I have read the article on linguistic imperialism recommended by zmjezd to mojobadshah with great interest.
If language dominance is explained purely in terms of a conqueror or colonizer culture imposing its language (Arabic for example) on a subjugated (Persians for example) then how come the persian language is still alive and dominant in Central Asia (Tajikian,Afghanistan) & the middle east. I just wonder if the language structure has something to do with its resilience. I would like to see some elaboration on linguistic imperialism and language dominance

An interesting question, ravarab. (And, welcome to the Wordcraft forums.) It might have to do with several reasons. How long were the Persians exposed to Arabic? (Also, some of the conquerors of Persia were Greek-, Turkic-, and Mongolian-speaking, and those languages didn't replace Persian.) I think Arabic had the biggest influence on Persian because of the introduction of Islam and the reticence of Muslims in translating the Quran. If you look at the impact of English in India, you see that it has not really replaced any of the local languages. Profoundly influenced them, yes, but replaced them, no. Also, in the West, the Romans held Britain, the Franks Gaul (later France), and the Moors Spain, but their languages (Latin, Frankish, and Arabic) are no longer spoken in these areas, though they were influential. I think a language's structure wouldn't have that great an impact on its dominance or survival, but that's just a hunch on my part.

Thank you for welcoming me to the Wordcraft forums, zmjezd.
Are we talking here about the impact of Islam (religion) or the impact of language? Religion- wise it is perhaps true that the average men and women of Persia, and for that matter the old world, were greatly influenced as we see its effect everywhere today. However, Language- wise Arabic has not gone deep enough to influence the culture the way English has in colonized societies. Arabic dominance seems to be less pronounced in some countries (dari language, the sasanian language, spoken in Tajikistan and Afghanistan for example has remained intact from the influence of Arabic language). In this regard, Kalleh and mojobadshah seem to have a point regarding the flexibility of English language allowing faster absorption of other languages.How can this be explained?

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In this regard, Kalleh and mojobadshah seem to have a point regarding the flexibility of English language allowing faster absorption of other languages. How can this be explained?

I can't explain why this is, but it surely is. We are not especially precious about our language (unlike the French, say) and every day we heard new words, try them out, see if they fit and, if they do, absorb them and eventually regard them as our own.

Welcome ravarab,
I'm not a linguist but I enjoyed the above discussion. From time to time we have a Muslim/Arab/Persian (?) person join us but they usually don't stay long. I hope you will continue. Please join us for the chat on Saturdays. We need the input from a greater varietey of people.
I am more interested in comparative religions than of comparative languages, but I know they go hand in hand. I look forward to what you have to say.

Are we talking here about the impact of Islam (religion) or the impact of language?

I was talking mainly about the language. Persian and Arabic both influenced each other a great deal, vocabulary-wise. One advantage that Persian had was an established writing system and literature. Yet that writing system was totally replaced by another one based on Arabic. Same with religion: Persians were mainly Zoroastrians before Islam was introduced.

It is complicated. There are a lot of Tartar (Turkic) loanwords in Russian because of the Tartar invasion and control of Russia. But the original Rus invaders of the Ukraine and Muscovy were Scandinavians (a Germanic language). They were absorbed by the Slavic people whom they conquered. Another place invaded by Arabs was Egypt. Here you had a great empire, at least on par with the Persians, but their religion and language were totally replaced by Islam and Arabic. Of course, under the Romans many educated and ruling class Egyptians spoke Koine Greek and not Egyptian. There are some in Egypt who still use a form of Egyptian in the worship. And, in Syria, some Syriac (aka Aramaic) is still spoken. These groups are Christian though. Syriac is a Semitic language related to Hebrew and Arabic. Egyptian is a Hamitic language. Persian is an Indo-European language. Their structures are all rather different from one another, yet to some degree they survived the dominance of Arabic.

All I was saying is it's a very complex situation, and that perhaps the survival or dominance of a particular language has less to do with its structure than with historical events and cultural and sociological influences.

That makes sense, zmj.

Welcome, ravarab. Missann is right; we'd love to have you join us on our chats. Here is a link to directions and times of the chats. We hold them every Saturday.

Hey all, realized this info probably belongs here instead, so here's a partial repeat:

For an exploration of the meaning of "language dominance", you can't do better than George Weber's "Ten Most Influential Languages", an article which is still often quoted. His method considers many different factors and is worth a look. By the way, French actually scored No.2 (behind English, and just ahead of Spanish)!

Fascinating, bethree! I found this quote quite interesting: "A Korean manufacturer in an Athens hotel meeting the Brazilian buyer of a Swiss-based conglomerate will not only negotiate but order dinner from his room service in English. There may not be a single native English speaker in the hotel, but all non-locals staying there communicate with each other in English - as a matter of course."

It was interesting to see Chinese #6 with 13 points, whereas English is #1 with 37 points. Yet, 20.7% of the world speaks Chinese as their first language (1100 million people), while only 6.2% (or 330 million people) speak English as their primary language.

Indeed fascinating. The ranking of French surprised me - until I saw the huge gap between it and English and the narrow gap between French and Spanish. Spanish, unlike French, is becoming more influential (thanks mainly to the burgeoning influence of South America) and I would be surprised if Spanish weren't to reach the number 2 slot quite soon.

Agreed, RE-- or we may see separate spheres of influence for the two languages. I suspect that anywhere in the Americas, within the decade, it will be possible to communicate in Spanish as a "secondary" to English, & that will be ahead of French everywhere except in "the Acadia", i.e. Montreal & New Orleans.

I'm in various early-foreign-lang-educ forums in England; no signs of Sp ever catching up to French as the 2nd lang., taught starting in preK & K.

Could the rest of Europe be different? France, Belgium, & French Switzerland outnumber Spain. Could German beat out both Fr & Sp as a 2nd to Engl.? Don't know.

I'm betting on French as the language in which travelers/ global colleagues choose to communicate if they don't have a mutual command of English in much of the rest of the world. Pure speculation based on experience: people from polyglot areas tend to speak 4 languages: native, regional, English, & 1 other western lang., if another western country colonized them. For large sections of Africa, for Middle East & SE Asia, that would be France.

Do Indonesians speak Flemish???

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Do Indonesians speak Flemish???

Not many, so far as I can see. Dutch appears to have had a fairly strong influence on the Indonesian language, giving it many loanwords, but it doesn't seem to be used (or needed) as a lingua franca.

According to Wikipedia:

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Of its large population the number of people who fluently speak Indonesian is fast approaching 100%, thus making Indonesian one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. Most Indonesians, aside from speaking the national language, are often fluent in another regional language/local dialect (examples include Minangkabau, Sundanese and Javanese) which are commonly used at home and within their local community. Most formal education, as well as nearly all national media and other forms of communication, are conducted in Indonesian. In East Timor, formerly part of Indonesia, the Indonesian language is recognised by the constitution as one of the two working languages (the other is English, alongside the official languages of Tetum and Portuguese).

With a mere 250 million I doubt that Indonesian can claim to be "...one of the most widely spoken languages in the world...". There are 300 million English speakers in the USA alone.

I suppose it depends on how you define "one of the most". It's certainly ahead of French and German but behind the real "high-hitters".

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I suppose it depends on how you define "one of the most".

Surely it is self-defining? "One of the most" means exactly what it says.

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Surely it is self-defining? "One of the most" means exactly what it says.

It means very little. Where does "most" end?

In Zimbabwe, where English -- along with Shona and Ndebele, is the official language, chaos reigns. Zimbabwe used to be Africa's richest country; now it's the world's poorest. If it's true that using English makes a nation stronger, then President Mugabe should invoke Executive Privilege and issue a decree abolishing Shona and Ndebele and demanding that the people use English only. Poof!! Problems solved, no?

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If it's true that using English makes a nation stronger,

I don't think I ever said that, did I?

Zimbabwe is like some other sub-Saharan countries - many of the natives speak three languages: Kiswahili as it's the official language; the tribal language that they learnt at their mother's knees; English because that was the language of the colonial power (as well as being the language of choice for most schools).

According to the CIA's World Factbook and the Wikipedia article on Zimbabwe the official language of Zimbabwe is English. Ndebele only has about 18% of the speakers while Shona is up at 80-84%. The Ethnologue lists most of the languages of Zimbabwe. Kiswahili is not among them. In fact, Afrikaans and Gujarati probably account for more speakers than Kiswahili in Zimbabwe. Most of the speakers of Kiswahili are concentrated in Kenya, Tanzania, and Congo-Kinshasa, in which countries it is an official language.