Comment by stonesthrowaway | Hacker News Reader

Comment by stonesthrowaway | Hacker News Reader

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stonesthrowaway

> I think the Chinese government would love for this to be true and maybe the US government too.

Why?

> Chinese people seem to be like to be everyone else and like that they can communicate with people from everywhere.

Do you think that's what people want? I personally prefer the time when almost 100% of the people online were american. I've no real desire to speak with chinese or british or any others. I simply just assume I'm interacting with americans.

> It's understood by everyone that English is the Global language

It shouldn't be. There shouldn't be a global language. Chinese, Hindi, spanish, arabic, etc along with english should be major regional languages. Also, it's a waste of time for vast majority of people to learn english on a superficial level. Their time is better spent on learning their own languages. Especially a language with such rich history as chinese.

> China is trying be more of a cultural power rn and that's all bc of English so...

Language is one of the most important aspects of cultural power. If china wants to be a cultural power, then they should be focusing on spreading chinese, not "submitting" to english. America didn't become a cultural power by adopting french when french was lingua franca.

> I just don't kno how much I believe this.

It's an economist article on china, so much of it is probably nonsense. So don't let it bother you so much.

"It shouldn't be. There shouldn't be a global language."

That is like claiming there should be no global Internet or no global trade.

People like to interact with one another, for various reasons: business, science, mere curiosity. Having the globe split into several mutually non-communicating regions would be weird, especially if all it takes is a few clicks on a computer to get "somewhere else". And in absence of hard barriers in North Korean style, one dominant way of communication is likely to emerge.

> That is like claiming there should be no global Internet or no global trade.

There is no such thing as a global internet. The internet is just a bunch of separate networks. Of course this being "hacker news" you wouldn't know what the internet is.

There is no such thing as global trade. There are a bunch of trade relations between regions and countries.

> People like to interact with one another, for various reasons: business, science, mere curiosity.

People like to interact with their own for the most part.

> Having the globe split into several mutually non-communicating regions would be weird,

Where did I say this? It's amazing how people are so stupid that they think you need english for people to communicate with each other. Do you think japanese and chinese people didn't communicate each other before english? Or russians and germans without english?

> And in absence of hard barriers in North Korean style, one dominant way of communication is likely to emerge.

No. The historical norm is major regional languages. Not one dominant language enforced on the world primarily through military supremacy.

The first part of your answer is like saying that there is nothing like forest, just individual trees, shrubs and animals. Feel free to ignore the networking effects, but they still exist.

Historical norm is indeed "major regional languages", but the historical norm is also "travelling with horse and buggy" and "a letter takes weeks if not months to reach another continent". These limitations is what limited reaches of any language to a single region or two. These limitations are now gone, and the Internet and fast travel methods like jets have connected previously separated regions into one huge region called the Earth.

And the claim of military supremacy is bullshit. The vast majority of people decides to learn English because two billion other people speak English and a ton of useful information is published in English. It is economically advantageous to nearly anyone to be fluent in English.

It helps that the script is easy to master, just 26 letters. That is a major downside of the Chinese script, it is really hard to master.

The Internet is so much better now that everyone is on it. I remember usenet, I kno of geocities. You shouldn't assume English speakers on the Internet are Americans, some of the better I've encountered are not. Tbh, I'm bored with an American centric point of view. I consume a lot of culture tho.

Which is my next point. The Internet isn't the first translated thing. You said countries should focus on their own language but that's absolutely bs. As if you've never read something originally written in another language.

I kno a fair amount of Latin from my exposure to the stuff written during the era when all intellectuals had to know Latin or Greek - should we do that again? That was nice and uniform for the Western World at least.

For the record, by using English to make their content accessible to the global population, I have been exposed to more Chinese culture than China could ever hope. I watched Three Kingdoms and the Qin Dynasty series and the Kings War - that's over 350 hour long episodes of Chinese history I've now seen - I only knew Three Kingdoms before hand. So you are wrong about that also. Additionally, I'm developing an appreciation for Mandarin itself, as far a language goes it seems to be as expressive as English and the Chinese speak in idioms just like Americans but obviously different idioms, so I now also understand that to truly appreciate Chinese content, just like American content, I do need to know the language it was made in.

Lastly, the US was a single vote from German being the official language of this country, it's why we have no official language now. So I disagree with direct correlation of language and culture - it's often related but not always and English is an exception as today we live in a world where English is often used by people from countries that do not speak English to do business with other countries that do not speak English.

The "factoid" about the German vote is false. It was a vote to adjourn the discussion. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-german-vote/

> The Internet is so much better now that everyone is on it

No it's not.

> You shouldn't assume English speakers on the Internet are Americans,

Until fairly recently, almost everyone ( not just english speakers ) were american.

> For the record, by using English to make their content accessible to the global population, I have been exposed to more Chinese culture than China could ever hope.

The vast majority of the global population does not speak or understand english. It's strange how people with agenda make shit up. You write like a journalist. Also, what does this have anything to do with chinese people learning english? Surely chinese people can appreciate chinese culture in their own language?

> Lastly, the US was a single vote from German being the official language of this country

Dumbest thing I've ever read. A simple search shows it is dumb myth. Are you even american?

> it's why we have no official language now.

We have no official language because all the original 13 colonies were british colonies populated predominantly by british peoples - english, scots, irish. There was no need for it because everyone spoke english. All the documents were written in english. What language do you think the declaration of independence was written in?

It's remarkable how stupid some people on hacker news truly are. Imagine being stupid enough to believe 13 british colonies would get together and make german the national language. Especially when there were anti-german sentiment during the 1700s.

> Until fairly recently

What do you call "fairly recently"?

Plenty of non-Americans have been on the internet before 2000, many even from the early 1990s though I'm not sure how much earlier than that had widespread non-US usage.

People would be more inclined to consider your points if you weren't so toxic about it.

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