whatiftheblog wrote:A Natixis study found that by 2050, French is likely to be the most commonly spoken language in the world due to fertility rates and changes in corresponding development patterns in sub-Saharan Africa. Provided wars end, infant mortality goes down, health outcomes go up, and GDP per capita goes up, etc (there are multiple vectors of causality interwoven within that set of factors), more children will be surviving past age 5 and becoming francophone through consistent school attendance, so this is a perfectly reasonable projection. It's just the natural flow of human history.
That said, I do find your anti-globalization stance curious, given that all of us here, on this forum, in cyberspace, learning each other's languages, we're basically poster children for it
I disagree that we, or at least than many of us are poster children for globalisation. Sharing of cultures, interest in other cultures does not mean that you support globalisation. A world can be (inter)connected, but with each individual part remaining unique in its identity. That is not globalisation in our world. In our world the lines are being (deliberately) blurred under the guise of moving forward, the butter is being mixed with the margarine, the tomato sauce is being mixed with the margarine, meat is being drenched it margarine and margarine is supposedly just the way of the future.
We can all be very interconnected, very respectful, not racist at all, but still very much individual identities in terms of culture. Countries borders do not need to be wiped off the map to ensure a peaceful and interconnected world, just as immigration policies needn't be indicative of racism. Stop creating wars and stealing poor countries wealth while keeping them downtrodden. A peaceful world, full of unique cultures that do talk to each other is a posssibility, but the puppet masters don't want it that way. Conflict is beneficial to their objectives, and social engineering occurs in a way that has us perpetuating it believing we're evolving and improving and that they're our own ideas- they're not, we just think they are. We're being engineered. I enjoy other cultures immensely, but i'm not a globalist, at least not in terms of how I see it playing out currently, and i'm sure there are many of us on the forum here who absolutely adore other cultures but don't want to necessarily see them diluted or becoming just another margarine flavoured blurr.
Btw, I find that biased study on the French language completely, well, biased. First of all all the countries who have French listed as an official language, had their entire populations counted as Francophone, that's hardly realistic. Not only do they assume that these populations by 2050 will be 100% French speakers, they ignore population growth in other languages to a large extent, ignore the fact the Europe is anglicising (as is the rest of the world) and that Africa will not succumb to this. Many of these African countries use French as a languge of instruction. It wouldn't take much necessarily over time to shift that to English, particularly in a world of English dominance. The powers and influences behind the English language are only growing stronger, so much so English language courses at French universities are also becoming more common, VO programs are becoming more frequent in France (netflix for ex), and English language advertising is becoming (forced) to the point of normalisation. If this keeps going, more African countries will drop French in favour of English, particularly when a good number of African countries already illustrate the power of English for doing business in the world today. French will leave them apparently alarmingly cut off from the rest of the world, and at a disadvantage (that's how it will 'appear' or sold and it will be accepted). I hope the world changes direction instead.
Most of us here are going against the grain of globalisation in terms of languages, particularly those who study minority languages, as we are learning languages other than English and thereby creating diversity and respect for other cultures. Of course if I didn't speak English, I'd likely be learning it. I'm not against the learning of English per sé, nor the language itself, I'm just against a world in which we're becoming increasingly the same by design.
