[quote]Diomede wrote:
Wreckless wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
Most languages are dying out pretty rapidly, in a historical context. I’d guess that in a few hundred years, our decendents will speak some blend of English, Mandarin, and Spanish. Those that refuse due to ‘cultural reasons’ will find themselves marginalized and relegated to the ‘backwaters’ of whatever society then exists.
You’re kidding right?
Dutch is my first language. It’s spoken bij about 25 million people. Those are real millions, with 6 zero’s.
Most people here speak a second, or even third or fourth language like English, French, German, …
But no way is the Dutch language going to be extinct. Not in a couple of centuries anyway.
English is the dominant language atm for international relations, like Latin was centuries ago. And if you wonder why the Chinese didn’t speak Latin, that’s because the Chinese weren’t important then. The world ended at Europes borders. Kinda like the situation you live in now.
Anyway, English is used for international relations. For instance, if a German wants to talk to an Italian, they’ll probably talk English. That doesn’t mean they’ll keep talking English. They’ll switch back to their native language when speaking to their wife and kids.
And especially for Zap, don’t you remember the “incident” when Bush rediculed a US reporter for asking Chirac a question in French?
Please, explain to me how this is different.
if this isnt the biggest loaded bunch of egocentric bullshit, i dont know what is.
China wasn’t important then? How about this for facts. The roman economy was NEVER bigger than China’s. Their military was NEVER bigger than china’s.
Dont get me wrong, i absolutely love Rome and i have spent my university career studying rome, but lets NOT pretend that Rome was the whole world. They were only Europe, North Africa, and the near east.
French was never a global language…it was spoken by europeans and americans. Again, not the whole world.
You need to get over the Europe = whole world mentality.
Wow, i’m an American and i’m telling someone else that they need to look beyond their own borders. Has hell frozen over?
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But what did it lead to? What did the Chinese finally accomplish? Their empire was turned inward. They were never looking out. And ultimately their bigger army was defeated by European gunpowder and canons.
Europe conquered the world. Well, the Brits did basically and the others just grabbed what was left.
So Europe was the center of the world then. You may not like it. You may feel sorry for those poor Chinese farmers, but that’s just how it was.
Europe had gunpowder, cannons, big ships. The Chinese had kites and fireworks.
Now we may admire they grandeur of their empire, their fine cultural and scientific achievements. But all that didn’t matter much. They were far away from Europe so they were unimportant.
In Roman times, Rome WAS THE WHOLE WORLD, with only barbarian tribes at the border. What did it matter to them that some Chinese empire excisted around the globe. They never actually met them. There could have been some indirect trade, but that was about it. And this situation lasted throughout the medieval times.
The European colonisation lead to capitalism and this is still dominating the world. What did the Chinese empire lead to? A backward 3rd world country that has always threatening to become a world power but somehow never really gets there?
Now it looks as if they might succeed, but it looks that way for several centuries now…