BF2S Forums Why Does the English Language Dominate?

I like the porno-language best.....german sounds soo naughty and nasty.......

PASS AUF! ICH SPRITZE!!

blademaster wrote:

acEofspadEs6313 wrote:

Because English was the language of the dominating world power?

Something I found.

The first, and major, reason is that English became the main language of science and technology at about the turn of the century. At that time it was possible that German might have taken the lead, taking over from English and French but, by this time, the Americans were already beginning to forge ahead as the major industrial nation and thus, as a consequence, the progenitor of most scientific papers and technological know-how.
The second reason is a consequence of the first in that English is now not only the language of science and technology but also of all the cultural and managerial offshoots that occurred during the remainder of the twentieth century, such as the media, telecommunications, multinational corporations, international freight and air transport, and international tourism, banking, politics and sports.

Most spoken language worldwide:
The result of all this is that the global status of English has nothing to do with the number of people who speak it as a native language -- a mere 300 million -- but of the other billion who speak English as a second language and of a further billion or more who are likely to do so well within a generation.

Do you think other mind learning English?

why ask the original question and then basically answer it yourself?

k some very good points brought up

But do you think other countries who  have to learn English as a  second language are affected by Anglo-Saxon culture? Considering that this is a technology advanced media do you think certain words, cultural expressions, and such play a significant role in changing other people's cultures into a more English speaking culture?

[F7F7]KiNG_KaDaFFHi wrote:

Very much soo...many many words in Swedish are almost the same as in english or other languages...it´s not really a bad thing I´d say, the better we comunicate in this world the less problems we will have.

good point some of the other languages I learned in school a lot of them are similar to English even the ones that are not so similar still use a lot of English words.

Jello.01 wrote:

JaggedPanther wrote:

It's a hold over from the brittish empire which sought to spread everything english to the world (including stop signs). Americans just benifit from the many colonies British have created over the centuries. You may think it was American business but it's just a hold over from the Brittish Empire.

As such there are french words and a heavy influence on current 'english' from centuries before the Brittish empire that are so ingrained in the English language, you would be suprised they are actually French.

Actually speaking of language "LANGUAGE" is originally french, as is century, dominate and so many other words you say daily.

So you speak french.

Actually... French is a romantic language that descended from Latin, as is Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian too.

So, you speak Latin.

wee wee

Amongst other things;

For international air travel to work everyone in the air and on the ground has to speak the same language. UK and US dominance at the time meant we could insist on it being English.

Most computing languages use english as a basis as they were developed in the US.

The internet was initially in english and most of the content was and still is in english.

Watching films with subtitles sucks. The US pumps out the most globally successful films and tv shows.

The Brits couldn't be bothered to learn new languages when we went around the world oppressing everyone.

English doesn't require you to remember which sex innanimate objects are.

The US and UK are rich and so can more easily employ interpreters than poorer countries.

There aren't 13,000 characters in English which makes for a much more compact keyboard.

It helps if all scientists can read each others research (It's damned annoying when journals cite important articles that are only in Japaneese!). The US and UK have been leaders in scientific research for several centuries.

Because Britain owned half the world by the 1930s. The sun never set on the british empire.

Then, of course, we sold chunks of it to pay for WW2, then gave most of the remainder independence because we didn't have the time to deal with it.
But they all speak English now because that's what the BBC broadcasts in, the internet is printed in, the language fast food menus come in, and the language the people on the imported pop CDs sing in, and Hollywood movies are dubbed in.

Also, as the most complicated language on earth, it's the most descriptive. It borrows from every language, often chasing them down and mugging them for names.

i thought spanish was the most used language in the world..... i guess thats just for the western hemisphere

I am the greatest person in the world.

But only in my head.

Kmarion wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

ATG wrote:

Excellent point. It may also be the most nuanced language. People tend to favor options.

I have a friend who's learning Mandarin Chinese.  As far as I can tell, Chinese is the most nuanced (and ridiculously complicated) language.

Granted, English is probably one of the most nuanced Western languages.

They have their own alphabet. It's not like learning another Latin based language.

Chinese absolutely does not have it's own alphabet. It has no phonetic alphabet at all. Any Chinese word you see (from any Chinese dialect) is made up from a Western system of trying to mash their sounds into our letters. Their system of writing is made up of characters which each form a word. It is not possible to "sound out" a word in Chinese if you don't know how to write it.

I agree with ATG, people favor options. English has the largest vocabulary of any other language. Several times larger than most others, in fact. My own studies in Cantonese Chinese have taught me that it is heavily nuanced as well, but a lot of the nuances in Chinese come not from a large vocabulary, but from using homonyms.

Also, in spite of the billion people who speak Mandarin, English will still reign as the most spoken language. Once you count everyone in England, Scotland, Canada, Australia, Ireland, the US, New Zealand and Singapore who speak it as a first language, you still have to consider everyone who learns it as a second language. One country in particular is enough to push English to the top all by itself: India! English is taught as a second language in all Indian schools, producing a country with nearly a billion English speakers. Yeah, their accents are so damn heavy you can barely understand them, but nevertheless, they still speak it.

Bertster7 wrote:

Everyone has pointed out the English imperialism angle, but the French and Spanish were up there as well. As you can see by the vast number of people speaking those languages.

I think the US has played a very important role in establishing English as the most dominant language in many spheres.

I tend to agree with this. Imo the widespread use of English outside the former British Imperial colonies is mostly a result of US influence.

Smitty5613 wrote:

i thought spanish was the most used language in the world..... i guess thats just for the western hemisphere

It isn't the most used by the number of people speaking it, but it is the most used language as far as official languages go.  The large majority of American countries use Spanish as the official language, not to mention Spain it self.  All those tiny Latin American countries add up.