🚀 go-pugleaf

matt@amsaa-cleo.brl.mil (Matt Rosenblatt) writes:

[much deleted]

>With all its special virtues, it's no wonder that foreigners all
>over the globe are learning English to a far greater extent than
>French, Arabic, German, Italian or Japanese.

I'd argue that. People don't learn  a particular language because it is easy
to learn, but because there's a social need or advantage. English is the most
widespread as 2nd language in the world, and national language in a large
number of countries all around the world. This is mainly a leftover from the
British empire that spread the language all around the globe (the USA started
off as a British colony too). So learning English gives you the largest
possible number of people to communicate with, and that's a self-reinforcing
effect.

Briefly: political and social issues determine the emergence of a world
language. It was the same with Latin and French at their times.


>					-- Matt Rosenblatt
>					(matt@amsaa-cleo.brl.mil)

Ciao :)

Wolfgang

--
* Wolfgang Schwanke * Technische Universitaet Berlin * Germany * wolfi on irc *
* email: wolfi@cs.tu-berlin.de       *      wolfaefg@w250zrz.zrz.tu-berlin.de *

   Everybody needs a little love sometime; stop hacking and fall in love!