Languages in the future

[Soubriquet]

I’m watching Glee (don’t judge, it’s a guilty pleasure) and I’m at the episode where Mr Shue has said that by 2030, the most common language will be Spanish.

A quick google now says, that by 2050, the most common language will be French

Another site says the top 5 languages by 2050 will be

Mandarin/Chinese
Spanish
English
Hindi-Urdu
Arabic

So what languages do you think would be spoken more in the future?

It will be English as Chinese Mandarin is very difficult to write - has loads of characters.
Perhaps if you count the number of people speaking it it will be Chinese but in most countries it will be English.
Why would we switch to Spanish - much of S America speaks Portuguese. French is in parts of Africa but most of Europe has English as second language.

It’s just a hypothetical question but I’m glad you’re guessing English because although I managed to scrape a C in German, I can barely string a sentence together anymore

I’m surprised Polish/Lithuanian/Romanian or another EE language hasn’t been suggested. It would be handy in the U.K. to have even though we have left the EI

EU**

@HollyGrail only Brazil speaks Portuguese in s America. But I agree English will be the number 1 language followed by Spanish and mandarin

DD is interested in this sort of thing

Esperanto is the most widely so spoken language that was constructed rather than grew naturally.

There are loads of dialects and pidgins. Have you seen the BBC pidgin news site? www.bbc.com/pidgin . English obv.

There are so also some massive protocols.
English is international language of business
French is international language of diplomacy
Maybe more?

I can't see one common language. Even when like you say Spanish will be most widely spoken.. The actual Spanish spoken in different countries and in regions and localities of different countries can be hard to follow.

English- same thing. Accents local words etc can mean although same language theoretically. People struggle to understand each other

Language is an important part of heritage culture etc as well.

I can't see a universal one any time soon! Or ever tbh!

You need to clarify what you're asking, I think.

One list would be most people speaking a language as their first language - historically this was Chinese because of the sheer numbers in China. I've heard a suggestion before that it will switch to Spanish.

The other list would be language most people are able to speak. This is the list that English usually tops, initially because of the British empire but now maintained by American culture, films etc being so widespread, plus of course the use of the internet.

When I say most commonly spoken language, I mean universally to be spoken between different nations of people, not per country

India and China both have a host of different languages spoken.

A universal language would need to be too rich as well

Like that thing that people in Iceland have loads of words for different types of snow.

I'm confident that the English have many more words and phrases for weather than some other places! My favourite is

What's the weather doing?
It looks like it's trying to rain.

All these concepts etc don't translate.

I think we will keep going with our own dialects languages. They serve us well.

Sadly for the French, French is no longer the international language of diplomacy. I used to work at a large international organisation in Brussels, which had English and French as the official languages. When the French spoke (and they are under instructions to speak only in French), the number of people who rushed for their earpiece was huge. The Balts generally don’t learn French as a second language, Scandies, Germans, Dutch and Flemish Belgians are much more comfortable in English.

Oh really? That's v interesting. Thank you!

One common language will never happen. People cherish their language as a link to their heritage.

One common language has already happened really. It doesn't mean it wipes out people's own languages, it just means they have an extra language. So people will keep their home language as they do now but continue to use English for trade, internet, tourism, business, entertainment.

@NiceGerbil do you speak any other languages fluently? I speak two as well as English mother tongue and I think you would find phrases like you describe in both. French in particular is especially flowery in how things are said.

@MrsSchadenfreude I have some similar experience to you. I'm wondering now if things will swing to the French a bit more in Brussels with less Brits in the EU institutions. Probably not, but i wondered if it might have an impact on the language used.