Of-late, There's been a lot of talk about the possibility of Mandarin becoming the
lingua franca in the near future. I think it's Mandarin they're talking about; if not, then it's one of those few languages we collectively call Chinese. I think all these speculations about Mandarin and it's place in the world is rubbish. It's bull, hogwash and trash. Infact, it's nonsense. People confuse the most widely spoken language with the language spoken in greatest numbers. It is not suprising that the language spoken in the greatest numbers is a Chinese language, and I have firm reason to believe that it will stay that way for a long time to come, unless Hindi-speakers decide to overuse their gonads until age ninetee without protection, like that daddy of all daddies who was in the news recently for giving birth to a daughter at age 90.
'Experts' have speculated that because of the increasing economic and political influence that China has on the world, Mandarin might just over take English. Mandarin is now most in-vogue for those who want to learn a random exotic language.
But I harbour only the deepest hatred for Chinese economic and political policies, so when it comes to matters about the Chinese, I might just be an unrealistic sinic. I do concede that the economic influence of China in today's world is gigantic. That's irrefutable- Everything from light-bulbs to adultrated breast milk substitute is made in China these days. But think about this: I don't think the Chinese actually want to go on doing this. They want to become what the english speaking developed world has become: a post-industrialisation place, where the bulk of the resources are no longer spent on industries, but rather on talking intelligently about human emotions and researching topics like do aliens exist and if so, do they fart, and how do we create pets that glow in the dark? and so forth. What I'm mean to get at is this: The English speaking world or a little bit more than that, America and Europe, is where the party's at and clearly, they are the ones with the upper hand. Those who can't speak
thier language have got to learn it. Apart from the political and economic reasons, I think there are linguistic reasons why Mandarin cannot and will not overtake English. Atleast it won't right now becuase I don't know a thing about Mandarin.
My lack of knowledge aside, here are some reasons why: English was born about 500 years after Jesus of the Christ family died. So it's a really young langauge, and even in this short span of time, it has had a history like no other langauge. In its early years, English was impaled by foreign languages like French and Greek. And it's not just survived those invasions, it's allowed itself to become a richer language. English started off as a spin off of German, but became a strong amalgum of Romance, Hellenic and Germanic languages, and
that is why it has been able to acquire and maintain this linguistic hegemonony that it has in Europe today. It's become a world force now, of course, thanks to the former British foregin policy of 'colonisation through the cunning use of flags', as one comedian put it. Which is true. C.B.S.E History textbooks are full of fabricated details, designed to part of a massive nationalist BJP propaganda. This is how it actually went. When the British first arrived at Bombay, they said:
"Hello, we're the British. Who are you?
"We're the (unspellable by English)"*
(Sir Richard Attenborough's great great great great great grandfather, Sir Richard Attenborough VI who served as the royal interpreter at that time translated the reply as:
"We're the Indians")
"Do you guys have a flag?" asked Queen Victoria
"No."
"Well, we do. You're ours now."
"Ok"
After realising how their flags tactic worked out, the British started making unimaginative repetitions of the union jack and carried it around wherever they went. Who ever they met, they defeated instantly, by using that same laconic quip. One day, a few hundred years later, Gandhi was working with a
charka and he yelled out, half naked: "Eureka! I got an idea for a flag! We can all be free now!" Today, the essence of his words still reverberates through the countries that have seen the wrath of expert British flagship.
Now coming back to Latin and Greek roots. By the time we're in middle school, we learn loads of fancy scientific words and most of us get the idea that there are lots of greek roots in English words such as 'centipede', and my personal favourite, 'pseudeopodia'. It might be suprising for those unfamiliar with the history of the English langauge, that there are a lot of rather English-sounding words actually have Latin and Greek roots inconsipciously hidden in them. Consider the word 'ejaculate'. It's actually derived from the Latin word
jacere, which means 'to throw'. And 'sophisticated' has its roots in the Greek word
soph which means 'knowledge'.
So English is obviously the easiest language to incorporate new words and conceptual terminologies into. And that feeds it. Today there are over a million words in English, compared to about 40,000 during Shakespearean times. There are words like Bootylicious, which even Shakespear didn't know. So take that, people who think Mandarin will rule (and take that, Shakespear).
* Thanks to Kaushik for pointing out the historical inaccuracy in my previous account of the conversation between the first British visitors and the inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent. No worries, I have made the necessary changes and what you have read is an accurate rendition.
