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Italy is a social construct (i.redd.it)

submitted 7 months ago by Mandarbmax@lemmy.world to c/curatedtumblr@sh.itjust.works

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[–] grue@lemmy.world 13 points 7 months ago (3 children)

It'll be an English-Mandarin Chinese pidgin, like in Firefly.

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 21 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Maybe, but Mandarin / Chinese isn't really used outside China. English has about 1.5 billion speakers, and over 1 billion of them speak it as a second language. Chinese has 1.1 billion speakers, but only 200 million speak it as a second language. It seems like the international langua franca is English.

Policies could change, and China could try to teach people Mandarin as part of the Belt and Roads initiative. But, right now, if you're trying to do business in other countries or with foreigners in your country, English is the most useful language to know.

That's not to say that future-English will necessarily be too similar to current English. I'm sure the more it spreads, the more it will change.

[–] deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 16 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

My personal favourite is the term lingua franca itself from when everyone (important) spoke French.

As in English is the lingua franca.

Latin for (roughly) English is the French.

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

A Latin term used in English to indicate French.

But really, isn't the "Franca" part from the Frankish language used in West Germany / Northern France / Benelux? Apparently the Byzantines called all Western Europeans "Franks" and the Lingua Franca was the simplified Italian / Spanish language with many Greek, Slavic, Arabic and Turkish loan words used for trade around the Carribean. So, it's more "English is the European Language" or maybe "English is the language to use with Europeans".

[–] deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I was hoping someone would correct me!

I knew that translating Franca as French was anachronistic but didn't know where to start.

I'd forgotten about the Franks.

English is the European Language

There's a Brexit joke in there somewhere.

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

There’s a Brexit joke in there somewhere.

Definitely, but I think the Brexiteers get a last laugh because AFAIK EU business is still done in English.

[–] deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 3 points 7 months ago

The lingua franca per se.

[–] weariedfae@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

Neniu amo por Esperanto?

[–] MisterFrog@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago

Hopefully with better pronunciation, it was quite grating on my latest rewatch haha

And one episode where the ship's alarm is in Cantonese, for some reason, when they used Mandarin for every other use of Chinese in the whole show ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Great show though