If only 6 languages survive this world, which will they be?

English
Spanish
Chinese
French
Future language or mix
Future Language or mix

Craven
Oh, Craven, you rascal, you cheated! :wink:

Keep trying.

BumbleBeeBoogie

Which will they be?

This will not happen, since languages are living beings. They are born, grow, reproduce and die. Think of Latin, Sanscrit, Pali or Anglo-Saxon. Think of Basque, that through adaptative changes, has been able to survive for millenia.


Another question could be: in 200 years, what six languages will be the most important?

English (with greater Spanish influence)
Spanish (with greater English influence)
Chinese (with noticeable English influence)
Arabic (with noticeable English influence)
Western Eurolang (a mix made mostly of English, French and German, with Englishlike grammar)
Eastern Eurolang (a mix made mostly of Russian, English and French, with slavic grammar)

fbaezer
fbaezer, your point is well taken, but linquists have opined which six languages will survive.

BumbleBeeBoogie

Maybe I'm being simplistic (and possibly stealing from above posters) but I would guess English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic and Russian.

The first 3 for being so widespread and the last for being so ingrained in culture and geography and the vast populations that speak them. However, English, Russian and Chinese are the 3 most difficult languages to learn so...maybe not?

FROM www.riverdeep.net/current/2001/ 01/012501_vocabulary.jhtml - 37k - Sep 28, 2003 -

BETTER CONNECTION
http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:WcZEBGqOT1UJ:www.riverdeep.net/current/2001/01/012501_vocabulary.jhtml+%22linguists%22+%22six+languages%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Language - Total Speakers
Language - Total Speakers

1. Mandarin Chinese 1,025,000,000

2. English 497,000,000

3. Hindi (India) 476,000,000

4. Spanish 409,000,000

5. Russian 279,000,000

6. Arabic 235,000,000

(The World Almanac
and Book of Facts 1998)

The current statistics on which languages are most frequently spoken do not necessarily serve as reliable predictors for the future. For one thing, this scenario does not take into account the possibility of a natural, or a man-made, diasaster on less than a global level. If such a thing as an all-out nuclear war or a fatal epidemic of unprcedented proportions were to occur, its victims would not be selected on the basis of language but, rather geographical proximity. This would give languages such as English and Spanish a major edge over Mandarin Chinese and Hindi, as English and Spanish are both commonly spoken on several continents, whereas Mandarin and Hindi. widespread as they are, are largely confined to Asia. Most American Chinese I know speak Cantonese, not Mandarin. Arabic is more widespread, geographically speaking, than either Mandarin or Hindi.

These are all interesting guesses. But, I submit, that's all they are -- guesses. Hell, Esperanto may catch on yet. I don't think so, but what do I know?

The language most likely to survive, IMO, would be a language spoken by an isolated people: maybe an obscure form of Mayan spoken by the Lacondon, or the language of the Pygmies in the Congo, or even a remote group of people in Alaska.

Just a guess.

Good guess. dupre. An isolated pre-technological group of people would have the best chance of survival in the event of a global catastrophe.

The language of love?

Additional languages that will survive
All good points, gang.

The possibility of the peoples of the world deciding to have one international language, such as Esperanto, could change the predictions.

Thanking outside the box, I propose at least two additional languages that will survive:

1. Sign language

2. Computer language (in whatever form it evolves into)

An additional language that I'm not educated enough to describe would be some sort of intergalactic language, probably based on mathematics.

BumbleBeeBoogie

As long as there is five o'clock traffic there will be sign language that's for sure.

Very interesting!

No one has the correct answer yet
Nobody has the correct answer yet. Five of the six surviving languages will be:

1. Mandarin Chinese
2. English
3. Spanish
4. French
5. Arabic
6. _________

BumbleBeeBoogie

Hmm...


I would guess that, were only six languages left, the sixth of these would be either Hindi (Urdu), Indonesian or Russian, as I cannot see either of these nations losing their languages. In fact, I do not imagine that all but six languages will just disappear... I think that a world with just a few languages would be a boring world.... Also, one must take into account that there are more people speaking adequate English in China than there are in the US (I'm not speaking pejoratively) and that China is opening up its markets.

Also, thinking on the grounds that but six languages would survive, I imagine that with the growth of the tourist industry and the general increase in mobility, one would not find an isolated language amongst these. Just think of isolated languages like Ibo or Kikongo; they eventually faded away because of exploration. The same would happen with little linguistic islands in Indonesia; just as Welsh has been near eradicated by the learning of English and having English as la langue acceptable, Bahasa Indonesia will take over other languages as the ancestors die. The world is becoming a globalised one, and with youth comes change.

BBB,

There is no "correct answer". You've done this before, telling people they are wrong when there is nothing to suggest that the answer you are looking for is right at all. It may sound like a small qualm but it isn't, they may not be the answers you are looking for but any of the answers here have just as much of a claim to being the "correct answer".

I have not participated in several of your threads where you do this because of this specific qualm. :-(