As China becomes a global power the Chinese language will assume a greater global significance.That significance will extend over business,trade,culture and other areas.But will the Chinese language ever reach the type of influence that English now has?Will Mandarin ever become a lingua franca?
After the year 1600,the British Empire began to spread English around the world.That process was given a huge boost in the 20th century through the business,technology and post-war re-construction efforts of the US.Beyond this,there were a number of quite extraordinary trends in culture,science and the arts that reinforced these developments.Many of these were spontaneous,but others were highly deliberate - the work of the British Council,for example.Either way,English now stands unchallenged as the world’s international language.
But the English language also has some inherent qualities that enabled this process even further.English is a ‘mongrel language’ that has always borrowed heavily from other languages.This has allowed it to grow quickly,flexibly,and efficiently.(English has many more words than any other language.) It has developed spontaneously (without an Academie Francaise to restrict it,for example) and it has tended towards a simplification - from a more highly inflected language towards becoming a less highly inflected one. As China becomes a global power the Chinese language will assume a greater global significance.That significance will extend over business,trade,culture and other areas.But will the Chinese language ever reach the type of influence that English now has?Will Mandarin ever become a lingua franca?
After the year 1600,the British Empire began to spread English around the world.That process was given a huge boost in the 20th century through the business,technology and post-war re-construction efforts of the US.Beyond this,there were a number of quite extraordinary trends in culture,science and the arts that reinforced these developments.Many of these were spontaneous,but others were highly deliberate - the work of the British Council,for example.Either way,English now stands unchallenged as the world’s international language.
But the English language also has some inherent qualities that enabled this process even further.English is a ‘mongrel language’ that has always borrowed heavily from other languages.This has allowed it to grow quickly,flexibly,and efficiently.(English has many more words than any other language.) It has developed spontaneously (without an Academie Francaise to restrict it,for example) and it has tended towards a simplification - from a more highly inflected language towards becoming a less highly inflected one.