Poll: One world language... that isn't yours.

[Canid117]

English is one of the most popular language on the planet right now due to its status as the primary trade language so why wouldn't it win? It certainly has a better shot than German or Japanese.

It probably would win, because everyone else votes English, since it's so many other language speakers second language. We just can't vote for it, because we are biased. I think the idea is that you want to avoid the, "I speak the language, so this one" bias, to prevent the Pirates of the Carribean, "We never elect a new King because everyone just votes for themselves" problem. Of course, if you wanted to really do this properly, you would need to start dealing with Weighted averages and such But really, thats too much work when you just want to hear everyone's second favorite language after their own.

But German? Really? No one speaks German except for German people.

 

[Charley]

Unsurprising that Japanese scores so highly, shock and horror. I think it's pretty obvious why that is on these forums, as we all know, ninhongo wo hanaserubito ha totemo kakkoi yo. Or words to that effect (and yes, I studied Japanese at University. No, I didn't finish the four-year course, go figure).

I'd bet on Chinese - biggest economy, colossal population. If they refused to speak English, we'd be pretty stuffed for buying a lot of the things we take for granted - Mandarin or Cantonese are good calls if you're genuinely looking for a useful language.

 

[headphonegirl]

I vote Japanese, because its currently what i'm trying to learn, plus I like the challenge of three different alphabets

 

[Theninja'skatana]

I choose Latin "Et tu world?"

 

[theevilsanta]

I'd argue that the romance languages, including Latin and Greek, hold a plurality of the greatest written works our species have created. They certainly have ownership of the texts that have most influenced the shapes of our governments and societal structures. So I'd choose a romance language so these works could be greater appreciated. That said, I would choose Italian, but I'll just choose French because international law is already written in French.

 

[Declaro]

I'm quite torn actually. Spanish or Russian. Spanish because it's beautiful and its nearly 1:1 on sound-to-letter ratio (meaning it's super easy to spell in), or Russian because it's interesting and complex.

I think I'd ultimately pick Spanish, just because it's so cool.

 

[C95J]

The english option should still be there to find out how many non english people want it.

Me, I chose Russian, because it is an interesting language.

 

[A-Heart-Of-Gold]

I had to go for Japanese I love the way the words are very beautiful and delecate!

 

[BlackStar42]

Finnish. Then I could finally understand Korpiklaani's lyrics.

So the world decides to unify everyone under a common language, but doesn't know how to do it. So, they decide everyone must vote for the language they think would be best that isn't their primary language already. That means for most of you English is out. What would you vote for?

Personally I'd vote for Spanish. That language is simply music to my ears.

I vote German. It's definitely not the prettiest sounding language out there, but I have heard that it's one of the simplest, which is what I think you should go for if you're choosing a universal language. In German you pronounce every letter, so there are no silent letters, and unlike in English there are no "rule breakers". Or so I'm told.

Yes, but each word has one of three genders. I'm sorry, but a pencil is not masculine and a bicycle is not feminine.

 

[Charli]

Stretching far far away from all the "animu" crap. I still love the Japanese Language, it caters to my meticulous habits. So I'd pick that one.

 

[fundude365]

Love Latin Jazz so my vote had to be Spanish. Whilst I love Anime I just don't like the mouthfeel (yes that is a word, I learnt it from a Ben and Jerry's cook book)of many Japanese words. However Spanish just... works for me. Preferences are hard to describe.

 

[fundude365]

English is the greatest language ever, although being English i hate to learn another.If i had to i would chose French, mainly because an old girlfriend was French and i loved how she pronouced words. It was beautiful.

As a wise Pub landlord once said (Al Murray): "English is... a NATRUL language! It can be traced... raight down to... the LANGWIGE CENTAH... of the brain! Where all the little neural pathways... and this is a mattah that has boggled sinetists for YEERS... make up... the letters of the english alphabet!"

... how can you argue with an inebriated argument of that calibre?

 

[SuperSuperSuperGuy]

German. I love the way that it sounds.

Achtung! Unterseebooten! Oktoberfest!

 

[Calum_M]

Japanese. Because I'm a goddamn weeaboo.

 

[Naeo]

I was wavering between German and Esparanto, and went with the latter because German has all the weird strong/weak verbs and crazy-ass plurals/object forms that follow almost no apparent pattern and often arbitrary distinctions on gender and is not that hard to learn if you speak a related language or English but otherwise it's probably fairly difficult.

Esparanto, meanwhile, was designed to be an international language so I'm gonna assume (probably not a smart thing to do but eh, this is the internet) it's better at this than German.

 

[Slangeveld]

No Dutch? Son, I'm hurt.

But no, I would vote for Esperanto anyhow.

 

[asinann]

I say we go back to Laitn.

 

[gamepopper101]

I learned French in school for a few years but I would love to try Japanese

 

[mrpenguinismyhomeboy]

Either Esperanto or Basque. Basque is AWESOME, and I don't know anything about it. In fact, if Basque was a choice, I would have voted that, but it wasn't, so I didn't.

 

[mageroel]

Try Scheveningen the Dutch actually used that name to find out if people weren't Dutch, because nobody could pronounce it (it was a whole sentence but I forgot the rest)

I was referring to Welsh as consistent, not Dutch. As I said, I don't speak it, so I have no idea if it's a consistent language or not.

I don't speak much welsh either but one of my partners speaks some.

I know, just sayin' Scheveningen cracks me up if it's said by someone who's not Dutch (aside from people from Belgium)