I was discussing this topic in another thread and I got a lot of downvotes for suggesting that English will not forever be the world’s lingua franca. I’m not sure why people took such offence to this idea, I thought it was common knowledge that French would eventually surpass English (or even Mandarin) in terms of total users.
Anyway, I’ve linked the source of this projection. It’s a study/report from Natixis, a major corporate and investment bank (they were studying language growth to do some economic forecasting or whatever). The link to the report should be attached to this post (see page 2 for a summary, but there are subvariations of the projections and different graphs scattered all over the place in the report).
The reasoning is that most of the world is eventually going to start decreasing in population. But the world as a whole will still be growing in population. Why? Because Africa is currently experiencing a massive population boom, so the demographic weight of Africa is going to increase substantially (see, for example, the UN projections for world population growth). And of course the French language is widely spoken across Africa.
Now, is there room to critique this report? Absolutely. For instance, you could argue that it’s not fair to assume that Africa will continue to be predominately francophone; perhaps many African countries will move away from the French language now that the French colonial area is largely over. There is some movement in that direction. But regardless, this is a serious report, out of a serious institution, written by serious people. So the idea that French may surpass English a very real possibility, despite what some people seem to think.
Projected by one research group. My French isn’t good enough to tell how well they did their job.
Knowing how serious especially the French take French, this theory reads a bit try-hard-y. We were the language of the world, the language of royalty and diplomacy. And then the blasted roastbeefs passed us on the right. But now we play the long game to get back to the top. I’m not saying this can’t be true. It’s just there is this graph in the summary that almost seems comical with the optimistic projection:
As I said, I didn’t read it all so take my criticism with un peu du sel. I remain unconvinced that English will be displaced here. English has insane orthography but relatively simple grammar. French is two for two on the insanity scale (as somebody who had to learn both as foreign languages in school I feel comfortable in making this judgment). English got spread around the world with the roastbeef empire; French didn’t quite reach those heights. They had to have a revolution or two and in between Napoleon screwed it up by selling Louisiana.
That graph feels like comedy.
Would a graph depicting Africa’s population growth also look like comedy to you? Because it would look pretty similar to that graph too
Not really. “Africans” doesn’t really have humor value in the way that “Francophones” does.
I’m not saying the chat is definitely wrong. I’m just saying that a chart of language use in which French is flat until the present and then is forecasted to suddenly take off while everything else stays level reads like an example of well-executed visual humor.
The stark contrast between the “scénario optimiste” and “scénario pessimiste” feels like they really didn’t want to suggest French would decline in use.
“Absolute worst case scenario? French sees an extremely minimal decline over the next 30 years. Virtually zero change. Best case scenario? TO THE MOOOOOOOOOON! 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀”
I am slightly confused by the graph, which does not appear to list English or any of the Chinese languages?
It’s reasonable to argue that ‘lingua franca’ means the language used for trade, travel, diplomacy etc. - and that does not necessarily have to mean the language spoken by the plurality of the world’s population.
Yeah, that’s another reason to criticize this graph. And in fairness to the authors and from what I understood, they don’t just look at native speakers. The theory is that due to population decline everywhere but Africa and the dominance of French on the continent French’s rise to lingua franca will be a pull factor. People who want to do business with these African francophone areas are more likely to learn it.
Sacrebleu!
Oh yeah so a singular french study finds that french will be the lingua franca and not english, and were supposed to just take that granted. Since the colonial days english has been the language that was the most imposed onto other cultures so it just became the universal language. Currently in the eu from what i know there are two countries where one of the official languages are english: ireland and malta. Malta is negligable and tbh even as an ireland fanboy, it doesnt really matter with its population of 5.1 million yet the lingua franca of the eu is still english usually with spanish, french and german being the secondary ones usually(idk why but i havent really heard of italian being the fallback which is strange). So yeah even if there are more speakers(like chinese for example) it doesnt matter because in the western sphere, english will stay cause thats what everyone knows.
I thought it was common knowledge that French would eventually surpass English (or even Mandarin) in terms of total users.
This was definitely news to me, because I’ve always assumed (and read) it would be mandarin.
French? The linga franca? That doesn’t make any sense
The original “lingua franca” was actually a mix of dialects from Italian sailors—in the middle ages and the renaissance, most people in the rest of the world referred to all western Europeans as “Franks”.
I knew a Frank who went to France once — not sure if that counts.
Your comment is really confusing. If you are talking about the original lingua franca, it was a mix of Mediterranean languages and so contained French.
If you mean in the sense of an international vehicular language, French has historically been the language of diplomacy and is one of the official languages of the UN.
That English is such a international language is a pretty recent development.
The joke is that “franca” = French. Though etymologically the phrase is from Italian, the root of “franca” is the same root that gives us the word “French.”
I thought it was common knowledge that French would eventually surpass English (or even Mandarin) in terms of total users.
I cannot wait to start working with a Gabonese subsistence farmer in French for my next software project.
I find it unlikely that it would be economy-based since that is already why English surpassed French in the first place as the two were competing. You are not factoring globalisation which is already established in depth. When Africa joins in, they won’t just appear in a position of economic influence, they will be joining like everyone else does—see India—initially scrambling to get their business out there.
Booo, fr🤮nch. I rather have it be Mandarin-Chinese so I don’t have to learn more stuff xD
i think it purely comes down to content
if there is an endless stream of french movies and music and articles and content coming out 24x7 like the Americans do then I think french could grow
But I think even if the Americans spoke American not English, we would all have American as a second language because there is just so much content, it never ends
I think this prediction would fit better here:
I kinda wish I had taken french instead of spanish in high school and then maybe looked into going to college in montreal. oh well.
McGill is a high ranking English language university in Montreal
Quebecurious are you?
I just wish I took a path a few decades ago that had me not be in this country now.
Haha yeah college in Quebec is free for Canadians so I mean, not a bad idea
Can anybody recommend some sound resources for learning French that don’t require a lot of money?
I tried Mauril out, it’s a really cool concept. I just wish the difficulty curve was a bit softer. Felt like from the outset, I was being quizzed on things that I was unfamiliar with.
Africans will learn whichever languages gives them the best economic opportunities. That is still going to be English and will likely be so for a long time. The only realistic challenger will be Mandarin, but not for a long time.
Okay I know nothing about this topic but it sounds wrong. My guess is that it relies on the same scam that says English isn’t the most natively spoken language by just magically declaring that areas which teach English to their children aren’t native English speaking.
