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View Poll Results: Is Europe on its way to becoming an Anglophone continent?
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No way, not in a trillion years
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31 |
47.69% |
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Maybe in a thousand years
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10 |
15.38% |
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Maybe in a hundred years
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14 |
21.54% |
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It's happening already and yes, eventually Europe's native languages will go extinct
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10 |
15.38% |
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10-28-2012, 06:11 PM
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2,096 posts, read 4,452,583 times
Reputation: 1265
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Physicist Michio Kaku believes that as we become a Type 1 Civilization, we will eventually all speak one language and that most likely it will be English. English is already the lingua franca of the world, and 300 million people in China are learning it. When a German and a Swede need to speak to each other in a European hostel, they will often use English as their common medium. In many European countries more music is sung in English than in the native language.
Do you think English will become so dominant that eventually European children will start forgetting the language of their parents and will be raised in English? Or are Europeans too proud of their heritage for that to happen?
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10-28-2012, 06:18 PM
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Location: New York metropolitan area
1,316 posts, read 1,478,360 times
Reputation: 334
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In some countries, like Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, and other smaller countries with smaller population, English language is becoming more and more common in daily use (Not 100% English though). However, I don't think English would replace either of those countries' language, but their local language would mix more and more with English in daily speech.
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10-28-2012, 07:54 PM
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24,400 posts, read 18,898,511 times
Reputation: 9517
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European cultures were defining themselves for thousand years - be that France, Germany, Italy and the rest. Their languages were a crucial part to this cultural definition.
So unless everyone decides to forget their identity and accept pop-culture where everyone "sings in English" as the highest achievement of the human kind - then yeah, "English will become the "First language" of all Europeans.  |
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10-29-2012, 03:00 AM
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Location: North West Northern Ireland.
20,694 posts, read 22,420,206 times
Reputation: 3107
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Hopefully.
I hate it when you goto Europe and theres all these foreign languages, everybody should just speak english.
But, no I don't think so. Europeans are attached like Superglue to their culture, so there is no way that they will trade their language for english.
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10-29-2012, 03:36 AM
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Location: Sweden
23,883 posts, read 69,396,586 times
Reputation: 18548
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No.
Before english, it was german, before german it was french, before french it was latin.
Perhaps in the future everybody will speak chinese.
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10-29-2012, 07:03 AM
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Location: Belgium
1,173 posts, read 1,863,240 times
Reputation: 1434
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I think the situation like it is developping itself today will continue: Europeans keep on speaking their mother tongue within their own communities/regions/states, but will have a prolific knowledge of the English language as to communicate with people with a different mother tongue.
On the other hand, in a not too distant future we'll probably have the technological means to lift all language barriers anyway: devices that translate what you say immediately into the selected language.
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10-29-2012, 07:11 AM
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7,691 posts, read 9,406,902 times
Reputation: 5186
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Quote:
Originally Posted by owenc
Hopefully.
I hate it when you goto Europe and theres all these foreign languages, everybody should just speak english.
But, no I don't think so. Europeans are attached like Superglue to their culture, so there is no way that they will trade their language for english.
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the world famous ulster scots trait for tollerance and appreciaton of difference appears again |
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10-29-2012, 07:12 AM
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7,691 posts, read 9,406,902 times
Reputation: 5186
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a better quuestion might be , will german ever become the first language of most / all europeans  |
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10-29-2012, 12:23 PM
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Location: Turku, Finland
317 posts, read 380,532 times
Reputation: 288
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By the next millennium you'll all be speaking Finnish.
Resistance is futile.
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10-29-2012, 12:49 PM
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6,143 posts, read 7,263,727 times
Reputation: 5038
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Quote:
Originally Posted by owenc
Hopefully.
I hate it when you goto Europe and theres all these foreign languages, everybody should just speak english.
But, no I don't think so. Europeans are attached like Superglue to their culture, so there is no way that they will trade their language for english.
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Hopefully, not with the ridiculous Irish accent  |
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