Which language would be the best lingua franca?

[FlatAssembler]

[Angrboda]

Entering English words on a computer is easy, well supported, and English has the largest current adoption. It makes a natural choice.

[polymath257]

Perhaps a form of pinyin simplified chinese.

Alphabetical, but with simple grammar. Also has a large population base.

English is, supposedly, one of the hardest languages to learn. The main difficulty with Chinese, I think, is the symbols. Making it pinyin helps with that (as well as helping typing).

Why restrict to European languages when Asia is going to be dominant in the next century?

[Anomalocaris]

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Perhaps a form of pinyin simplified chinese.

Alphabetical, but with simple grammar. Also has a large population base.

English is, supposedly, one of the hardest languages to learn. The main difficulty with Chinese, I think, is the symbols. Making it pinyin helps with that (as well as helping typing).

Why restrict to European languages when Asia is going to be dominant in the next century?

That’s not a bad suggestion, as tonal languages are inherently more flexible than pitch-accent ones.

Boru

[Anomalocaris]

Perhaps a form of pinyin simplified chinese.

Alphabetical, but with simple grammar. Also has a large population base.

English is, supposedly, one of the hardest languages to learn. The main difficulty with Chinese, I think, is the symbols. Making it pinyin helps with that (as well as helping typing).

Why restrict to European languages when Asia is going to be dominant in the next century?

That’s not a bad suggestion, as tonal languages are inherently more flexible than pitch-accent ones.

Boru

Also inherently more difficult to learn.   I was told by my Chinese friends that listening to westerner who mastered the grammar and diction of Chinese is still an ordeal because they continue to be unable to make the appropriate tones, which often makes them incomprehensible, or worse.    One gentleman was heard to order a male hooker at a restaurant.


A language intrinsically suitable, as opposed to suitable by scale and cultural influence, to be a universal language should have simple grammar, few or no exceptions to the grammar and any spelling/sound rules, not context sensitive, requiring the mastery of relatively small set of signs and symbols,   Its sounds should be deductible from its signs and symbols, and it should as much possible use only a limited set of sounds, pitched snd tones that would be quite common across most languages, or at least to language spoken by majority of the world’s people.

Another important trait, if the universal language is to be based on an existing language, is its vernacular should be relatively slow to change.   Languages which relies on inscrutable idioms or idiom sets and vernacular that changes quickly are not suitable.

Chinese does not fit the bill.  Neither does English.   Latin oddly does.  Classical Latin probably fit the bill better than Ecclesiastical Latin.

when i jested the universal language should have binary alphabet if 2 letters and express itself as clicks rather than  vowels and consonants, it was mostly kidding, but not entirely kidding.

[awty]

That’s not a bad suggestion, as tonal languages are inherently more flexible than pitch-accent ones.

Boru

Also inherently more difficult to learn.   I was told by my Chinese friends that listening to westerner who mastered the grammar and diction of Chinese is still an ordeal because they continue to be unable to make the appropriate tones, which often makes them incomprehensible, or worse.    One gentleman was heard to order a male hooker at a restaurant.

Perhaps that's what he was hungry for at the moment.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

That’s not a bad suggestion, as tonal languages are inherently more flexible than pitch-accent ones.

Boru

Also inherently more difficult to learn.   I was told by my Chinese friends that listening to westerner who mastered the grammar and diction of Chinese is still an ordeal because they continue to be unable to make the appropriate tones, which often makes them incomprehensible, or worse.    One gentleman was heard to order a male hooker at a restaurant.


A language intrinsically suitable, as opposed to suitable by scale and cultural influence, to be a universal language should have simple grammar, few or no exceptions to the grammar and any spelling/sound rules, not context sensitive, requiring the mastery of relatively small set of signs and symbols,   Its sounds should be deductible from its signs and symbols, and it should as much possible use only a limited set of sounds, pitched snd tones that would be quite common across most languages, or at least to language spoken by majority of the world’s people.

Another important trait, if the universal language is to be based on an existing language, is its vernacular should be relatively slow to change.   Languages which relies on inscrutable idioms or idiom sets and vernacular that changes quickly are not suitable.

Chinese does not fit the bill.  Neither does English.   Latin oddly does.  Classical Latin probably fit the bill better than Ecclesiastical Latin.

when i jested the universal language should have binary alphabet if 2 letters and express itself as clicks rather than  vowels and consonants, it was mostly kidding, but not entirely kidding.

The majority of languages in the world are already tonal. If a tonal language is hard to learn for westerners, then too bad so sad.

Boru

[Anomalocaris]

Maybe the majority of the world’s languages are tonal. but it seems except for chinese, most of these tonal languages have only comparative small number of speakers. so the total number of native tonal speakers is only 1.5 billion, out of this 1.3 billion would be speakers of chinese.

So roughly 80% of the world’s 7.8 billion might struggle with a tonal language.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Maybe the majority of the world’s languages are tonal.   but it seems except for chinese, most of these tonal languages have only comparative small number of speakers.   so the total number of native tonal speakers is only 1.5 billion, out of this 1.3 billion would be speakers of chinese.

So roughly 80% of the world’s 7.8 billion might struggle with a tonal language.

Sucks for the 80%, then, dunnit?

It’s moot, anyway. English is going to be the de facto lingua franca for the foreseeable future.

Boru