"English has taken its place as the world's lingua franca, but it's not pushing out other languages"

As someone who travels extensively around the world for business, I would provide another few points. I think the spread of English has been the result of 1) EU, 2)US is the entire focus of the internet/computer age, and 3) the swift rise and strong desire of emerging markets to join the rest of the world.

The “breaking down” of the barriers in the EU has created an very young and highly mobile workforce, who may have grown up in Poland, gone to university in France, and took a job in Italy. That young person can do this with no restrictions now, and they are doing it in droves. The only language that ties these people together is English, as they move around from country to country.

The US was and still is, for the time being, the center of this entire computer/internet age that is sweeping the globe. And to be a part of that you must understand and embrace English as a language, otherwise, you will be left behind. The internet age is starting to have tentacles in other corners of the world, but for too long it was the US that was pushing it.

With the US and EU still the key center of the world economy, it has been important for all of the emerging economies to be a part of the US/EU focus and therefore needing to learn English. While China and Asia are a key emerging market, they still pale in comparison to the economic power of the US and EU. And in order for a country like China to grow and either produce for the US and EU or operate in this economy they must understand English.

With all of that said, as English becomes a global language and as new medium’s exist, it is logical that the language will evolve. How many of our kids and even ourselves have no incorporated items like LOL and IDK into our language.

I know a number of languages, and have traveled up to 5 countries in a single day (global day), what has tied everything together is English. While it is useful to know a local language to talk to locals in certain situations, from a true economic sense and traveling perspective it is nearly useless. There are some corners of the world where a large portion of the population doesn’t speak English, and maybe as China grows the shift may change. Who knows. But for the foreseeable future, I don’t see it changing. Despite the other emerging markets, our sense of a free capitalistic society with a strong population of thinkers, entrepreneurs and innovators makes us a true powerhouse.

spoken English is one of the easiest languages to learn. Because:

• English grammar is basically positional. It is not highly inflected ( cf. NT Greek ande modern Russian).
• English is a language of dialects and accents. This gives a person learning English a flexibility they don’t have in Russian or other inflected languages where if you don’t pronounce a word correctly it is all but meaning less. (cf. Ricardo Montablan and his rich Corinthian leather and the Gabor sisters)

Written English is problematical because of the languages habit of stealing “needed” words from other languages and then keeping the spelling of the original language (hence dictionaries and spell check). This makes up for the lack of difficulty in English grammar.

So, what is needed is a common government and a common economy/banking system and some minor improvements in technology and the Babylon system spoken of in Revelation will be in place with the United States (it is where the UN, the IMF and the World Bank are located after all) leading the way.

[JobK]

So, what is needed is a common government and a common economy/banking system and some minor improvements in technology and the Babylon system spoken of in Revelation will be in place with the United States (it is where the UN, the IMF and the World Bank are located after all) leading the way.

yes, let it come

As it was foretold by the prophets. I think that I should point out that I do not believe in a rapture but instead that the church will endure the great tribulation, the time of Jacob’s trouble.