why does everybody speak english?

SamG · Post by **SamG** » Wed Feb 27, 2002 9:56 pm

Pascal ... the language of purists ... even a nightmare in Pascal should be structured and orderly. I was a dirty, ordinary BASIC user. Hard to dream in that mess, never knew for sure where I was and which way I was headed ...

But on topic - I learned German and would have studied Latin but then somebody told me Latin was a dead language. Not if you can read it ...

The problem was, I was not a good student.

Ian · Post by **Ian** » Wed Feb 27, 2002 10:12 pm

i know three languages (not programming)

English
French (je n'aime pas de langue francaise)
and
Bad English

childlike grace · Post by **childlike grace** » Wed Feb 27, 2002 11:11 pm

[quotefc07b="tykeal"]Those other languages that you mentioned might be part of a general education somewhere, but not here in the US at least not in any of the schools I ever attended. Yes other languages were offered, but not a single one was required.

I voted for 1 (english) as it's my native tongue. I took a couple of years of Japanese while I was in high school but since that's the only place I ever spoke it (and I never became very fluent) it's pretty much rotted right out of my head.

College saw me try to pick up ASL (American Sign Language) but yet again, it's rotted right out of my head because it's not something that I use.

Now I admit, english is a rather rotten language. But it's become the most common language on the Internet from what I've seen. It's probably due to the fact that >50% of major websites are in the US *shrug*. Of course, I've probably got blinders on and it may well be some other language

[/quotefc07b]

Mmmmm...at my school 2 credits of one foreign language is required to graduate. Be surprising what we've beaten education into doing for us young'uns. On the other hand, I cannot speak but can understand/read Tagalog Kapumpangan Spanish English and I'd really like to learn French. I resent the fact that sometimes Americans are called stupid. I could beat the pants off most people in intelligence. Stupid stereotypes.

Coasters2k · Post by **Coasters2k** » Thu Feb 28, 2002 12:57 am

I know Ebonics! Dat's the $#!% ya heard me?

beernuts · Post by **beernuts** » Thu Feb 28, 2002 1:17 am

[quote4b78a="CLee"]The point of having a common language is so that everyone doesn't have to learn 5+ other languages to speak with each other. [/quote4b78a]

Exactly.

[quote4b78a]Since English has already been established as the common language world wide thanks to our British cousins, then there is really little since for Americans to learn a second language.[/quote4b78a]

Actually, French used to be the major diplomatic language, and was the global norm. While the Brits invented it, it's America that made English the worldwide norm ;) .

toxckrayon · Post by **toxckrayon** » Thu Feb 28, 2002 2:36 am

[quote9ff1e="psoTFX"]As a first language, English is (or can be) spoken by more people than any other AFAIK[/quote9ff1e]

no, seriously... it's Chinese.. a bit of trivia there for ya.. to put it into perspective... in China alone, there's over 1.2 billion people... and there are other countries such as Taiwan that speak Chinese natively.

More countries speaking English, maybe... but more people definitely speak Chinese

dougk_ff7 · Post by **dougk_ff7** » Thu Feb 28, 2002 3:12 am

Well, I can speak English, or I should hope so. I also speak a little Spanish, and I am/will be taking it through middle and high school. Finishing up my last year of middle school right now (and my last grading period-third trimester), and I'm currently in Spanish II. So I've got a long way to go. I'm also trying to pick up on Japanese out of school, mainly because I want to play RPGs without the silly typos. (A partial joke, I really want to play RPGs untranslated, but the typos don't make a huge difference)

As a note on the poll, I mis-voted for 1 (instead of two). I guess you should still call it 1 as I am not fluent in Spanish.

the-unknown · Post by **the-unknown** » Thu Feb 28, 2002 5:41 am

I voted for 2 as I am fluent in English and Tamil.

Used to learn German (that is very rusty now).

Am also able to understand and say a few words in Mandarin and a few other Chinese dialects and Malay (mostly vulgur stuff and phrases like - "where is the washroom"

).

Does Geek-Speech or 3l33t sp33ch count as seperate languages?

Well the future "international language" is expected to be Mandarin (Chinese speak Mandarin - there are also other dialects they use) as there are more then a billion of those people around the world now.

Living in Singapore, am exposed to many languages here.

smithy_dll · Post by **smithy_dll** » Thu Feb 28, 2002 11:08 am

I learnt a little bit of French, although i can only speak in past and present tenses

psoTFX · Post by **psoTFX** » Thu Feb 28, 2002 12:26 pm

[quote0bf8c="toxckrayon"][quote0bf8c="psoTFX"]As a first language, English is (or can be) spoken by more people than any other AFAIK[/quote0bf8c]

no, seriously... it's Chinese.. a bit of trivia there for ya.. to put it into perspective... in China alone, there's over 1.2 billion people... and there are other countries such as Taiwan that speak Chinese natively.[/quote0bf8c]
[b0bf8c]Read what I said, note the punctuation ...[/b0bf8c]

More people speak Chinese as a [b0bf8c]first language[/b0bf8c], overall more people can speak English (as first, second, third)
[quote0bf8c="the-unknown"]Well the future "international language" is expected to be Mandarin (Chinese speak Mandarin - there are also other dialects they use) as there are more then a billion of those people around the world now.[/quote0bf8c]
tosh, English is embedded as the language of so many global institutions and organisations it will without much doubt remain as the "global language of choice".

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why does everybody speak english?