Originally Posted by ice8

art (drawing) is technically universal. Everyone can understand it. Black is a symbol of evil, while white represents purity. Red is for stop, or blood, while green is to go or environment. Colours, and art is universal.

I agree. I also still think that math is universal (albeit not a complete language).

Unfortunately, some people just aren’t mature enough to have a discussion without freaking out. It’s sad how close-minded the world is....

Nonetheless, this thread is completely off-topic now. Hopefully, the OP got his answer!

Of course, this whole argument is kindof stupid because Math isn't a language, in the relevant sense of the word. As stated, you can't ask for directions with it, you can't use it to communicate non mathematical ideas, etc.

English is not a universal language, because it is not spoken by everyone. It is however, the closest thing we have to one. I don't think many people would dispute this. While arguments about who controls the most business and wealth, what languages people judge as valuable, what languages people teach their kids to help them succeed when older etc are all nice, this is the real decider.

http://www.internetworldstat s.com/stats7.htm

English is the language of the internet. The tool that has shrank the world, and made the concept of a universal language an actual future possibility. That is what makes it the closest thing to an international language.

Originally Posted by rrtt

but to say that everything is based on English is simply elitist and untrue. I am not sure how many times I am going to have to say this but there is NO universal language.

I figured I would add this, since it pretty much solidifies my side of the debate.

Total Worldwide English Speakers: approx 1.8 Billion
Total Worldwide Chinese Speakers (speakers of all Chinese Languages): approx 1.4 Billion
Sources: 1 2 3

The argument that there are more Chinese language speakers is facutally untrue.

When you talk about actual languages (not math, or drawing, or music) but ways of speaking and writing abstract concepts down, English is the closest language to a universal language. It's called the modern lingua franca. You can't go to Europe, or South America or Africa and speak Mandarin (or Math) and expect people to understand you. You can go to these places and expect people to understand English.

This isn't being elitist, and it's true.

Your argument as to why India has the second most english speakers might be somewhat true, but it is in fact because of how much business has been outsourced from North America and Europe to India. Since business requires it, many many Indian people know English.

I'm finished with this now... I've had enough. If you choose not to accept what is accepted to be fact by experts on the subject, then that's your choice.

Originally Posted by Taunton

When you talk about actual languages (not math, or drawing, or music) but ways of speaking and writing abstract concepts down, English is the closest language to a universal language. It's called the modern lingua franca. Just because by raw numbers more people speak Mandarin, that doesn't mean that Mandarin is more of a universal language. You can't go to Europe, or South America or Africa and speak Mandarin and expect people to understand you. You can go to these places and expect people to understand English.

This isn't being elitist, and it's true.

Your argument as to why India has the second most english speakers might be somewhat true, but it is in fact because of how much business has been outsourced from North America and Europe to India. Since business requires it, many many Indian people know English.

I'm finished with this now... I've had enough. If you choose not to accept what is accepted to be fact by experts on the subject, then that's your choice.

I agree, its like what do u choose: someone who owns a massive amount of land but not have anything in it, while the other person doesn't own the land as big as the first one, but contains a lot of stuff in it. You would end up choosing the 2nd person.

I am not saying that theres not much buisness from China/Japan/other countries, but just that the amount of buisness outsourced from North America and Europe is just so much compared to the other countries that English is basically a necessary language to survive in the world if u wish to work internationally, or sumtimes even in ur country when the company imports product from the outside. A lot of time almost all the products have instructions written in English along with the country's national language.

Anyways, there are bigger things in the world that can be argued on than this. I honestly feel that the question has been answered.

Originally Posted by ice8

Black is a symbol of evil, while white represents purity. Red is for stop, or blood, while green is to go or environment.

not always true

Originally Posted by ice8

art (drawing) is technically universal. Everyone can understand it. Black is a symbol of evil, while white represents purity. Red is for stop, or blood, while green is to go or environment. Colours, and art is universal.

Yeah... no. That's like saying walking is universal, because anyone can do it. Anyone can draw, what's considered a shitty drawing, onto a blank canvas. Dogs and chimpanzees can probably draw too. Colours also represent different symbols and have different meanings to different people. Some people couldn't care less what colours mean.

Originally Posted by lawleypop

The average person does not understand mathematical concepts! Just because you can add 2+2 doesn't mean you understand it! It doesn't mean you can explain WHY it is the answer. Why do I have to repeat myself? Math isn't a universal language. Yes, it may be the same EVERYWHERE, but if no one else besides engineers/mathematicians/smart people can explain it, then it's not universal.

How the hell do you understand e^0=1 but can't explain the reasoning behind it? That doesn't really make sense. Either you know how to get there and what it means, or you don't.

And I'm not going to reply to you comparing math to an arbitrary image with arbitrary meaning attached to it. Actually, I will. It's because people are too ****ing stupid to understand any thing worthwhile and pretty pictures makes everything so much less confusing! -insert valley girl voice here-

If you can't explain something beyond "it is because it is" then you don't understand the why or how behind it and thus, you probably wouldn't be able to apply it in a really confusing and not-obvious situation (I don't know how else to word this). If you understand why 2+2=4 and 12+7=19 then you can probably understand why xxx+xxx=xxx. If you only ever learn 2+2=4 because "that's just how it is," then you probably won't be able to do anything more complex.

Is this not exactly why professors tell you to UNDERSTAND a concept and not just memorize it? So you can apply it to more difficult situations that aren't the repeat of the very basic one used as an example?

And again, the term mother isn't universal. Just like the concept of "8" isn't.

Let's just all speak in mumbles to each other and pretend like everyone can understand each other and call it universal!

Who cares if everyone in the world can do 2+2. If no one understands it, it's pretty useless and arbitrary.

3 lettrs - pms.

It's not anglocentric, it's reality. Don't pull that diversity BS on me.

whoa there! no need to be offensive.
I was simly stating that English is not THE language.
I do not know, nor care about business, and I dont really speak anything other than english so I cant speak for other parts of the world, but there is no need to be elitist about english being the best.. really :'(

plus my vote goes to music as the closest to a universal language

I'm surprised that no one has brought this up before; almost ALL of the major journals and research publications are........ in English. If the major R/D in the world is being done in English, wouldn't that count for its importance? So if not everyone spoke English, then all those pesky, unimportant global conferences wouldn't really work too well, would they? Oh wait.

Also, pilots have to speak English. Remember that pesky little incident with the Koreans? Yeah.

Any votes for the Chinese I declare null and void. Is Chinese an OFFICIAL major language anywhere OUTSIDE of China? I can only think of one or two minor ones. Same goes for India (btw I LOVE it when people ask each other "Can you speak Indian?"), although they have the advantage (luxury?) of the British "educating" them for a few centuries.

Engrish ftw.

Edit to MI admin: can we install a "Don't Like" button for posts like the "Like" button? I want to slap half the posts in this thread with it

Originally Posted by Taunton

Total Worldwide English Speakers: approx 1.8 Billion
Total Worldwide Chinese Speakers (speakers of all Chinese Languages): approx 1.4 Billion
Sources: 1 2 3

When I saw this thread yesterday, I looked into a few things, and one of the things I found was that in 1952, there were 250 million English speakers in the world. Theres now 1.8 billion, and in a few years (by 2020, or something), more than half the worlds people will speak English. It may not officially be universal, but it's the closest we have, or will have in any of our lifetimes.

Originally Posted by Kareko

whoa there! no need to be offensive.
I was simly stating that English is not THE language.
I do not know, nor care about business, and I dont really speak anything other than english so I cant speak for other parts of the world, but there is no need to be elitist about english being the best.. really :'(

I'm not trying to be offensive. Frankly, too many people pull out the "diversity" card when things like this come up. English IS the closest language to a universal language in the world, and it's one of the most valuable languages to know.

You may not know or care about business, but that doesn't mean it's not one of the main reasons as to why English is so important.

All I'm doing is stating facts. What I don't like is people calling me "anglocentric" when I'm not. Calling me anglocentric for what I'm saying is equivalent to calling me racist for saying that black people have darker skin than white people... it's not being racist or discriminatory, it's just stating a fact.

English is not "better" than any other language (it can easily be argued that it's actually a worse language due to many flaws it has). English is simply the most popular language in the world.

To the comments going "India uses English cause they need to communicate with North America/England w/e" is not really true.

India is basically the equivalent to taking all of Europe and making it one country. There are a whole bunch of languages and cultures really close together. They choose to use English to communicate with each-other, since it's something that everyone already knows from the British occupying them for years. Hasn't anyone noticed that Universities in India teach pretty much only in English?

On an unrelated note; English is a terrible candidate for a universal language. It's got a crappy only partially phonetic and unregulated spelling system, the retarded "continuous case" and a million meanings for the word "got".

I think the best attempt someone has come up with yet in creating a universal language is Esperanto. Sure, it's eurocentric in ways, but it has really basic rules that make it the easiest language ever to learn (srsly).

I think the only "true" universal language right now is basic "sign-language" things (i.e. pointing .etc). I put sign-language in quotations since it's not standardized even in the slightest :p.

P.S. I believe one language can be superior to another ..

Originally Posted by Ownaginatios

On an unrelated note; English is a terrible candidate for a universal language. It's got a crappy only partially phonetic and unregulated spelling system, the retarded "continuous case" and a million meanings for the word "got".

I mentioned in my previous post that English can easily be argued against for how inefficient and simply bad a language it is. Regardless, it is still the closest thing there is at the moment to a true universal language.

What makes english just a bad language? xD I always hear people saying how hard it is to learn, but I don't really know the reason.

Originally Posted by lawleypop

What makes english just a bad language? xD I always hear people saying how hard it is to learn, but I don't really know the reason.

I don't know all the technical terms so feel like I'm not a very good person to explain a lot of the issues that exist with English... I "know" what they are, I just don't know how to properly verbalize what I'm thinking.

Hopefully someone else can do it, because I don't think I can do a very good job.