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Re: [lojban] decline of the english language

At 04:32 PM 05/20/2001 +0000, Jorge Llambias wrote:

la lojbab cusku di'e
>But on the Internet, the percentage of postings not in English is
>rising steadily.

But that is unrelated to any decline of the English language,
it only means that English speakers got there first and now others
are catching up.
But it was English dominance of the Internet that sparked the last round of "English is inevitable". The fact that non-English is catching up shows that alternatives still exist, though it isn't clear that any single language will overwhelm others. I agree with aulun that Chinese will eventually be a serious contender. 


The percentage of English on the Internet still
exceeds by far the percentage of English speakers in the world,
so it is only to be expected that the percentage of postings not
in English should keep rising even as the percentage of people who
can speak or understand some English also rises.
But what is the equilibrium state? I don't think it will be at a much higher level of English use than at present. 


>Meanwhile in Japan, while every kid
>supposedly is taught English for several years, few actually reach any
>level of skill in the language.

As opposed to some time in the past when they did? Otherwise I don't
see where the decline is.
The lack of gain means that decline is inevitable as alternatives for international communication come to the fore (and the rise of non-English on the Internet is a reason to expect that people will have a choice other than to learn English. 


>(the trend away from requiring foreign
>languages in US schools also seems to be reversing in the last decade, but
>not in favor of German or Russian which are being studied less than when I
>attended school in the 60s).

I read an article in the New York Times recently about how the US is
becoming bilingual. It sounded mostly like journalistic crap to me,
but even if Spanish does gain ground in the US that doesn't diminish
the role of English as the international language of the world today.
Spanish is gaining by the simple fact that there are parts of this country where Hispanics are the largest minority or even the majority (the Southwest and Florida). Around here we have multiple cable channels in Spanish available now, and Spanish is the most common language heard behind the counter at any fast food restaurant, so people get used to hearing it. Americans still don't actively seek out learning Spanish or any foreign language, and few Americans other than Hispanics are really "bilingual", but Spanish has become useful enough in much of the country that people don't resist learning it as much as they traditionally have, especially younger people. 

lojbab
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