Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 November 6

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November 6

Fried Wikipedia

Hello. I saw this image on a page about menu mis-translations. What does it really say?    → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 02:41, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Somebody saw it almost five years ago. Apparently, it's beef. Or less apparently, a delicate Welsh maid. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:46, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

And who wouldn't eat that?! You on the other hand proclaim yourself Indedible. On the Internet who can tell you're not chopped liver? Contact Basemetal here 06:35, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Offline, I'm tasty enough. But on the Internet, people just get my ideas, and those can be hard to swallow. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:55, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

No, it's not beef. That other discussion is about something else. The term that is being mistranslated is "鸡枞", which appears to be a type of fungus or mushroom, Macrolepiota albuminosa. Here is the entry for the plant in Baidu Baike. This source cited in the Wikipedia article suggests that one English translation of the Chinese name is "chicken mushroom". So, item 303 on the menu is really "quick-fried chicken mushrooms" and "chicken mushrooms with Yunnan wrinkled pepper" (presumably some variety of pepper), and item 304 is "steamed eggs with fragrant oil and chicken mushrooms" (which I suspect is a sort of savoury steamed egg pudding). None of this indicates how the translator ended up with Wikipedia as the appropriate term! — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 11:36, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Rampant speculation - "Wikipedia" is a portmanteau of "wiki-wiki" and "encyclopedia". "Wiki-wiki means something like "quick" in Hawaiian. There are many Chinese speakers in Hawaii, and people of Chinese ancestry. So something like "quick-fried" -> "wiki-fried" -> "fried wiki" -> "fried Wikipedia" could be plausible. From there, it's pretty easy to think Wikipedia means chicken mushrooms, and the error propagates. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:36, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Pekka Karjalainen suggests a different explanation on Language Log. --ColinFine (talk) 23:37, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

If you google-image the subject, you will find a number of variations on this obvious joke. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:30, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

• My local all-you-can eat Chinese buffet offered crawfish as clawfish for the longest while. Makes perfect sense. When I finally did think to get a picture of the sign it had been changed to "crayfish".

Chukchi language

Bizarre request, here, maybe. I have just been watching a film which had some scenes in it with people speaking the Chukchi language of North-East Siberia. There were subtitles, but I switched the subtitles off. I was surprised to find that I understood a lot of it. This may be because I have studied Lappish and other northern Siberian languages (though I cannot speak them). The article here on the language does not indicate a relationship with Lappish, but does seem to mention an apparent relationship with Alaskan and Canadian languages. I would like to follow this up a little further. Are there any online resources which may help me to learn a little more? KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 20:33, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

This article "Linguistic Relations Across the Bering Strait" might be a good start [1]. "Language Phyla of the Indo-Pacific Region" [2] lists "Chukchi-Kamchadal" as a phylum, and gives an overview of relationships and further refs in section 2.4. The former article is behind a paywall, the latter is freely accessible. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:42, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

And this paper says "Chukchi-This language, also known as the Chukotskii and Luoravetlianskii language, is one of the Siberian Eskimo languages spoken above the Arctic Circle. It is very closely related to Koryak, but it is not related to any of the Alaska Native languages" [3]. Also paywalled, ask at WP:REX if you need a copy. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:46, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Finally, Chukotko-Kamchatkan_languages#Relation_to_other_language_families says "The Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages have no generally accepted relation to any other language family", but goes on to discuss putative relationships backed by academic refs, one of which is my first link above. SemanticMantis (talk) 21:01, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

• I'd also recommend Linguistic Relations Across the Bering Strait by Michael Fortescue. See Uralo-Siberian. The fashion in English-speaking linguistics is to deny that long-distance relationships between families like Eskaleut, Chukotko-Kamchatkan, Uralic-Yukaghir, the Altaic languages and PIE can be demonstrated.

But Fortescue provides rather convincing evidence establishing a base relationship between Uralic and Eskaleut, then he suggests that Chukotko-Kamchatkan is actually more changed from the proto-language, but probably the closest sister to Eskaleut. His system largely overlaps with Joseph Greenberg's Eurasiatic languages although Fortescue finds Altaic and PIE related at a further distance, and he does not support any relation to Ainu other than one of contact. Japanese is almost universally considered Altaic, by those who don't reject Altaic altogether.

The vast majority of Fortescue's roots have obvious PIE cognates, and Altaic is much closer in appearance to Uralo-Siberian than is Chukotko-Kamchatkan. At this time depth, Japanese, English and Chukchi would all be about equally related, so easy comprehension would be surprising to say the least. Except for Nivkh and Ainu, good proto-dictionaries and grammars for these languages or families are available in English, and anyone who denies there's prima facie evidence for their relationship simply hasn't spent a few hours reading each of the sources. Contact me privately, User:KageTora if you want some serious published sources, I can give you all the main scholarly resources in the field. Ping me if you email me. μηδείς (talk) 23:00, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

KageTora, considering your recent questions on kinship terms in your family, when was the last time when you posted a non-bizarre request? ;) No such user (talk) 12:35, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Not entirely sure what that's supposed to mean, but hey.... :) KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 06:39, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

On-topic: Could the intelligibility be due to the influence by Russian that Chukchi has undergone, particularly in relation to vocabulary? As far as I remember, KageTora, you know some Russian. --Theurgist (talk) 15:31, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, could KageTora explain what exactly he understood?--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 20:42, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

(ec with Ljuboslov updated to reflect his question) Yes, I was wondering if any of the recognizable words might have been either of Russian or Samoyed influence. The easternmost dialects of Lapp have a Samoyed superstratum, probably to do with reindeer herding, and the Chukchi also herd reindeer. Russian influence would be mostly in technological/cultural words. And words on the Uralic Swadesh list (See also Turkic Swadesh List) could go back to a common ancestor with other Eurasiatic languages. It might be an unfair question to ask him exactly what he understood. I can often listen to Russian on TV or hear Greek spoken in some context and basically understand what's going on, and recognize a good number of words, but not be able to process it fully or repeat it at all. μηδείς (talk) 21:41, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Well, the film in question was As Far as My Feet Will Carry Me and the scene in question is when the Chukchi girl is saying goodbye to the German soldier. It's very short, just three or four phrases. I didn't hear t as Russian. It was definitely a Samoyed-type language. The only word that I can definitely say was in there was 'nimi' (or maybe 'neme'). I don't want to say any others I think I may have heard in case I am subconsciously superimposing them, ut I am sure I could understand the basics of what was being said. The context probably helped, too. If this had been a radio broadcast, I probably wouldn't have had a clue what was gong on. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 06:39, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

I have ordered he movie through ILL. μηδείς (talk) 22:15, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

I suppose it is another film about "a good Western guy" vs "bad Russians" and full of goofs and klukva. Not much worth of money or time.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 02:34, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

I've found the film and watched the exact episode, but I can say nothing about it, as I have not your talent of understanding exotic languages. If you want you may ask this guy, he surely speaks Chukchan and could comment.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 02:28, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Is Alexander defender of Man, or Mankind?

In Alexa (name) it's "Defender of Man", in Alexander it's "Defender of the People" or "Defending men", and in Alexandra it's "Defender of man".

So is it: Man, Men, People, or perhaps Mankind? Ariel. (talk) 20:47, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

In the days before 'political correctness' and hypersensitivity to the use of words (despite the actual use of them), 'man' and 'mankind' meant 'humans' and 'people' of both genders, as well as transgendered, hermaphrodites, and whatever else there was with human DNA in it. I would go with the first translation, however, just as a personal preference from the options you gave, but I would give it a plural 'men', as the name comes mainly from the Ancient Greek context of defending the country against the Persian invasion (and subsequent expansion of Greek power throughout West and South Asia). KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 22:42, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Those words meant the same in English for a long time. But the -andros in "Alexandros" means its literally "man". (Edit conflicted, not repeating or ignoring.) InedibleHulk (talk) 22:48, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

That's not a terribly helpful answer given the ambiguity of the English word man. The -andros in "Alexandros" is from the stem of ἀνήρ, which means "man" in the sense of "adult male human". —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 00:10, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

I thought that was conveyed by "literally". Boys and women are figurative men. But yeah, a link wouldn't have hurt. Thanks for the help. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:17, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

The broad usage is archaic, not figurative. I'd have said "in the narrowest sense". —Tamfang (talk) 03:37, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm not as concerned with political correctness as with having it be consistent among the articles. So it literally means man as in male, but the intent is people? Ariel. (talk) 00:31, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

• X-ander type names, such as Evander (*eu-aner: ANGR gives the Greek lettering for aner above) "good man", Menander "staunch man", Alexander "protecting man" are names for males who do or are the first element. So Alexander is, by most accounts, a "male who protects". I have read accounts that contest the belief that "alex-" comes from "alexein", but I can't remmber where I read that, and the consensus is "male-who-protects". There's nothing to do with mankind or anthropos. μηδείς (talk) 01:32, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Warding off isn't even always for defensive purposes (though it may seem that way to a paranoid person), if that's a more exact translation. When I Googled to see if Wardoffman was a surname, it wasn't. But when I tried Ward Offman, the top result was Jack Offman. Had to share. InedibleHulk (talk) 06:13, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

That has gone straight on to my list. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 07:20, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

See? I can give terribly helpful answers. InedibleHulk (talk) 07:48, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Indubitably. I wonder if he was the Uncle Jack in the story demonstrating the importance of using capitals ("The girl helped her Uncle Jack off his horse", rather than "the girl helped her uncle jack off his horse"). -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:16, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

EO says it means "defender of men".[4] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:21, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

It also says "apotropaios" is a word. That's not a rebuttal or anything, more a follow-up on how defenses like giving your child a lucky name aren't exactly protecting anyone, man, woman or catoblepas. So the real answer to what "Alexander" means is nothing. ἓν οἶδα ὅτι οὐδὲν οἶδα. That's not the language answer, though. Words are much trickier than magic, even just among the English. InedibleHulk (talk) 06:56, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

My money's on what EO has to say about it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:06, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, but aner means a single man, a husband. It has nothing to do with mankind. There are such names regarding "the people" in -demos in standard Greek. (Keep in mind Macedonian was either a dialct or close sister language of Greek, and is not well attested) The best you are going to get with the EO route is defend of a man/husband, something like "body guard" or, I suppose,Tammy Wynette.

Compare this to Evandros. Would this mean "good of a man"? No, it means strong man, good man.

The implication here is that we are dealing not with declined forms alexo-andras (I defend-men) but compounded stems aleks-an(d)r-os with the regular masculine singular added and the (d) a result of a regular sound changer where an -nr- sequence develops an excrescent d (examples are "remainder" from remain-er and French tendre < Latin tener "soft, tender". μηδείς (talk) 19:05, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Further clarification, Menander, mentioned in my first post, was given as "staunch man" but more accurately, meno is "I remain, stand firm". So, if we assume Alexander is protector of man, do we accept that Menander is "firm-stander of a man"? Or does "a man who stands firm" make more sense? μηδείς (talk) 21:34, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Medeis -- the first stem of a classical compound is almost never inflected (with the exception of a few anomalous pronominal forms)... AnonMoos (talk) 01:17, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that's precisely my point, alexo-andros and meno-andros can't be the inflected forms that are implied in the false etymologies above, and it's absurd to treat "andros" whose form coincides with "of a man" as meaning "of (a) man/husband" in Alexander. It's like saying Prince William's name comes from the archaic Will.I.am or "I am desire."

Names like these are made and remade by linguistic compounding, analogical change, false analogy, dialect borrowing, reanalysis, etc. Alexander's father could likewise be given a naive analysis, Philo-hippos "Lover of the horse" but then why is hippos not in the 'expected' (supposed) genitive like -andros? You have to wonder why Eowyn didn't take the pseudonym Philip when she went south to defend Gondor. μηδείς (talk) 06:11, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

On the subject of women warriors, according to the article Nadezhda Durova's noms de guerre were the (quite literally) manly Alexander Durov, Alexander Sokolov and Alexander Andreevich Alexandrov. Coincidence? --Shirt58 (talk) 02:40, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

That's almost as subtle as "Jake Boyman". InedibleHulk (talk) 08:10, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Decimal separator in currency values

I was walking to work this morning (northwest England) when I noticed some prices in a shop window were displayed using a comma as the decimal separator, i.e. "£2,99". I presume this is a consequence of the heavy east European immigration we've had here in the last ten years, though it looks weird to me, but it got me to thinking.... When decimal currency was introduced here in 1971 we were taught to use the middle dot or dash as the decimal separator, i.e. "£2·99" or "£2-99". It's a long time since I've seen the middle dot used in a printed price tag, and I suppose this would follow on from us using computers to print price tags rather than hand-writing them - it's easier to use the "." that appears on every keyboard rather than have to dig through the character map to find the "·". Has this phenomenon happened elsewhere in the Anglosphere? -- Arwel Parry (talk) 22:18, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

USA here, we exclusively use ".", to the point where anything else confuses most of us :)

Actually, sometimes we use no decimal separator character on store tags, and use typographical distinctions instead, something like: $\$2^{99}$, or the example here [5] SemanticMantis (talk) 22:36, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

New Zealand switched from pounds/shillings/pence to dollars/cents in 1967, a year after Australia. Visiting there in 1983, I was surprised to see prices at one business shown with a hyphen or equals sign between dollars and cents, i.e. either $2-50 or $2=50, I forget which. I commented to the friend I was with that it was the first time I'd seen that character used as a decimal point and he suggested it was not thought of as a decimal point but just as a separator. But in any case this was the only time I saw that, in a 3-week visit. --174.88.134.249 (talk) 22:47, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

As far as I can recall, from the very beginning (on the 14th of February 1966) Australian decimal currency has only ever used "." HiLo48 (talk) 22:50, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

(After a large number of EC) How do you think I feel (a Brit) when I get emails from clients in Europe saying they will pay €4,051 per source character for my Japanese into English translations? At that rate, just a single 100,000 character translation would feed my family for five years! I should start printing these things out and taking them to my solicitor.....! KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 22:53, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Even the rate they actually meant seems impressively high to me, considering my company pays €0.04 a word for translations from German to Indian English. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 00:15, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

I did actually make that up, Angr. $0.05 per char is my rate. However, depends on the client's location, of course. Could be higher, could be less, and negotiation is a skill I have learned. Could be as low as $0.03 or as high as $0.07. Freelance work is not like those 9-5 jobs where you get paid whatever happens. We work. And, boy, do we. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 02:55, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Individuals don't like to pay much (I translated something once for a tenth of a cent per word), but if you latch on to a big translation company you can get a lot more. Typically I get 12 cents per word as a freelancer, which is a pretty sweet deal. Adam Bishop (talk) 17:04, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Same here, just about, if I charge per target word, but I usually charge per source character. Just makes it easier, and the client knows from the outset how much it will be. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 06:23, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm one of those 9-to-5 translators who gets a monthly salary. It has both advantages and disadvantages compared to being a freelancer. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:48, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

I used to do that too. The best part was all the downtime where I could surreptitiously pretend I was still in academia and work on my own research, and still get a salary for it. As a freelancer I feel like I'm translating every second that I'm awake. Adam Bishop (talk) 11:43, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

As a Scandinavian who has spent a formative part of my life in the Anglosphere, I can state that (1): In Norway, and as far as I know, in Sweden and Denmark too, the comma is used as the decimal separator. We consider ourselves part of Western Europe, not of Eastern Europe, so this is not an east-west issue. (2) The "middle dot" is virtually unknown in Scandiavia, it's about as alien as an Arabic or Japanese character. (3) Whenever possible, I myself use the "." character (full stop/period) as the decimal separator; this being my tiny contribution towards a standardization constistent with the way the characters are used in programming languages. -NorwegianBlue ^talk 01:00, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Just in case anybody hasn't seen them, we have articles on Decimal mark and Interpunct which apparently is Latin for "middle dot". Alansplodge (talk) 10:55, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Interpunct will now also be the name for my next band. --Jayron32 13:52, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

What kind of music is it gonna be? For metal I'd suggest changing the 'c' to a 'k'. For death I'd suggest 'Enter Punk'. Contact Basemetal here 14:22, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

I keep meaning to create a website for a completely fictional nu-symphonic-post-grind-thrash-core (or whatever) band to use as an example of self-published sources for speedy deletions, but I can't settle on a name. I'm leaning towards "Töädstüül" at present, but that - suitably decorated, of course - would be a good one!--Shirt58 (talk) 04:38, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

It is rather another "Anglosphere (and its satellites) vs. the rest of the world" issue. This dot-comma conflict is one of the most frustrating things, I must admit, so many time it has made me problems in Excel.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 20:49, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

We use commas to separate groups of three zeros from one another. $23,000,000,000,000.03 is so much more accessible than $23000000000000.03. I know some people use spaces where we use commas, but that can make for ambiguity. Anyway, like it or not, for better or worse, at the end of the day, when all is said and done, if any language can be said to have become the world language, English has primacy. Be grateful that at least the whole Anglosphere is united on this point, when that cannot be said for so many other things that are nominally English.

I do admit that the preferred general style for phone numbers is to use spaces, e.g. 0429 378 504, rather than 0429378504. But that isn't a quantity like a monetary value. And I do admit that the names of years don't use any separators, because 2014 denotes a year while 2,014 denotes something else. Maybe by the time we get to the year 10000 we'll rethink this convention. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:11, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

United Anglosphere, hah. Anyone in North America "knows" that the parts of a phone number are separated by hyphens (and possibly parentheses). --174.88.134.249 (talk) 03:52, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

... and some of us on this side of the pond also use hyphens and parentheses. Dbfirs 12:01, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

"1(800)555-0123" bugs me: it seems to say the "1" is always necessary and the "800" often not. I think I see that form only for toll-free numbers. —Tamfang (talk) 07:33, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

English is the lingua franca of business, education, and research for now, but there are far more Mandarin speakers in the world today [6]. There have been murmurs for a while that Mandarin might soon displace English in that capacity [7] [8] [9], but "soon" is relative, and we all might be dead by then :) SemanticMantis (talk) 21:25, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

I wasn't focussing on relative numbers of speakers. English is far more useful as a medium of international discourse than any other language, including Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, French, German, Italian, Russian or anything else. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:34, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Jack, I did not think or imply that the language has something to do with the dot-comma problem. I've used "Anglosphere" in a rather cultural sense. I have nothing against English as such, and I'm quite content with it: I do not like learning declensions and conjugations and I prefer analytism or at least straightforward agglutination in languages, and English is one the European languages what lacks these things, it suits me, the evidence of this that I use the language here quite often, I'm happy that a lingua franca is not Hungarian and so on. But where is the problem it's in the typical insular isolationist Anglo mentality "we are smarter/more traditional/we know better than the rest". From this mentality not only dot vs. comma arose, but miles and pounds in the 21th century, left-hand driving, separate water-taps, not one but two anti-logical spellings and many other oddities which still exist here and there in Britain or its former colonies (including the "13 colonies"). I wonder why Englishmen did not begin writing with the Hebrew alphabet or Egyptian hieroglyphs (unlike those silly Continentals), it would fit Britain very well. But conflicts appear when they try to impose their oddities on others. I do not think that we, silly Continetals, must adjust to every oddity from the USA or Britain just because these two countries happened to be superpowers, but rather vice versa. Though I still prefer speaking English as I have not much choice (but I like dreaming about Spanish-speaking los Estados Unidos in the future). --Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 02:18, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Are you counting China as part of the Anglosphere, or as a satellite? What about North Korea? --Amble (talk) 21:46, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Obviously, China, where everybody learns English with semi-religious zeal, and which in fact has become a factory backyard of the USA, is a satellite of Anglosphere.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 01:37, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Continental? Russians aren't even in Eastern Europe, they are cis-Uralic, Siberian, or Oriental'. Might as well dream of the day Russia speaks Yakut if you want to know when the US will adopt Spanish as its official language. μηδείς (talk) 06:32, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

I disagree that Chinese will 'displace' English as the Lingua Franca of the world. There are many reasons: 1) Computing requires English (or programming languages which are based on English); 2) English is already the de-facto lingua franca, and Chinese people learn it at school anyway; 3) When conducting business, people from whatever country have already got used to using English - the second language they learn at school - so why would they decide to learn another one so they can conduct business with people who also learned English at school? Also, just remember, massive population notwithstanding, there are 54 official languages in China, not counting the 8 official 'dialects' of Han Chinese itself. Many people in China don't even speak Mandarin, or Han Chinese, for that matter. -- 1:15, 8 November 2014 KageTora

The Chinese would pretty much have to make Mandarin written in the Latin alphabet mandatory for all speakers in their own borders first if they wanted it to become the world's lingua franca. There's also the problem of tones, which are uncommon among most of the other widely spoken languages. Finally, China simply missed out on the colonial period, and it doesn't have an elite of English speakers in half of Africa, India, and most of two continents. War or some other sort of demographic disaster would be the only way to change the current situation. μηδείς (talk) 01:55, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Chinese-speakers do not generally find connected multi-sentence passages of Chinese-language text written in pinyin to be too easily or quickly comprehensible, and there's no significant pressure for such thoroughgoing Latin-alphabet conversion (especially since computerization has now solved most of the old problems of Chinese-character typewriters etc.)... AnonMoos (talk) 07:46, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

My point was that if some draconian overlord wanted to ensure that Chinese would become the wwlf, he should force children of all ethnicities to use standard mandarin in pinyin from birth, and scrap the traditional system. This would provide a huge unified market and make learning (at least reading) Chinese much easier for those who use alphabetic systems. I am not advocating this or saying there's any desire to do it in China now. There's also the "secret language" factor, that Chinese can often converse amongst themselves without fear of being understood. -- 18:38, 10 November 2014 Medeis

Regarding the issue of the future lingua franca of the planet: First, although it is difficult to make predictions about linguistic change (and especially future linguistic change ), barring a meltdown of the global modern society it is hard to see English being replaced in its position in less than say 100 years. Second, if there is a language that may be able to pull that off, it is, in my opinion, Spanish rather than Chinese. (Spanish already has more native speakers than English, although the number of native speakers per se doesn't mean much). I think whether Spanish is ever capable of doing that may depend on two basic conditions (necessary, not sufficient, conditions): whether Latin America is able to achieve economic success and influence in the world commensurate with its share of the world population, and whether Spanish in the US really becomes a language in full competition with English in all areas of activity, that is not only for home use but for politics, law, medicine, engineering, etc.: to this day (leaving Puerto Rico aside) I'm not aware of there being a single Spanish language university in the US that allows you to become a doctor, a lawyer, etc. fully through the medium of Spanish; and if that never changes, no matter how many Spanish speakers there are in the US, they will always have to learn English to advance in society, and therefore in the long run (when the flow of immigrants from Latin America eventually stops) Spanish will eventually disappear as a significant language in the US and the primacy of English will be restored. Another contender for global lingua franca in that time frame could be "International English" vs native English if English-as-lingua-franca drifts further and further apart from real English. Contact Basemetal here 09:18, 10 November 2014 (UTC)