New World Linguistic Order

Some experts say that there is now a New World Linguistic Order. Some traditional languages, like German and French are less important. And, at the same time, some languages, like Arabic and Chinese are more important.

In short, some Asiatic languages are more important, and other European are less important. English and Spanish remain important languages in the Americas. So, we can say, that "American" and Asiatic languages have a higher status than traditional European languages.

This tendency is true or not?

P.D. Please, do not insult other languages. Thank You.

The world is becoming multi-vectorial. This means that not just one language is important, but many are, in specific areas. French and German are still very important and people all over the world learn them as a second language. Many works that built the world as it is today were originally written by French and German authors. You can't alter that fact.
Arabic and Chinese attract more students today. But they are not dominating any other language. They can barely compete with French and German, much less English.

Stop making these stupid threads. Please. They arrive nowhere.

Yes, i agree. No point in discussing which language is "more important" and which one is "less important", because such discussions inevitably degenerate into irrational nationalistic ego-collisions. They are ALL important enough for the people who speak them and for the other people who deal with them or their countries. Period. I hate spam

You can answer without insults. For instance, you can say that there is a new World order or not.

French, German or even English will not be always important. Perhaps, the changes are starting now because French and German are less spoken. These languages are not in the top ten more spoken languages and you can say that without insults.

It may have more to do with population (in the case of China and South America) than anything else...

ALL languages are "important" for people who speak them and for the countries where they are spoken. They are also important for those who deals with these people and these countries. That's all.

Guest, bonsoir,

Tu as écrit "Arabic and Chinese attract more students today. But they are not dominating any other language".

C'est vrai, mais d'après mon experience, aussi en France qu'en Catalogne, la plupart des gens qui commencent à étudier chinois et arabe abandonnent très tôt. Très peux d'entre eux tiennet bon.

Dans le cas de ceux deux langues, leur exotisme attire beaucoup, mais pas au point de persévérer.

Mallorquí, by "more" I did not mean "a lot." The the situation in France and Catalonia that your described is similar to that in the US.
When I and other people say that Arabic and Chinese are becoming more popular, it should be noted that the word "popular" describes the recent rapid transition of these languages from being barely demanded at all to having classes that teach them double in size. However, while becoming more popular in terms of proportionality, they are not popular numerically.

However, I still find this phenomena of Chinese becoming trendy all over the world, even in countries like Russia that are traditionally oriented towards European languages, an indicator of upcoming changes.

I don't agree with that Chinese language is becoming trendy all over the world.
Maybe in Russia or the USA, but "all over the world"??

its trendy in north america and europe and in asia.......and everything else doesnt count!!

It's not THAT trendy in Europe...

I would, naturally, defend my own native language, but I must say Chinese is still not important / demanded at all. I personally don't see the point why Chinese is still "discriminated against" by the Chinese themselves - in universities, English is still more prestigious even at the expense of Chinese.

I would say that certain factors are very important for us to see whether a language is important /demanded - economic power, political strength and academic tradition. In particular, Chinese is still little used in all kinds of subjects except Chinese ones - worse still, for a number of reasons, doing Chinese subjects in China isn't really highly respected or popular for many.

Indeed, superficially, I would agree that French and German aren't as important as they had been, but they and English are still the top three. Surely, Chinese is beautiful, but it's nowhere on the top list of "academic languages". It's a shame that I never have had formally been able to write any sort of academic essays in that sense in my own language.

...so, really, SL learners AND people learning AND using the language for university studies are important. They exactly make a language important. 1.3 billion of Chinese don't make Chinese important.

Supplement: at least at my place, the most complex subjects (for laymen), namely law and medicine, and some others, like business, social sciences, arts (except chinese), are all studied in english only. In a supposedly bilingual place, english is the dominant language serving a population with -5% english speakers, and the chinese who use (though not speak, maybe) english perfectly in those fields are to rule this place. How sad.

In view of this, I shall say thanks to every enthusiastic chinese learner. You are really very brave. I wouldn't believe I could learn it I weren't a native.

Xie wrote regarding Chinese: "You are really very brave. I wouldn't believe I could learn it I weren't a native."

I've met a number of Westerners who learned spoken Mandarin fluently. Having studied it for a short time myself, I found the grammar incredibly straightforward, and easy to learn and use. The pronunciation, even with the tones, was still easier for me than French.

The hard part, of course, is the writing system. Whereas a relative beginner in Spanish can start reading on his own with a dictionary, a fluent speaker who hasn't mastered enough characters will be handicapped in using non-instructional material in Chinese. (Same for Japanese, and I've known of a lot of folks who became fluent.)

So to Sven's question, I think that Chinese, Japanese, and Arabic, although getting more popular (especially Chinese), will not soon challenge for the top places. French will be okay for a while because of the huge number of countries where it is official.

Nothing will really challenge English soon, but the only one I see joining the top group is Spanish. A huge and growing population, relatively easy pronunciation, a logical orthography, and, especially, increasing importance in the U.S.--the top stronghold of English. It may not be apparent (yet) in Europe or Asia, but the growing status of Spanish in this part of the world is impressive.