discusses the "accidental" outcome of English as lingua franca. the reason is basically: The British Empire. the article argues against forced language diversity (by either linguists or...
discusses the "accidental" outcome of English as lingua franca.
the reason is basically: The British Empire.
the article argues against forced language diversity (by either linguists or governments) since: we need jobs.
I mean, there's a strong point to be made for allowing individuals to make their own decisions. But the pros and cons as laid out in this article are quite basic and over-simplified.
They don't mention that a committee did set out to create a lingua franca without all the annoying idiosyncrasies of English, namely Esperanto, which to this day has a thriving community of followers, that's growing online (they now have a Duolingo course).
I remember listening to some very interesting breakdown of the issue from Freakonomics:
This is a well written article about a difficult subject - how English, through a series of unfortunate incidents, became the default language of the world despite lacking many linguistically...
This is a well written article about a difficult subject - how English, through a series of unfortunate incidents, became the default language of the world despite lacking many linguistically desirable properties, and how it effects non-English cultures around the world.
discusses the "accidental" outcome of English as lingua franca.
the reason is basically: The British Empire.
the article argues against forced language diversity (by either linguists or governments) since: we need jobs.
I mean, there's a strong point to be made for allowing individuals to make their own decisions. But the pros and cons as laid out in this article are quite basic and over-simplified.
They don't mention that a committee did set out to create a lingua franca without all the annoying idiosyncrasies of English, namely Esperanto, which to this day has a thriving community of followers, that's growing online (they now have a Duolingo course).
I remember listening to some very interesting breakdown of the issue from Freakonomics:
another one I just stumbled on now:
This is a well written article about a difficult subject - how English, through a series of unfortunate incidents, became the default language of the world despite lacking many linguistically desirable properties, and how it effects non-English cultures around the world.