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French? The lingua franca? That doesn't make any sense
The original “lingua franca” was actually a mix of dialects from Italian sailors—in the middle ages and the renaissance, most people in the rest of the world referred to all western Europeans as “Franks”.
I knew a Frank who went to France once — not sure if that counts.
I got a lot of downvotes for suggesting that English will not forever be the world’s lingua franca.
I thought it was common knowledge that French would eventually surpass English (or even Mandarin) in terms of total users.
Perhaps you were downvoted for suggesting that one projection by one research group is both "common knowledge" and constitutes a scientific consensus when it is neither. A more accurate and honest title for your post would be, "YSK: The French language is projected by some research groups to be the world's most widely spoken language in the world by 2050"
The most widely used language in 2050 could be Pig Latin for all I know. But I wouldn't read one paper arguing as much and treat it like it's the gospel.
Plus, it really doesn't matter if it is the most commonly spoken language, it doesn't mean it'll take over as lingua franca.
Well you've linked a report in French, which won't convince many English speakers. Which are probably the ones resisting your premise.
That being said, I fully expect English to be taken over by another language. However, what put English there in the first place? Economic power. That's why I would bet on Mandarin over French. That's a lot of birth replacement to beat out China and associated trade partners.
Again, I can't read your evidence because I can't speak French. I can't tell what factors they've taken into account. So I just have my opinion/guess.
My money would be on Mandarin but... Boy it's a hard language. The English has a few quirks but it is an EASY language compared to most, including French. IMO, this and not number of native speakers or economic power alone explains best English overtaking French and establishing itself as de facto lingua franca of the 21st century.
Boy it's a hard language. The English has a few quirks but it is an EASY language compared to most, including French
Man, as a native English speaker, I totally disagree with this. We are, as I emphasized in another comment, a fucking mess phonetically, and a lot of this is ironically because English plundered so much from French (among other languages). So much of English you just have to "know" on a nearly case-by-case basis, and I imagine the internal systems I use to subconsciously keep track of these inconsistencies are a terrifying web of spaghetti. The conjugation is fucked six ways from Sunday, there are idioms out the ass (see the ones I'm unintentionally using here), there's sooooo much slang, and there's practically a bottomless pit of words – so much so (in combination with how common it is as a second language) that Wikipedia maintains a simplified English version using a list of only the 1000 most common words.
I can't say I've learned French, but even accounting for how much I already accidentally know of it (knowing more obscure English words aids a lot in translation to the point I can often read sentences with knowing just a handful of basic French connective words), I'd bet it's a ton easier. The main thing I'd hate, like I do with Spanish, is gendered nouns (god, they're so fucking superfluous), but I'd still say it beats the weird peculiarities of English.
Most non-native speakers, to my understanding, would consider English quite hard to learn, even when factoring in all the English media they're surrounded by growing up.
All of this is true, and yet basic English is easy. Then it just keeps throwing shit at you for the rest of your life, but then it's too late.
Not even going to bother trying to translate it. Their idea is fucking stupid with zero support.
English overtook French as the primary international language due to economic power of the English speaking countries. Even when French was the international language it was not that popular. Only the elites and well educated spoke the language outside of native speakers. Both Spanish and Mandarin have more native speakers than English today.
English has a huge amount of people who speak it as a secondary language. The total amount of people who speak it today is estimated to be 1.5 billion. It is the most common language spoke around the world.
The barriers to reverse this trend on a global scale and swap to another language is almost laughably difficult today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_number_of_speakers
Yeah, if there's a new lingua franca in 25 years (which would be strange, because the proliferation of increasingly highly accurate LLM translation would seemingly add pressure in favor of whatever the status quo is), I would bargain on Mandarin. And that's if, which I seriously doubt – even assuming the US completely fucks up the next 20 years as badly as the last 10 and China just dominates the world economy by a vast margin. English is one of the hardest major languages to learn; ironically, the globalism that let it proliferate arguably isn't helping a total beginner as English increasingly pulls in loanwords.
What's a language that's even harder to learn? Mandarin. English is a fucking mess phinetically, but at least it doesn't have tens of thousands of characters and an extreme emphasis on particular intonation. Japanese has kanji, sure, but there's a foundation in the form of kanas which are easy to learn and are phonetic. Especially with English entrenched as a secondary language, pivoting to teaching Mandarin would need an enormous incentive compared to China's incentive to just, like, use an LLM to translate messages etc. bound to non-Madarin-speaking countries.
The point about economic power makes a lot of sense. I guess it really comes down to how well Africa's economic development goes. China's development happened very rapidly, it's possible that something similar might happen in some regions of Africa. But that's very hard to predict. Right now China surpassing being/becoming the world's largest economic player seems like a very safe bet
Projected by one research group. My French isn't good enough to tell how well they did their job.
Knowing how serious especially the French take French, this theory reads a bit try-hard-y. We were the language of the world, the language of royalty and diplomacy. And then the blasted roastbeefs passed us on the right. But now we play the long game to get back to the top. I'm not saying this can't be true. It's just there is this graph in the summary that almost seems comical with the optimistic projection:
As I said, I didn't read it all so take my criticism with un peu du sel. I remain unconvinced that English will be displaced here. English has insane orthography but relatively simple grammar. French is two for two on the insanity scale (as somebody who had to learn both as foreign languages in school I feel comfortable in making this judgment). English got spread around the world with the roastbeef empire; French didn't quite reach those heights. They had to have a revolution or two and in between Napoleon screwed it up by selling Louisiana.
I am slightly confused by the graph, which does not appear to list English or any of the Chinese languages?
It's reasonable to argue that 'lingua franca' means the language used for trade, travel, diplomacy etc. - and that does not necessarily have to mean the language spoken by the plurality of the world's population.
Yeah, that's another reason to criticize this graph. And in fairness to the authors and from what I understood, they don't just look at native speakers. The theory is that due to population decline everywhere but Africa and the dominance of French on the continent French's rise to lingua franca will be a pull factor. People who want to do business with these African francophone areas are more likely to learn it.
The stark contrast between the "scénario optimiste" and "scénario pessimiste" feels like they really didn't want to suggest French would decline in use.
"Absolute worst case scenario? French sees an extremely minimal decline over the next 30 years. Virtually zero change. Best case scenario? TO THE MOOOOOOOOOON! 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀"
I thought it was common knowledge that French would eventually surpass English (or even Mandarin) in terms of total users.
This was definitely news to me, because I’ve always assumed (and read) it would be mandarin.
I don't think this should be a YSK. It's a... Rather one sided study from a French bank for the French gov? And rather optimistic IMHO. Or wishful thinking. I doubt South Africa is going to change to French. And many other nations will stick to English or other languages. As a YSK... YSK some French still have aspirations to language dominance?
Yeah, it's more like "mildly interesting, a study suggests French could potentially become the most widely used language by 2050"
I can't read the report... it's in French.
Wait 24 years 🙃
Échec et mat
Yeah, sorry. I didn't come across an English translation. And it's a PDF which makes machine translation pretty tricky. There is some English language news coverage of the report though. For example here is an article about it from Forbes
After 2050, I'm the one who has to apologize for not posting in the majority language.
Being widely spoken in one particular region (or even a few regions) doesn't automatically connect to being a global lingua franca. If that was the standard we'd be speaking Hindi or Mandarin here. Francophone Africa is projected to experience a popular boom, but even in the best case scenario (i.e. one where francophone Africa experiences better economic growth than other parts) that'd only make it more widespread in Africa. Globally there's no way it can compete with the rising utility of Mandarin.
IDK OP, I watched the future docuseries Firefly and it seemed like everyone still spoke English, but cursed in Mandarin.
Africans will learn whichever languages gives them the best economic opportunities. That is still going to be English and will likely be so for a long time. The only realistic challenger will be Mandarin, but not for a long time.
Best counterargument is cultural export. We don't see it with Chinese nor with African French. If at all Japanese, Spanish or South Korean. But for the Asian languages the learning curve is much higher and the utility lower.
A study by French speaking researchers, published entirely in French, backed a French bank/investment firm, finds that French will be the future most spoken language in the world!
Totally unbiased study. Very and completely neutral.
This has to be satire, right?
A study by Munhwao speaking researchers, published entirely in Munhwao, backed by the government of North Korea, finds that Munhwao will actually be the most spoken language in the world in the future!!
I’d guess mandarin is the most used language. But not the most widely used language common across speakers who speak a different native language. Or across regions. Even if French takes over in Africa, you’d have a similar problem surpassing English. Also their influence over the global economy will limit this.
that's funny because for the last 35 years I've been told Mandarin is going to be the most widely spoken language.
Booo, fr🤮nch. I rather have it be Mandarin-Chinese so I don't have to learn more stuff xD
I thought it was common knowledge that French would eventually surpass English (or even Mandarin) in terms of total users.
I cannot wait to start working with a Gabonese subsistence farmer in French for my next software project.
🤢
Merde
Perhaps this will happen in four twenties ten nine years instead
Okay I know nothing about this topic but it sounds wrong. My guess is that it relies on the same scam that says English isn't the most natively spoken language by just magically declaring that areas which teach English to their children aren't native English speaking.
I find it unlikely that it would be economy-based since that is already why English surpassed French in the first place as the two were competing. You are not factoring globalisation which is already established in depth. When Africa joins in, they won't just appear in a position of economic influence, they will be joining like everyone else does—see India—initially scrambling to get their business out there.
I kinda wish I had taken french instead of spanish in high school and then maybe looked into going to college in montreal. oh well.
Quebecurious are you?
I just wish I took a path a few decades ago that had me not be in this country now.
Sacrebleu!
Can anybody recommend some sound resources for learning French that don't require a lot of money?
I tried Mauril out, it's a really cool concept. I just wish the difficulty curve was a bit softer. Felt like from the outset, I was being quizzed on things that I was unfamiliar with.