long time in certain niches, just like French is still important in diplomacy,

When the Chinese diplomats talk with German ones, do they speak French or English? When Argentinian one speaks with Greeks, do they use French or English? French still, obviously is somehow important- but apart from the former colonies it isn't really used that much in diplomacy. not anymore

but I think Esperanto would be a less painful way. I specially recommend it over English as a way to get a more faithful translation of works from most countries.

1. Esperanto is unchangeable, monolithic lingo and therefore unlikely to be accepted by anyone than its enthusiasts. 2. Esperanto is useless for science (and that's the use i'm mostly concerned about). Ido has shown it (but it's also useless now). 3. Esperanto's international vocabulary is a joke. If any of the non-ethnic languages would, somehow, dominate the scientific languages it would be the Interlingua

Re:Not entirely

[SG83]

>No they doesn't. Stop lying.

Which language hasn't changed for centuries and still is useful today? icelandic? nope latin? nope classical arabic? nope

Re:Not entirely

[Hognoxious]

Which language hasn't changed for centuries and still is useful today?

Is that a necessary condition for something to be a language?

By your "logic" if I sit down with the kids tomorrow and we invent a new language then it's not a language.

Re:Not entirely

[SG83]

English may not be owned -- and that is really a problem, because it has no underlying logic

... and yet people use it, and have no problem with that. Somehow it's a language of choice for most who have to co-operate with people from other nations.

and grows in any direction, and eventually will lose its "language" characteristic -- but accessible to anyone it sure is not.

every language changes. Massive base of already produced text will be accessible for people using future variations of English.

Everyone who is well-versed in language learning frown at English,

elaborate

while all those who have a hard time will favor it -- either because it's already their first language or because they mistakenly think it is easier to learn just one additional one.

... or maybe because it is a quite easy to learn for (for at least B1/B2 level); it doesn't take a long time to speak communicative language. it's grammar is far easier than Spanish or Russian one.

There is not much sense in comparing Esperanto to English, such is the difference in complexity. Esperanto is like riding a tricycle, while English would be like using a competition motorcycle... it's great until you fall.

... or unless you actually want to read anything other than the language course- in that case Esperanto has absolutely nothing to offer, while there is a plethora of sources in English.

Inexperienced people can speak Esperanto, meanwhile skilled long time native English speakers sometimes fail at using it (as can be seen in lots of Youtube videos).

... can speak Esperanto with whom? There is hardly any speakers of it. And no, Esperanto's phonetics isn't really that easy for non-Europeans. While, I must admit, English orthography is a rather... peculiar (when compared to Esperanto or even Spanish), I must add that's using YT videos of someone mis-pronuncing words isn't really any proof. "Badly" (i.e. non conforming to the, loosely defined, standard) English is the most common English

Vocabulary? Ask the Japanese how easy is to adapt a new word from a foreign language.

no, it's not easy. Are you aware how hard was 'scientification' of Russian?

About the wider discussion, most scientific articles in English are junk, because of the use of US/Imperial units (feet, inches and other body parts). That is totally unscientific.

When I comment I try to show respect to my interlocutors, which of course mean that- even when I don't agree with them- I prefer not to use vulgar words. But forgive me, but your last quote is probably the most idiotic text i've read this weak.

Re:Not entirely

[Anonymous Coward]

>_ Beside- what's "native"? Is English "native" in Scandinavia, where it is spoken quite often "better" than in the UK?

Native is what the OP was talking about (his/her idea was "why learn a second language?). What you say might be valid but is out of context.

>_ there is Standard English, like it or not.

You quoted and answered the OP, not my answer to her/him.

>_ It's unrelated to what you wrote before.

That's because you mixed the original post and my comment. And I guess you didn't get my point.

>_ And yeah, English is important.

I said "not as important"; I didn't say it was unimportant.

>_ I don't have doubts that English still will be a leading lingo in sciences in 100 years or more.

Are you willing to make that opinion into a bet? :-)

>_ When the Chinese diplomats talk with German ones...

You'd think they'd speak in English, right? Ever conceived a Chinese diplomat speaking perfect Spanish? Well, last week I hear one speak my language perfectly -- so much in fact that were I not seeing him on TV, I'd think he was a native.

Besides, the risk of speaking English and being misunderstood is too high when international relations are at stake.

For businessmen, you might have a point, but I've heard learning Chinese gives one a powerful edge, so there.

Your comments about Esperanto are off base. It is a dynamic language and perfectly usable, though I agree it's not widespread. Ido and Interlingua are much less used.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_between_Esperanto_and_Interlingua#Number_of_speakers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_between_Esperanto_and_Ido#Number_of_speakers

I may be wrong, but you seem no to know Esperanto. It is known to be concise and precise. Great qualities for scientific text... but the use of technical terminology is why we still use Latin expressions in Law...

And yet....

[cayenne8]

....you're hearing less and less English spoken in the US these days.

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

Did Americans ever speak proper English?

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

Learning doesn't only exist in school. Don't blame Americans because you're spending your time commenting on Slashdot instead of pursuing your deep desire to learn other languages.

Re:And yet....

[kilfarsnar]

....you're hearing less and less English spoken in the US these days.

You're saying that like it's a bad thing. The US doesn't have an official language. I would think that in the Land of the Free people could speak whatever language they want.

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

Did Americans ever speak proper English?

Most Americans still understand and respect the concept of pronunciation, so don't assume we recognize shit like "ebonics" as some kind of acceptable form of communication.

In short, yes, Americans can and do speak proper English, unless your intent here is to devolve this conversation even further and argue over the term "proper".

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

Bloody well right...

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

I speak well English good!

Re:And yet....

[Oswald McWeany]

....you're hearing less and less English spoken in the US these days.

I know, it's great, I love hearing all the different languages spoken, it's like being in a modern country now.

Re:And yet....

[butchersong]

It isn't stressed more because it isn't all that important. English it the fallback for people of different nationalities to speak to one another... Say I'm traveling to Norway for a week or two. Why would I struggle to learn more than a few token phrases of Norwegian unless I plan to live there? I'll just end up making the conversation awkward as I fumble around when I and the other person could be conversing fluently together in English.

Re:And yet....

[Hadlock]

England is conveniently located within 30 day's sailing time from the eastern seaboard of the US, as a result there are regions there called "new england" and other major cities were named after other major areas in Europe... New York City was famously once called new Amsterdam.
 
So then, it shouldn't be surprising that as you head south, you have a lot of Spanish speakers, the cities often are named "San ____", reflecting their Spanish/Mexican heritage due to Spanish colonization from the south.
 
So then, it shouldn't be surprising that as you head west, you have a lot of asian speakers, the cities often have a chinatown or japantown, reflecting their asian heritage due to importing asians to build American railroads, and also simply being 30 days sailing time from the western seaboard of the US.
 
TL;DR if you don't live on the east coast, it is really weird to hear someone being concerned about English being spoken in the US, because it is only 1/3rd of the picture, and you sound very isolated. I am glad you are here on the internet now, maybe you can catch up on being exposed to other cultures now. Good luck.

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

If I was a selfish billionaire who only cared about amusing myself and not about using my resources to make the world a better place. Then I would probably spend some time learning some foreign languages. I would also learn to play the french horn and perhaps even the oboe. And I would probably also learn to surf but only on smallish non-dangerous waves with a long board. I'd probably even buy a sail boat and "learn" to sail although I'm not sure there's really much to learn, so to speak.

But, aside from being an amusing skill that one can show off at cocktail parties, I'm really not seeing the practical use for native English speakers to learn other languages.

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

....you're hearing less and less English spoken in the US these days.

In what context? Business and government communications are predominantly in English.
There is no parent who would advise their kid to not learn English. They know they need it to succeed.

Re:And yet....

[cayenne8]

Good. It's about time stupid Americans learn some more languages. I was incredibly embarrassed the first time I went to Europe,and all I knew was English and I was only semi-fluent in Spanish. I'm working on improving my own grasp of other languages now, but I wish I had more opportunities in school to learn more languages, and I wish its importance was stressed more.

I don't argue at all that learning more than one language is a GREAT thing!!

However, if you LIVE in the US, you should use English as your primary language, especially when out and about in public. You should not rely on having things printed not only in English but Spanish and other languages. (Have you lately had to really look all over a packaged product in the US lately to find English description/instructions? Didn't used to be that way.).

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

Gee maybe Americans dont need to learn other Languages because the neighbors to the north speak it and the neighbors to the south live in a violent cartel controlled narco state?
Whereas the European situation is different than the US.

Re:And yet....

[cayenne8]

The US doesn't have an official language.

And that is a problem.

We should pass laws stating that English IS the official language in this country.....other countries have an official language.

We should too.

If we didn't print everything in other languages too, it would help people coming here to learn it faster.

That same type of immersion situation we use in language classes in college, where English is only spoken the first day and the rest of the time, it is the language of whatever class you are in.

If we did that with, say, government documents, etc....people would be forced to learn the common language of the land much quicker and therefore be able to integrate into the greater melting pot quicker.

Re:And yet....

[SirSlud]

Less and less science too. Funny, that.

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

Where has Spanish or Chinese overtaken English and has Spanish-only signs and it's hard to find an English speaker to help with essentials? Dallas, nope. El Paso, nope. Phoenix, nope. Los Angeles, nope. Only in a few small immigrant-run businesses, which is hardly the loss of English in an entire city. I had a roommate who was a recent Russian immigrant and through him met many other Russian immigrants, and all of them spoke at least some English and considered it an important goal. It was quite a contrast when I went to Russia and found that three-quarters of the people didn't understand English at all. So the disappearence of English in the US is highly overrated.

Re:And yet....

[DogDude]

, if you LIVE in the US, you should use English as your primary language, especially when out and about in public.

Why is that?

Re:And yet....

[superwiz]

They did by definition. The normative English is the one spoken in North America -- not the one spoken in the UK or any other former member of the British Empire. Don't let the name "England" confuse you. It's mostly a historical artifact. British English is no more normative English than the "Old English" is "English".

Re:And yet....

[superwiz]

In a free society, yes. But you have to be a country to be a free country. And you can't be a country if people can't talk to each other.

Re:And yet....

[superwiz]

Jesus, Hillary! Put down the Chardonnay. You've had enough.

Re:And yet....

[Darinbob]

Yes, it's not needed, but it is also desirable to know a second language. Everywhere else in the world people are expected to learn a second or third language. Whether that's to get along better with neighbors and have trade, or because the country has multiple languages.

Much of that reason also I think is that America was somewhat isolated for a very long time, and for a period was intentionally isolationist. In schools you would be disciplined in the past for speaking a second language as well, even if you did not use that langauge for schoolwork (this happens in a few other countries).

Note that the US does not have an "official" language.

I learned a little bit of a lot of languages. This is very useful at times, you can figure out road signs, what a store is selling, and so forth. I was able to use a train ticket vending machine without help in Helsinki.

Re:And yet....

[jabuzz]

Because if you don't you will be severely limiting your economic opportunities. It is also disrespectful.

Re:And yet....

[cayenne8]

I know, it's great, I love hearing all the different languages spoken, it's like being in a modern country now.

It was even nicer only say, a few decades ago...when you could walk anywhere in public and understand what was being said around you....and you generally only heard Spanish spoken in public if you were visiting border towns.

It is much nicer when everyone speaks the 'common' language in public, which used to be English.

Re:And yet....

[Darinbob]

Note that in Europe and many other places, students start to learn a second language at a young age. In the US this doesn't happen until high school or later, where it is only optional. It used to be required to study a second language in many colleges or pre-college tracks in high schools, even if you didn't learn enough to be able to read a foreign language book easily.

Re:And yet....

[Darinbob]

Some countries have multiple official languages as well... Also note that making an official language only means that official documents are in that language, not that people are required to learn it or are forbidden to use other languages. Making English the official language of the US would not actually change anything about how people speak or how documents are written.

Re:And yet....

[blindseer]

If adopting English as the official language in the USA would not change anything then why do so many people oppose adopting English as the official language?

I have my own theories. The problems of French and English use in Canada is an example of what could happen in the USA if a single official language is not adopted. Those opposing a single official language are looking to produce in the USA that same kind of division of the public seen in Canada.

Re:And yet....

[blindseer]

Less and less science too. Funny, that.

I agree, only I'm not laughing. (Not that you are. "Curious" would, IMHO, be a better choice than "funny".)

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

It's very useful to be able to read signs, product packages, etc. You may not need the local language to get by, but it certainly very handy to have a basic grasp.

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

It's also disrepectful to listen in on other people's conversations that have ZERO to do with you. Why the fuck do I care if the people at the next table in the restaurant are speaking Swahili or whatever? They're not talking to me.

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

The normative English is the one spoken in North America.

Sez who?

Re:And yet....

[stephanruby]

....you're hearing less and less English spoken in the US these days.

One must admit.

President Trump is a "bigly" part of the of the problem on that one.

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

and the neighbors to the south live in a violent cartel controlled narco state?

Who exactly do you think the cartels are selling the drugs to? I'll give you a hint, it's not Mexicans.

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure how serious you are but you make a good point that these days there are several other skills that compete for one's time. In addition, one can always find some justification for those other skills: even surfing on smallish, non-dangerous waves with a long board :)

An English speaker, in most cases, will find less rationale in competition with other skills than someone learning English as a second language.

Re: And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

North or south of the 49th parallel?

Re:And yet....

[hjf]

There are plenty of countries in the world where people "can't talk to each other".

Re:And yet....

[cayenne8]

Much of that reason also I think is that America was somewhat isolated for a very long time, and for a period was intentionally isolationist.

Well, another thing is...the United States of America, is so large, you really can very easily grow up here and never have any reason or cause to leave the country.

So, I'd venture to guess that the vast majority of US citizens don't have a passport and don't travel outside the US, and never run into any need to speak another language.

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

I was 9 years old when they started to teach me English at school. But my son, at the age of 7, before going to school, knew already about 200 worlds in English (sugar cane, spider, skeleton, sword, bow, arrow, creeper...). I have always enjoyed using English, because it really gives you a huge advantage as so much more material can be found with it.

E.g. I really hate using applications that are translated to my native language. Because if you encounter a problem and you search for answers from the Internet, with your native language you find nothing. In English you find some answers, but if the error message you got is in your native language, it is pretty hard to search that in English, because you don't have any idea how it was translated as often a word can be translated in many ways.

Re:And yet....

[cayenne8]

It's also disrepectful to listen in on other people's conversations that have ZERO to do with you. Why the fuck do I care if the people at the next table in the restaurant are speaking Swahili or whatever? They're not talking to me.

It's nice to know if they are talking ABOUT you.

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

Disrespectful to whom?

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

... and too much whiny nazi faggot shit from Cayenne and other nutless inbred treasonous twinks

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you not spend much time in cities? Even in lily white Seattle, I frequently hear other languages on the streets. It happened a lot more when I was younger and spent more time in NYC.

I at least understand the argument that all government and commercial communications should be in a common language so everyone is on a level playing field. Getting upset over how people talk to their friends when they're walking down the street makes no sense to me.

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

Until it was outlawed in 1916, French was the official language of Louisiana.

English is only completely dominant in the US because the English-speakers had more power than french and spanish speakers. Today, the US still has an underdeveloped sense of language rights compared to its peers.

Why should anyone use a particular language in a free country?

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

Some states like Louisiana have had different official languages, even into the 20th century. e.g. French, Spanish.

And then there's Alaska and Hawai'i.

Having a single official language for a country like the US is not straightforward.

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

Collectively, a citizenry can talk to each other even if some don't share a common language. It works that way in numerous countries around the world, and in the US today.

Re:And yet....

[DogDude]

Disrespectful to who, exactly?

It's only limiting your opportunities if you're economic opportunities only involved people who only speak English. If you're working with people who speak another language, you'd be limiting your economic opportunities by speaking English.

Re:And yet....

[DogDude]

It's nice to know if they are talking ABOUT you.

If you're that worried about what strangers are saying about you, you might want to see a psychologist. That doesn't seem, to me, like a healthy state of mind.

Re:And yet....

[jeff4747]

And that is a problem.

Why?

And while explaining this, keep in mind in the vast majority of cases the grandchildren of any non-English-speaking immigrants only speak English fluently.

Re:And yet....

[skam240]

So everyone in America should speak English because you don't like not being able to eaves drop on other's conversations?

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

Go to Miami... you can perfectly live there without having to use a single word of English.

Re:And yet....

[Darinbob]

Individual states may have their own rules. But in California we have our ballots in multiple languages, it does not cause any problems. I believe that English is required for some purposes, such as an ingredient list on food, but that does not forbid the use of other languagues as well.

I don't really see the use of both French and English on Canadian *products* to be a problem; the French/English divide in Canada comes more from Quebec attitudes that everyone needs to be bilingual except them.

Re:And yet....

[iggymanz]

don't need to eavesdrop, here's what they're saying:

if it's arabic they're talking about blowing shit up and killing people and popping their suicide belt.

if it's spanish it's how they snuck in here around Trump's 20 mile long wall and are going to steal your job.

if it's Black English they're talking about how they're going to shiv your white ass and fuck your women

if it's Chinese or Indian it's how they're going to take all the tech jobs and higher education classes leaving you with burger smashing jobs and cash register training

These and other horrible conversations are happening right in front of you. Better vote Trump to go back to how It Used to Be!

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

Americans invented proper English.

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

examples?

Re: And yet....

[Anne Thwacks]

North or south of the 49th parallel?

Yes, or possibly no. (Ask W C Fields).

Re:And yet....

[skam240]

That's sarcasm I hope?

Re:And yet....

[Hognoxious]

The problems of French and English use in Canada is an example of what could happen in the USA if a single official language is not adopted.

Since this thread is about science, how about we do an experiment?

Method: take one standard off-the-shelf USA, and have it not adopt an official language. Leave it a couple of centuries.

Result: no problems of French and English use like in Canada were detected.

Conclusion: you are full of shit.

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

Precisely what economic opportunities am I limiting by walking down the street speaking French to my kids?

If you're going to be a bigot about English at least learn to read it, you fat cunt.

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

Did Americans ever speak proper English?

there is no such thing as "proper English". The beauty of English is that it's a living thing, constantly evolving- new words come into use, old become obsolescent and obsolete; or they change their meaning.

Re:And yet....

[Hognoxious]

Belgium, Switzerland, India, South Africa.

Re:And yet....

[iggymanz]

yes, mentioning Trump's 20 mile long wall (it may be up to 37 miles now) should have clued you in.

Re:And yet....

[skam240]

Written text is a notoriously poor medium for sarcasm as so much of truly good sarcasm it tied up in tonal or physical posturing.

Be happy I basically got your poor use of the medium.

Re:And yet....

[hjf]

also Paraguay where a large part of the population only speaks Guarani but no Spanish.
China has hundreds of dialects and often people from different parts of the country can't communicate.

Re:And yet....

[superwiz]

The normative English is the one spoken in North America.

Sez who?

Native English speakers outside of UK (aka the overwhelming majority of the native English speakers).

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

fuck off you god damned retarded cunt

Re:And yet....

[Hognoxious]

Most Americans still understand and respect the concept of pronunciation

That must be why they say the plane was brought down by a missal or that medieval peasants lived under the futile system.

Don't get me started about ''nuclear''. See where the ''u'' is? See what's between the ''c'' and the ''l''?

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

One of my favorite headlines ever:

"Bush Reigns in Government Spending"

Re:And yet....

[Hognoxious]

...other countries have an official language.

We should too.

I thought the entire point was to *not* do what other countries do, because communism and #MAGA and NUMBER ONE!

Or does that only apply to things like public healthcare, not allowing crackpots to run round slaughtering anyone they don't like the look of, or separating politics and religion?

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

>_ If adopting English as the official language in the USA would not change anything then why do so many people oppose adopting English as the official language?

Because English sucks!

http://www.ba-bamail.com/content.aspx?emailid=15047

If you're going to have an official language why not Esperanto which is way easier?

Heck, even Spanish is way better than English!

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

>_ That's sarcasm I hope?

If you need to ask, the situation might already be beyond any hope...

Re:And yet....

[Hognoxious]

Careful. You'll set off the "languages evolve" twats who'll find some convoluted way to eggcorn it.

Re:And yet....

[Hognoxious]

the overwhelming majority of the native English speakers

Eat shit, then. After all flies overwhelmingly outnumber humans or any other mammal.

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

>_ I was 9 years old when they started to teach me English at school. But my son, at the age of 7, before going to school, knew already about 200 worlds in English (sugar cane, spider, skeleton, sword, bow, arrow, creeper...).

I used to read Japanese anime subtitles in English and translate on the fly to my daughter when she was 4 or 5 y.o. From that exposure, she started later to figure things on her own.

>_ I have always enjoyed using English, because it really gives you a huge advantage as so much more material can be found with it.

Indeed, but let's keep in mind that could also happen with any other language. And in fact it was so, back when French ruled the world or even before as Latin was required for erudition. One of my pastimes is correcting Wikipedia texts when I see something which doesn't make sense in my language. Upon seeing the English version, it sometimes becomes clear the original translator either didn't understand my language or it was done by automatic translation. Sometimes, unfortunately, my corrections (mostly about grammar) get undone -- by people who don't even speak my language!

>_ E.g. I really hate using applications that are translated to my native language. Because if you encounter a problem and you search for answers from the Internet, with your native language you find nothing. In English you find some answers, but if the error message you got is in your native language, it is pretty hard to search that in English, because you don't have any idea how it was translated as often a word can be translated in many ways.

Indeed, that is akin to your commentary above about the use of English allowing more results. But in this case, I think English is really a problem, because it is necessary to figure what would be the original error message in English. Sometimes it helps to find another related text, search for it and then try to find the error message in its original wording.

I've encountered this situation in movies. There's some line in a movie which is supposed to be funny -- either from the other actors' reaction or even from that voice-over gag (like an audience laughing). I then have to mentally imagine possible original lines in English to finally understand why it was originally funny.

Again, this is not an English merit: it would also happen in the opposite direction, like e.g. jokes in Japanese hard to translate to English.

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

>>>>_ There are plenty of countries in the world where people "can't talk to each other".

Hmm, since people must trade, I suspect this is in the BS direction, but let's admit it happens in part -- of course, lots of folks make money in these places just by knowing two languages.

>>>_ examples?

>>_ Belgium, Switzerland, India, South Africa.

>_ also Paraguay where a large part of the population only speaks Guarani but no Spanish.
China has hundreds of dialects and often people from different parts of the country can't communicate.

OK, this has set its foot firmly in the BS terrain (well, not exactly "firmly" then).

For one, I know people learn several languages in Switzerland at school. People might favor one or other language where two or more are official, though.

Some information:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Paraguay

Even when someone is not bilingual, a son, daughter, in-law, neighbor or even a friend might translate what is really important.

Alas, it must be like that also in the US regarding Spanish-speaking communities.

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

Then why can't they speak it?

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

The overwhelming majority of native English speakers live outside the US. There is one thing most of them agree on: the American dialect is ugly and stupid.

Re:And yet....

[superwiz]

There is one thing most of them agree on: the American dialect is ugly and stupid.

You are literally the first person ever to tell me this. And that includes all the anti-American crap people post on the Internet. So I am gonna call bull shit on this claim. In fact, I haven't heard anyone say "American dialect" in a very long time. On the other hand, people talk about a "British accent", when referring to the way Brits say things, quite a bit.

Re:And yet....

[superwiz]

Are you suggesting that Brits are better people who speak English and everyone must mimic them? Talking about a legend in your own mind....

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, people talk about a "British accent", when referring to the way Brits say things, quite a bit.

Yeah but WHICH "British accent" ?

I can think of at least 5 offhand without breaking a sweat.

Re:And yet....

[superwiz]

What difference does it make? An "accent", as such, is not normative speech. So if the British way of speaking is an "accent", while the American way is not, then the normative English is the American one.

Re:And yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

So if the British way of speaking is an "accent", while the American way is not

WHICH American way?

Brooklyn accent?
Boston accent?
Southern drawl?
Midwestern accent?
Valley Girl?

Pronunciation is part of normative speech, and it definitely affects communication. I have an aunt from New Jersey I can barely understand sometimes if she talks fast (which is always). :)

The point is, there is no "normal" manner of speech. People think of their own regional idioms/accents as "normal" and everyone else's as wrong/degererate, but language is a branching tree, not a pyramid with RP at the top.

Re:And yet....

[superwiz]

The Midwestern pronunciation was made normative by Walter Cronkite. It's the pronunciation all national news anchors are expected to have.

Re:And yet....

[Oswald McWeany]

I know, it's great, I love hearing all the different languages spoken, it's like being in a modern country now.

It was even nicer only say, a few decades ago...when you could walk anywhere in public and understand what was being said around you....

I've never had someone come up to me and randomly start speaking a foreign language to me that I didn't understand. Usually the only people speaking foreign languages are people who are not speaking directly to me. (unless I'm trying to speak said foreign language with them).

Re:And yet....

[kilfarsnar]

We should pass laws stating that English IS the official language in this country.....other countries have an official language.

We should too.

Other countries have universal health care and better patient outcomes too, but what are ya gonna do?

Oxymoron, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

From the Summary:
>English has become the undisputed lingua franca

I wonder if they know what that means... or if they were going for that on purpose.

Re:Oxymoron, anyone?

[ranton]

From the Summary:
>English has become the undisputed lingua franca

I wonder if they know what that means... or if they were going for that on purpose.

I wonder if the author also confuses words like pizza and lasagna as being English words.

Re:Oxymoron, anyone?

[HornWumpus]

They were just sticking their thumb in the frog's eye.

The french are really butthurt that frogish is now a backwater language.

Re:Oxymoron, anyone?

[The Grim Reefer]

From the Summary: >English has become the undisputed lingua franca

I wonder if they know what that means... or if they were going for that on purpose.

I wonder if the author also confuses words like pizza and lasagna as being English words.

That's because pizza and lasagna are English words. Just like every word in this sentence, comprende? The English invented language. The English had Shakespeare and Socrates. Homer and Hemingway. If you go back and look at pictures of London from a million years ago, they had steam engines and skyscrapers, while the rest of the world was living in mud huts and grunting.

The English had computers in 1837. At that time America didn't even have roads and people fought over such primitive things like cattle or religion. Since we're talking about science, you know that Darwin guy that invented atheism? He was English.

Re:Oxymoron, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure they know exactly what it means. But in colloquial English, lingua franca means "the common language used to communicate between groups who may not speak the same language as their main language". You see, English tends to borrow a lot from other languages. Pedantic ass hats tend to forget that the purpose of language is primarily to communicate ideas, and when it comes to stuff like "begs the question", the meaning from 200 years ago is largely irrelevant unless reading historical documents.

Re:Oxymoron, anyone?

[superwiz]

It doesn't mean "French". It means as universally understood as French used to be. Don't take idioms literally.

Re:Oxymoron, anyone?

[Hognoxious]

The English invented language. The English had Shakespeare and Socrates. Homer and Hemingway.

And here's another thing - they all used plain ol' ascii. None of that poncy unicode shit.

Re:Oxymoron, anyone?

[tricorn]

Mercedes Benz, the Cadillac of cars.

(Red Wriggler, the Cadillac of worms)

Liberal idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

Because of all the liberal idiots that just LOVE illegal immigration, pretty soon English won't even be the dominant language spoken in the United States.

Re:Liberal idiots

[ranton]

Because of all the liberal idiots that just LOVE illegal immigration, pretty soon English won't even be the dominant language spoken in the United States.

So currently about 80% of households speak English as their dominant language at home, as opposed to 13% of those who speak Spanish as their dominant language at home. Other than ignorance, I'm not sure how you have come to the conclusion that English won't be the dominant language in the United States for the foreseeable future.

Re:Liberal idiots

[alvinrod]

I wouldn't be surprised if you were to look at historical trends and see the rate of English increasing. People tend to forget that the U.S. had huge waves of immigration throughout its history and that it's still not uncommon for many people today to have grandparents who grew up speaking Italian, German, Polish, Norwegian, etc. at home instead of English.

The people who are in houses speaking Spanish today will have grandchildren that won't speak a word of it.

Re:Liberal idiots

[El Cubano]

as opposed to 13% of those who speak Spanish as their dominant language at home.

Not only that. I worked with a guy whose father immigrated to the US from Mexico in the 1950s or 1960s. He went into the Army and after he was dinged on a fitrep for his thick accent being a barrier to effective communication with other soldiers, he decided that his kids weren't going to go through that. He instituted a strict English-only policy at home and as a consequence, my co-worker (who had a very Latino name) speaks only English (and that with a Texas accent).

Not every immigrant family has an English-only policy at home, but I have interacted with enough people who grew up with that to conclude that it is not all that uncommon. Even the homes where there is not an explicit English-only policy, the kids frequently don't master their parents' native language, perhaps gaining only limited conversational ability. Face it, with television, radio, other media, their friends at school, etc. all speaking English there is usually only a very weak incentive (from the point of a child) to learn another language. Their kids, in turn, will almost certainly not speak the grandparents' native language.

What I find really interesting is the places like New York, San Antonio, Miami, etc., where there are significant ethnic populations and neighborhoods. You can typically walk around and see signage and hear people speaking where words of the immigrant community's language are interspersed among English. From what I have observed children who grow up in those sorts of neighborhoods, whether their parents are immigrants or natives, tend to develop a sort of pidgin that mixes English with the popular ethnic words used in shops, restaurants, etc.

I suspect that if I had not ended up in IT I would have become a linguist or etymologist.

Re:Liberal idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

Because of all the liberal idiots that just LOVE illegal immigration, pretty soon English won't even be the dominant language spoken in the United States.

So currently about 80% of households speak English as their dominant language at home, as opposed to 13% of those who speak Spanish as their dominant language at home. Other than ignorance, I'm not sure how you have come to the conclusion that English won't be the dominant language in the United States for the foreseeable future.

OP got the dominant language part wrong, but he definitely did get one thing right - liberals are idiots who think illegal immigration is just focking dandy!

Re:Liberal idiots

[HornWumpus]

Not in places like San Diego or El Paso.

We run the risk of being culturally balkanized. TV helps, but schools need to be English only.

Re:Liberal idiots

[butchersong]

This is seeming less likely. The attempt to end birthright citizenship by the current administration if it were to go through would have a significant impact on this. I don't have anything against Spanish myself other than the fact that it is more suited to philosophy and theology than science imo but I'm not sure anymore that current demographic trends are going to continue.

Re:Liberal idiots

[skids]

Post colonialism, immigration is what kept English dominant in the first place. You take people from other countries in, show them what a real civilization looks like, and some of them they take that, and English, back to their homelands. The kids of the ones that stay become inadvertent English teachers to whoever else arrives. Only the knee-jerk primitives among us fail to realize that you have to be culturally evangelical to avoid fading away... if you just shut yourself up in your hill fort people just forget about you and move on without you.

Unfortunately we are rapidly approaching the point at which we won't have a real civilization to show off.

Re:Liberal idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

They need to be English Only in the name of freedom, I'm sure. What's the appropriate punishment for speaking a heretic language?

Re:Liberal idiots

[HornWumpus]

I don't care what they speak, as long as the list includes English.

Re:Liberal idiots

[Anonymice]

As a native English speaker living in a foreign speaking country, I would absolutely primarily speak English at home with my children. I don't yet have children, so I mostly speak the native language at home in order to hone my skills, however that will change when I have kids. Being immersed in the local lingo, they'll have no problem learning it - no doubt to a level far higher than my own! But using English at home will give them the rare opportunity to simultaneously learn a second language to native proficiency.

Over here, the locals frequently complement me on my local language skills, however it's sad to see that I all too frequently see people in English speaking countries criticising the English of immigrants who speak English far better than I speak my own second language. It's not just ignorant, it's arrogant.

Re:Liberal idiots

[hjf]

So let me get this straight: you stole territory from another country, colonized their land, and somehow you're still mad that people from the area don't want to speak the language you forced upon them?
Let's do the opposite. Russia and China nuke the US down. Now your territory is divided between the two. You're a Chinese citizen now. As a law-abiding citizen I EXPECT YOU to speak chinese at all times.

Re:Liberal idiots

[Darinbob]

Why does it even matter if English isn't the dominant language anyway? It's not like all the English speakers here are natives anyway. And not even all of the original 13 colonies were English speaking or founded by the English. They spoke Spanish in Southwest before English speakers showed up. Texas used to be a part of Mexico until the upstart gringos got pissed that they couldn't own slaves. The only American "culture" we have is what we've stolen and modified from other countries. If English declines in usage over time, it's no big deal.

Re:Liberal idiots

[Darinbob]

And what's wrong with that? San Diego was originally founded by the Spanish conquistidors and later was a part of Mexico. El Paso used to be a city that straddled the border and the citizens freely walked back and forth until the border patrol beefed up its presence.

What is so special about American culture anway? And why is a homogenous culture even remotely important?

Virtually everyone in America has ancestors that came from somewhere else, and a very large number of US citizens were born in different cities or states than they were born in. If you aren't native American you really shouldn't be griping about other cultures showing up uninvited.

Re:Liberal idiots

[Darinbob]

America was a backwards country for a very long time. It wasn't until WWI that the US was really taken seriously on the world stage. Muc of the early immigration came from countries that were just as civilized as the US, the immigrants were showing up because their home country had famines, economic slump, or they were from a group discriminated against at home. Outside of former British colonies, It wasn't until the economic boom in the US in the twentieth century that English become more popular.

Re:Liberal idiots

[Dragonslicer]

...and that it's still not uncommon for many people today to have grandparents who grew up speaking Italian, German, Polish, Norwegian, etc. at home instead of English.

/me waves

My grandfather (born in the early 20th century) learned Yiddish from his parents at home, learned French from the rest of the neighborhood, and didn't learn English until he started school.

Re:Liberal idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

And what languages do you speak, other than English? It's hardly honorable to expect the rest of the world to be multilingual for your benefit while you wallow in your own self-importance.

Re:Liberal idiots

[jeff4747]

Not every immigrant family has an English-only policy at home, but I have interacted with enough people who grew up with that to conclude that it is not all that uncommon.

The vast majority of the time, the grandchildren of immigrants are only fluent in English. Even without an "English only at home" rule. They might be able to converse a bit in another language, similar to someone who learned that language in high school.

Re: Liberal idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

They were rightfully conquered. They should adapt to their new masters or die.

Re:Liberal idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of you thick fucks don't speak English anyway, you speak American.

We here in England sure as hell know the difference, even if many of us have families who speak two or three other languages too.

As a Londoner, I find it very useful to recognise Polish, Spanish, French, Italian, Spanish and Turkish, as well as Twi, Yoruba and Swahili. I may not be able to speak any of these (I certainly won't tell you), but its very useful to recognise them, as these are just some of the languages spoken by my immediate neighbours. I can also write Chinese, C, Fortran, Java and PHP.

I think America should make Javascript its official language. At least that would keep the Americans off our backs for a bit.

Re:Liberal idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

America was a backwards country for a very long time.

Then it started going backwards.

former British colonies,
Or half the known world.

Re:Liberal idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

Cousin Avi: "Blagged? Tony, speak English! I thought this country spawned the fucking language and so far nobody seems to speak it!"

Re:Liberal idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

originally founded by [...] conquistidors

By virtue of their title, I don't usually think of conquistidors as the "original founders" type of people.

Duh

[Ol Olsoc]

We need a metric language. Those stupid English users and their imperial language is so last year.

Re:Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Metric conjugations:

To walk
To centiwalk
To kilowalk

Re:Duh

[Ol Olsoc]

Metric conjugations:

To walk To centiwalk To kilowalk

Let's run with that.

Re:Duh

[samwichse]

I think that's called "Esperanto."

Re:Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Newspeak only has "doubleplusungood," (base 2?) it should be "tentimesplusungood."

Heh. Lingua franca.

[Anonymous Coward]

I always snicker when I hear of English being the lingua franca of anything. If I'm not mistaken, 'lingua franca' means literally 'French language' and stems from the days when French was the international language.

China's cheating culture

[Anonymous Coward]

The real challenge facing Chinese as a dominant research language is the deeply ingrained and well-known cheating culture that pervades China's academic system, tracing its origins back centuries to the highly competitive Imperial Civil Service exams.

Since publication is the modern day badge of success in academia, a much greater proportion of Chinese research papers are rife with shortcuts, bad data, poor research design, and even outright fraud when compared to their peers in Western Universities, Japan, etc.

Until Chinese Universities and Journals clean up their act regarding reproducibility and peer review, their research will always be considered less credible and lack in influence despite its sheer volume.

Re:China's cheating culture

[Anonymous Coward]

And here I thought it was because they use base 100000 and have a very loose idea of what constitutes a delimiter.

Modern American English

[Anonymous Coward]

Modern American English is a combination of English and many other languages (Spanish, French, German and others)
In many ways, it's a sort of global language that continually evolves.

Re:Modern American English

[Oswald McWeany]

Modern American English is a combination of English and many other languages (Spanish, French, German and others)
In many ways, it's a sort of global language that continually evolves.

You didn't need to specify "American" there as that is true for all varieties of mainstream English. Of course, what's even more fun is when you consider that almost half of English words have a French-connection. "French" was originally a pidgin of Germanic languages and Latin. (the Franks being a German tribe settling in an area which had been speaking Latin because of the Roman rule for centuries). German is a mishmash of various regional variants that came to form one language and has borrowed from it's neighbours.

English has also taken on words from India, Turkey, Native Americans, and more. So we speak a put-together language that took it's inspiration from other languages that were put-together from other combinations.

200 years from now I bet Chinese and English will be influencing each other heavily with English words being adopted into Mandarin and Mandarin words being adopted into English. Language is a beautiful messed up thing.

Re:Modern American English

[Anne Thwacks]

200 years from now I bet Chinese and English will be influencing each other heavily

You don't need to wait 200 years. It is happening now in parts of London. But it is not limited to Chinese and English.

The reality is English's big advantage is it can easily adopt words from other languages, and the concepts that go with them. Many other languages cannot adopt words form other languages due to a variety of restrictive rules, and therefore lack the ability to benefit from access to ideas developed in other cultures.

Re:Modern American English

[Anonymous Coward]

All language is "made up" or borrowed from somewhere.

Re:Heh. Lingua franca.

[registrations_suck]

Plenty of people who understand how language actually works snicker at your snickering.

english privilege?

[Anonymous Coward]

needs some language justice

Re:Heh. Lingua franca.

[HornWumpus]

There is never a bad time to mock the french.

Healthy research environment in China...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha. Ha. Piece of shit.

English or American hegemony?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think everybody in the world wanting/needing to do business with or in the US is the main reason why English is #1. If not for that, it would probably still be #1 as a result of the old British Empire but the influence of the language would be wanning to become like French.

Re:English or American hegemony?

[Anne Thwacks]

I think everybody in the world wanting/needing to do business with or in the US is the main reason why English is #1.

Then you have drunk too much Trump Kool-ade.

Re:English or American hegemony?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it's true. Even though the British Empire ruled about 1/4 of the world for a time, English didn't become the international language until relatively recently. For instance, until WWII, the international language of science was German. At that time, Germany was an industrial superpower that everyone wanted to do business with. After the war, Germany was quite fucked, so during the cold war English dominated as the language of the US-led west, while Russian dominated as the language of the Soviet-led east, with China of course doing its own thing as usual. If the US hadn't been an internationally relevant economic and military power, English would have disappeared as a world language when the British Empire lost its colonies. (Too bad Esperanto never made it as a world language though, it's way more rational grammatically and easier to learn...)

Windbourne the known liar pushing debunked BS

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a life you loser.

One thing I wish I would have known earlier

[damn_registrars]

Decades ago when I was in middle school I had to select a second language to study. That time happened to be another one of those periods when many of the loudest voices in the US were telling us we all needed to learn Spanish ASAP to prepare to communicate with all the people living (or yet to be born) in Mexico and South America (Brazil be damned, of course). So I followed that reasoning and suffered through 3 years of Spanish by the time I was done with high school.

Yet even then I had an inclination towards science. Now many years past college, I repeatedly realize that the language I should have taken is indeed German. While I have never met someone at a conference who speaks German but not English, I almost never meet anyone at a conference who speaks any significant degree of Spanish. In my field the top languages after English are almost certainly German, Mandarin, Hindi, Russian, Japanese, French, Italian, and Dutch (in that order). I meet more people speaking Norwegian than I meet speaking Spanish.

Sure, Spanish is useful for many people, but I could have instead studied a language of use to me back then.

Re:One thing I wish I would have known earlier

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but if you "suffered" studying Spanish, which is among the easiest languages for a native English speaker to learn, you would have never hacked it studying German, let alone Mandarin, Russian, Japanese, or Hindi.

Re:One thing I wish I would have known earlier

[Anonymous Coward]

I satisfied my "Foreign Language" requirement in high school by taking Pascal. Seriously. I'm not joking.

Re:One thing I wish I would have known earlier

[Anonymous Coward]

its because Spanish speaking countries are literal backwaters when it comes to science.

Re:One thing I wish I would have known earlier

[Anonymous Coward]

I studied Russian, and maybe it's just my field (high power lasers) but I end up talking with tons of scientists in Russian.

Re:One thing I wish I would have known earlier

[Anonymous Coward]

> you would have never hacked it studying German, let alone Mandarin, Russian, Japanese...

For the latter claim: never underestimate the appeal of kawaii catgirls ... or a wild bunny girl senpai lately. Living spoken japanese is actually easy to learn as long as you are interested in it and happy to be illiterate.

(Learning the associated 3+1 calligraphic "alphabets" is the nightmare part and fluency in ad-lib japanese reading / writing may require 12 years of regular daily flashcard practice. Elementary school level is apparently 900 characters and secondary graduates are supposed to use at least 1850 characters. Note that 900 chars is only enough for those japanese texts where furigana "cheatcode" is provided, like public info boards and manga text bubbles. People who can competently eng sub anime / manga in a single pass often flee from furigana-less light novels in sheer terror.)

Re:One thing I wish I would have known earlier

[ranton]

Sorry, but if you "suffered" studying Spanish, which is among the easiest languages for a native English speaker to learn, you would have never hacked it studying German, let alone Mandarin, Russian, Japanese, or Hindi.

I think you are confusing the words "suffer" and "struggle".

I suffered through 3 hours of an opera once, but that doesn't mean it was difficult for me to sit there doing nothing.

Re:One thing I wish I would have known earlier

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the worst decision making I've heard all week. By your own admission all the Germans you know speak English. And it's true of just about all Germans, barring a few leftovers from East Germany.

I took German in school and it's useless, even when traveling in Germany. Everyone you meet there is so eager to practice English that they immediately switch as soon as they detect an English accent - usually before you finish saying Guten Tag.

Spanish and French are loads more useful. So many countries that speak those languages, but English is virtually nonexistent. And learning one gets you half way to learning the other. I regret not taking either of them in school. Now I'm saddled with useless German that only a few countries use, all in EU and vey English accessible.

German shouldn't even be offered before college level. Kids should learn Spanish and/or French. Languages are about communication.

Re:One thing I wish I would have known earlier

[Anonymous Coward]

It's for different use-cases. I know a lot of people who have jobs that involve interacting with poorer people (e.g. doctors, teachers, museum workers) who actually do make use of their high school Spanish because they do interact with people who can't hold a conversation in English.

Re:One thing I wish I would have known earlier

[avandesande]

It really depends on what field you are talking about. Modern chemistry was pioneered in Germany while modern medicine began in France.

Re:One thing I wish I would have known earlier

[Anonymous Coward]

All those people you met....they should just learn English.

Whatever you do, definitely don't spend any time learning to speak French. Your soul would be less injured if you learned to speak the language of Mordor.

Re:One thing I wish I would have known earlier

[Anonymous Coward]

Knowing German may not be strictly necessary in Germany (and Austria), but it still helps a lot. Without a basic grasp of the language, you won't be able to read signs, menus, packagings on products, etc. I'm not saying one should not also learn English, French and maybe Spanish, but I am always happy that I don't need to resort to a language that is foreign to both parties when in Germany.

So, which is it?

[geoscodin]

Headline: "English Has the Scientific Edge -- For Now"

Synopsis: "But, while English is highly unlikely to be dethroned"

So for now and probably always?

Re:So, which is it?

[Oswald McWeany]

Headline: "English Has the Scientific Edge -- For Now"

Synopsis: "But, while English is highly unlikely to be dethroned"

So for now and probably always?

Always is a very long time.

English will remain #1 forever

[Anonymous Coward]

Not like how Greek, Arabic, and Latin were replaced in their times as the language of science and mathematics.

Re:Heh. Lingua franca.

[Anonymous Coward]

our golden age has passed. nothing wrong with this momentum being perpetuated by other nations, so long as it's in the name of progress, huh?

Re:Heh. Lingua franca.

[Oswald McWeany]

I always snicker when I hear of English being the lingua franca of anything. If I'm not mistaken, 'lingua franca' means literally 'French language' and stems from the days when French was the international language.

Some day, English may be the lingua franca of France.

Not sure about the advantages

[OneHundredAndTen]

To native speakers, I mean. I have noticed that (educated) foreigners who learnt English as a second language all too often seem to be able to write better English than native speakers. Learning English natively will give you an edge if you aspire to become a horse racing commentator for the BBC. For writing up research papers (or books) on physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology, etc. not so much.

Re:Not sure about the advantages

[superwiz]

Research papers are usually poorly written though. They aren't known for their prose.

Re:Not sure about the advantages

[MerlinTheWizard]

You're actually kind of right. Whereas being a native speaker certainly gives you a temporary advantage, english is a simple and widespread enough language that the advantage is not THAT great. Besides, native english speakers, particularly the american and british, tend to speak only one language, their own, whereas a lot of other people in the world now speak at least two - their own, and english. So who really has the edge in the end? Not that clear in fact!

Re:Not sure about the advantages

[Anonymous Coward]

Not helped in the 80's and 90's when the UK government decided that they no longer needed to teach English grammar in schools, and assumed that everyone would just pick it up. Thankfully they have now corrected that - my daughter's English at 10 years old was better than mine was when I was 15.

Re:Not sure about the advantages

[larryjoe]

To native speakers, I mean. I have noticed that (educated) foreigners who learnt English as a second language all too often seem to be able to write better English than native speakers. Learning English natively will give you an edge if you aspire to become a horse racing commentator for the BBC. For writing up research papers (or books) on physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology, etc. not so much.

I have found that educated, non-native English speakers generally understand English very well, speak English fairly well, and write somewhat well. Grammar and diction are often challenging. For example, one very common challenge is knowing when to include an article such as "a" or "the", which is intuitive to a native speaker but is often difficult to describe precisely with a rule for those who are not linguists. I read and review a fair number of technical papers, and I have found that is it not uncommon for very intelligent authors that understand the subject matter and speak English fluently to use nonstandard grammar and diction. Of course, the general American on the street also would struggle with standard grammar and diction, but native English speakers who write technical papers generally struggle less in this regard, although this observation doesn't necessarily extend to other aspects of written composition.

Re:Not sure about the advantages

[Livius]

Learning a second language, any second language, can help you to communicate more clearly in both that language and your native language. A hundred years ago people would have studied Latin fully expecting that kind of practical benefit with no expectation of ever actually speaking Latin.

Re:Not sure about the advantages

[thegarbz]

It's not just foreigners who learn English, it's English speakers who learn a foreign language too. For some reason teach English has devolved to the studying of literature without every explaining simple things like the components that make up a sentence.

I didn't know what the "past participle" was until I learnt a second language. And it was while learning that second language that I started correcting some of my poor English.

Re:Not sure about the advantages

[Anonymous Coward]

Research papers are usually poorly written though. They aren't known for their prose.

Poorly written by what standard? In a research paper the goal is to compress as much information as possible into as little space as possible, while avoiding ambiguities, such that sentences are restructured and every word is carefully selected towards that goal (assuming it's not a garbage journal). Writing a wordy 12-page paper is easy, distilling everything you wish to say into 5 pages is hard.

That's silly.

[Anonymous Coward]

English is the correct language. Everyone should learn it and use it. It should dominate every field.

AI-aided translation technology

[MerlinTheWizard]

For scientific papers? Really? If you want to understand the complete opposite of what they claim, maybe.

Re:AI-aided translation technology

[Anonymous Coward]

It's possible the reference is to computer-assisted translation (CAT) software, such as Trados and OmegaT, which does not (primarily) rely on machine translation but, instead, assists human translators in various ways, a trivial example being by recognizing that a sentence happens to be identical to a previously translated sentence except with one changed numeral and then giving the human translator the option of using the AI-generated translation (or not).

The english can "decay" itself.

[Anonymous Coward]

Computer Engineering vs Physical Science vs Medicine vs Math:

For Computer Engineering, the english is the king.
For Physical Science, the latin is the queen.
For Medicine, the spanish is the prince.
For Math, the french is the princess.

Re:Heh. Lingua franca.

[Cro Magnon]

I always snicker when I hear of English being the lingua franca of anything. If I'm not mistaken, 'lingua franca' means literally 'French language' and stems from the days when French was the international language.

I don't like using French words. They fatigue me.

Here's how you get Americans to pay for science

[rsilvergun]

it worked for NASA. The moon landing was basically a big, multi-billion dollar middle finger to Russia. All we gotta do to restore the last 40 years of cuts to science & education is convince the ones doing the cutting that they're gonna all end up speaking Mandarin and watch the money flow in.

Re:Here's how you get Americans to pay for science

[Anonymous Coward]

All we gotta do to restore the last 40 years of cuts to science & education

Don't forget to kidnap a team of German rocket scientists.

Re:Here's how you get Americans to pay for science

[quanminoan]

Don't think we won't!

Re:Here's how you get Americans to pay for science

[Hognoxious]

"Vunce zey go up, who cares where they come down?
Zat's not my department," says Wernher von Braun

Re:Here's how you get Americans to pay for science

[DNS-and-BIND]

Americans aren't patriotic like that any more. Patriotism is equivalent to bigotry.

Re:Here's how you get Americans to pay for science

[Anonymous Coward]

Ya don't need patriotism to do good things.

Re:Here's how you get Americans to pay for science

[Anonymous Coward]

Nationalism is inherently racist. Patriotism is anti-fascist.

By the rivers of Babylon...

[Anonymous Coward]

Medical sciences still require latin (sort of). Christian priests also have to learn greek and a bit of ritual hebrew so they can make a little sense of old testament references. I think those seeking a degree in classical music still have to learn italian. For diplomacy and literature track it used to french, while chemistry, engineering and maybe also microbiology used to be in german. Those working in trans-oceanic trade couldn't do without spanish.

Re:By the rivers of Babylon...

[Anonymous Coward]

Damned right! And let's take a few steps back, shall we? The sanskrits left a scince terminology that even scientists today can barely fathom. The Greeks built a civilization in the Mediteranean and Greek was the official language of the Roman Empire through the 1400s. Romans build an empire on technology and their walls concrete still stand. German and French were the languages of science and technology through the industrial era of the XIX-XX centuries. Now English was important while England took control of the seas from the Spanish and the Portughuese but only became relevant in science and business in the XXth century. It will very likely continue to be important for a few decades but one should learn a bit of world history to put things in perspective.

Re:By the rivers of Babylon...

[Dadoo]

I took four years of Latin in high school, and I can tell you I learned more about the English language in Latin class, than I ever did in English class.

Re:Heh. Lingua franca.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

No. Lingua Franca is actually a Latin phrase, meaning the Language of the Franks.

Who were the Franks? Anyone west of Rome/Italy is a Frank. It is like that famous cartoon of New Yorker's view of America. There is Hudson, New Jersey ... and San Francisco somewhere over there.

It means a link language, language of communications between the unwashed masses, while the high society of priests were using Latin.

What about Klingon?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a single suggestion for Klingon?

WTF has happened to this site??

Re:Heh. Lingua franca.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Remember that French soccer captain struck the Italian player and drew a red card in the world cup finals?

That was the first time since the days of Agincourt (1415) a frenchman in uniform showed aggression.

About that...

[Anonymous Coward]

"English is highly unlikely to be dethroned" -- I'm pretty sure the Romans, French, Spanish, Germans... must have thought like this at some point

Re:About that...

[Hognoxious]

I'm pretty sure the Romans, French, Spanish, Germans... must have thought like this at some point

Sure. At a point where there wasn't any television, movies, radio, printing presses, recorded music and ... I'm sure I'm missing something else but I can't quite put my finger on it.

Re:Heh. Lingua franca.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are indeed mistaken.

Re:Nazi faggot Wump Wuss doesn't matter lol

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not a mind, not an authority. You don't decide. Lol, go extinct you retarded nazi faggot. You don't matter, nobody will miss you either. Trump will die in prison, and you will be surrounded by foreigners, nazi faggot.

Deal with it snowflake.

It's impressive that bots can already sound like a Tourette sufferer. What will they think of next?

Re:Heh. Lingua franca.

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember that French soccer captain struck the Italian player and drew a red card in the world cup finals?

That was the first time since the days of Agincourt (1415) a frenchman in uniform showed aggression.

At the very least a mister Goya disagrees. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Disasters_of_War

Oh, and there was this little spat called World War One.

Nazi faggot cayenne you just don't know shit lol

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody cares what a retarded nazi faggot does or doesn't understand, you don't know anything about America you treasonous shitbag alt-incel. You don't matter.

Lol Cayenne you retarded nazi faggot

[Anonymous Coward]

NOBODY is talking about you except to laugh at how fucking PATHETIC you nazi faggots are pretending to be victims, lol. You're just whiny bitches.

Immigrants are like "wow, that faggot needs to man up" - in Swahili, in Spanish, in English, it doesn't matter you nazi faggots are bitches universally.

Enjoy watching Trump die in prison, his son raped to pieces.

Re:Heh. Lingua franca.

[Darinbob]

Lingua Franca does not mean "French". It originally was used to refer to a pidjin language in common use in the eastern Mediterranean area from 11th century, which probably was more Italian based than French.

natsie trollin

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you're correct. Windborne's name should be WindBag. Ignore his posts. If they aren't a prime example of selfish douchebaggery, they're just straight up bullshit. What his post was attempting to do was stir up stupid Nazi bullshit hence the German shoutout. I'm really surprised he didn't mention Zyklon.

translation services?

[thePsychologist]

Just because translations exist doesn't mean English is losing its edge. Virtually all top journals in pure sciences require publication in English. The one exception I've seen is French. Quite a few top math journals still allow French.

code written in Chinese

[bigtreeman]

Think about having English as your first language and maintaining code written in Chinese.

Re:code written in Chinese

[Anonymous Coward]

run the entire codebase through google translate, get it back to building, and commit it with the "middle finger up" emoji.

They might be tairsts or cormanusts

[Hognoxious]

Why the fuck do I care if the people at the next table in the restaurant are speaking Swahili or whatever? They're not talking to me.

It's nice to know if they are talking ABOUT you.

Probably best to shoot them anyway, just to be on the safe side.

its advantages are eroding due to an increasingly

[mapkinase]

> its advantages are eroding due to an increasingly healthy research environment in China

I have not heard stupider shit in ages.

Kaveh Waddell, you are an imbecile and should consider self-imposed vow of silence.

China has a what now?

[Anonymous Coward]

"healthy research environment in China," Yep. Sure it is. Fraud free.

the "for now" is just click bait.

[Anonymous Coward]

there's no way english, with more native and second-language speakers than any other in the world, and in more countries and regions, will ever be 'dethroned' by chinese or arabic or anything else. it's long overdue to roll-out global esl education to get everybody, everywhere, on the same page. communications is the key to *everything* and it helps if we can all communicate with one another -- and, without question, english is going to be 'it'. it wouldn't take that long to get the majority of the world population speaking the same language, and it doesn't have to be at the expense of someone's native non-english tongue, either.

Your vs You're

[Anonymous Coward]

To native speakers, I mean. I have noticed that (educated) foreigners who learnt English as a second language all too often seem to be able to write better English than native speakers

As a foreigner who learned the English language inside the United States of America, I was taught the difference between "YOUR " and "YOU'RE" by an American teacher, and till today I still know the difference.

I am still trying to figure out the reason behind many Americans' use of 'your' when they really mean 'you're'.

You don't need to wait 200 years.

[Anonymous Coward]

Modern American English is a combination of English and many other languages (Spanish, French, German and others)
In many ways, it's a sort of global language that continually evolves.

200 years from now I bet Chinese and English will be influencing each other heavily with English words being adopted into Mandarin and Mandarin words being adopted into English. Language is a beautiful messed up thing.

Note: Apologies for not inserting in the Mandarin Characters in this comment because Slashdot does not like unicode

Hence, I am forced to use 'Pinyin' as a poor substitude

The Mandarin phrase 'Jia You' has already been directly translated into English, and has been officially included Oxford Dictionary, as 'Add Oil'

The English word 'Humor' has been tonally translated into Mandarin as 'You Me'

Similarly, the Chinese phrase 'Kou Tou' has become 'kowtow' in English.

There are lots and lots of other examples. I only listed the above 3 to keep this comment short.

In summary, you do not need to wait 200 years. It has already happened.

In fact, that trend has started more than one hundred years ago !