17 May
2004
17 May
'04
4:27 p.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred Cisin" <cisin(a)xenosoft.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Monday, May 17, 2004 3:12 PM
Subject: Re: opinions on very long term storage and references from Google
search
It all comes from who owns the trade markets at the time. For a long time
England and then the US controlled the market flow of raw materials and
money/finished goods so everybody who wanted to trade had to learn English
and then American slang. Since quite a bit of the raw materials and
manufacturing is going on in India, Taiwan, and China these days (seen quite
a few advertisements years back for people that knew injection molding and
could speak fluent mandarin), I figure there will be a shift sooner or later
to another language (even if its English with Chinese slang). Once the shift
takes place it will probably take 3 generations for a major change, so yea
maybe 100 years is a bit optimistic but 150 years is not. Things change
rapidly these days, how long was Latin the deFacto standard?
>> In a
hundred years the world will be speaking and writing Hindu or
>> whatever dialect is popular in China and India
On Mon, 17 May 2004, Paul Koning wrote:
Correct -- English is, by far, the most widely
understood language in
the world. (In other words, counting both first and second language
skills.)
English is, indeed, the CURRENT Linqua Franca.
I agree that it will likely take more than "a hundred years" for that to
change, but NOT that it can't change.