this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2024
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I actually think we've just passed the high water mark of English. As a multipolar world emerges from underneath American hegemony, people will rediscover their own cultures and languages. You can see this in China when even 10 years ago the biggest blockbusters were all American movies but for the last couple of years American films have struggled to break the top 10.
Similarly, with China investing heavily in Africa, many Africans are choosing to learn Chinese for educational and business opportunities. Then you have places like the Middle East, where Saudi Arabia has introduced mandatory Chinese lessons im school.
Geopolitics also plays a huge role, for example in Russia where sanctions have caused people to turn away from Western culture en masse to look Eastwards and inwards.
That's what I mean by several standardized world languages. It's not impossible to foresee a world where 90+% of people natively speak English, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, Hindi, or Arabic. Is that bad, is that good? Idk, but it's definitely something new.
Interesting to compare languages by native speakers vs total speakers.