blueshift Wrote:On the other hand, Canadian citizens are double taxed.

No they aren't. If you are no longer a resident you pay no Canadian tax.

So according to this thread, the main thing propping up Japan's economy is the Robotics field and the main thing propping up the demand for Japan's language are the otakus?

Actually, I think the next big thing in the future will be human-like sex robots and it might very well be this that create the next wave of Japanese language learners. I would be very surprised if Japan is not the biggest distributor of sex robots/androids. This won't bode well for human sexual relationships but that's just the way the cookie crumbles.

Mongolia being the next fad language? I find that hard to believe because I and probably most people don't even know anything about Mongolia. I'll need a citation for this one.

Arabic being the next fad language? I think the demand for the Arabic language is almost synonymous with the demand for their oil. If renewable energy ever takes off, then there goes the incentive for Arabic language learners!

Speaking of history, I wonder if Douglas MacArthur's controversial interactions with WW2 Japan helped prop up a peak/wave and encourage Westerners to learn Japanese. The "trade with us Americans or else we'll attack you with our kurofunes" makes for a compelling case for this theory. From a Japanese language learners point of view, this is like insurance preventing their efforts from going to waste.

dizmox Wrote:

Quote:After all, language only serves to be a barrier and there doesn't seem to be a rational reason to use more than one.

It would be boring if there were only one.

It might be boring but there would be less wars (it's easier to empathize with someone if you share something in common with them).

Less wars means less money spent on wars and more money spent on arts. Which means less boring, not more.

Best case scenario obviously.

tashippy Wrote:Can you provide a citation please? I'd like to read something about this.
You're like the opposite of nest0r

For the benefit of readers who don't know, nest0r is a former active member (1000s of posts) of this forum and he is like a RTK forum cult figure whose influence is still felt here despite his absence for years now. His posts tend to be filled with great detail and with citations and sources. So the joke is that although Stanfield123 also has great detail in posts, there are no citations so said post could be 100% accurate or 100% BS, hence the request for citations. Correct me if my analysis is wrong.

qwertyytrewq Wrote:

dizmox Wrote:

Quote:After all, language only serves to be a barrier and there doesn't seem to be a rational reason to use more than one.

It would be boring if there were only one.

It might be boring but there would be less wars (it's easier to empathize with someone if you share something in common with them).

Less wars means less money spent on wars and more money spent on arts. Which means less boring, not more.

Best case scenario obviously.

It's also easier to disagree with someone if you are understand and argue with them. In America alone English is the standard yet millions of religious people still manage to damn each other in an eternal battle for righteousness depending on whether or not they wear the correct socks with the right number of stitches in them.

Have there been any major wars wherein speaking the same language would have averted it? Does speaking the same language suddenly reduce the urge for one nation to forcefully take the land/resources/profits of another country?
This seems like a rather stretched line of reasoning for having less wars. IMO, of course.

As a side note: language and thought, culture and art are heavily influenced by each other. Having a single language would, if anything, be more damaging to creative pools of thought than expanding it. Spending more money on something doesn't necessarily promote creative growth. Hollywood is a good example of a lot of money going into creating generic and uninspired media.

Your analysis is correct, qwertytrewq! (and quite amusing).
I have to side with uisukii that, unfortunately I'm not sure how much empathy through shared language will prevent wars. We share this planet and yet we've divided it into nation states.
Robots will probably take the human element out of war anyway (except for the victims). We must design empathetic multi-lingual robots.

tashippy Wrote:I have to side with uisukii that, unfortunately I'm not sure how much empathy through shared language will prevent wars. We share this planet and yet we've divided it into nation states.

Just to provide a counterpoint, wars between groups who speak the same language seem relatively less frequent. Try to count how many wars have occurred between English speakers. In the last 400 years or so, I can only recall the the Revolutionary and Civil Wars (perhaps I'm missing some). The history seems similar for other languages too. On the other hand, there seems to be many more wars between people who speak different languages.

Perhaps it's because of cultural gaps and a lack of cultural exchange, both of which are caused by the language barrier? For instance, Americans, at least, seem to have no idea what people in the Middle East think about U.S. foreign policy. I assume this would be different if everyone in the Middle East could speak English and appear in the media, debate on Reddit, etc.

Although you have a point about less frequent conflicts between people who speak the same language, I think that language is only indirect factor here. Language is common to people of the same nation and nations tend to form the states. So it’s more like it’s the states that compete against each other, rather than people grouped around the same language. There were wars between Sparta and Athens, wars between states in South America (Chile vs. Bolivia & Peru), any civil war would involve parties speaking the same language (Russian revolution, American civil war). A civil war could also be thought as a war between states - as in between the states that would be governed according to one system or another.

qwertyytrewq Wrote:

dizmox Wrote:

Quote:After all, language only serves to be a barrier and there doesn't seem to be a rational reason to use more than one.

It would be boring if there were only one.

It might be boring but there would be less wars (it's easier to empathize with someone if you share something in common with them).

Less wars means less money spent on wars and more money spent on arts. Which means less boring, not more.

When you have a monoculture, I don't think you're going to have great artistic variety.

In case I am being misunderstood, I am not saying language differences cause wars. Wars are obviously about things like resources, power and ego.

However I am saying language barriers at best, do not help. The only thing worse than a language barrier is a communication barrier. After all, it's easier for a voting public to support war against their enemies if they can't hear the enemies voice. At least with "itai!", we know our country's actions are hurting someone.

dizmox Wrote:

qwertyytrewq Wrote:

dizmox Wrote:It would be boring if there were only one.

It might be boring but there would be less wars (it's easier to empathize with someone if you share something in common with them).

Less wars means less money spent on wars and more money spent on arts. Which means less boring, not more.

When you have a monoculture, I don't think you're going to have great artistic variety.

One universal language does not necessarily imply one culture.

Actually, now that I think about it, there is one exception when it comes to the language barrier being a _good thing_:

Japan and their lack of skill in English relative to other Asian countries.

As we all know, just about every country on Earth hates Japan: USA, China, South Korea, various South East Asian countries.

And the less mentally-well Japan hating citizens of these countries come online foaming at the mouth, spreading hate against Japan (often but not always in English).

Japan sucks at English and they have their own Japanese internet and they're probably doing the best thing: ignoring and not engaging with the Japan haters assuming they even have the linguistic capabilities.

Nationalist haters, like trolls, should be ignored, so on balance, the language barrier could be considered a good thing.

Food for thought.

I can't help but remember Douglas Adams' take on language:

"Meanwhile the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different cultures and races, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation."

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

qwertyytrewq Wrote:As we all know, just about every country on Earth hates Japan: USA, China, South Korea, various South East Asian countries.

Actually no, Japan is consistently ranked among the most well-regarded nations on earth.

Only three countries dislike Japan, China and both Koreas.

Source: BBC does a yearly poll of nations. I believe Japan was 4th most liked nation this year and #1 in 2012.

Too lazy to google it.

Wow, you're right. That's pretty interesting!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22624104

qwertyytrewq Wrote:Mongolia being the next fad language? I find that hard to believe because I and probably most people don't even know anything about Mongolia. I'll need a citation for this one.

I only tossed Mongolia as an example because its relatively undeveloped economically. China grew to power over the last few decades by being a place primarily full of poor people. The west moved in and set up tons of manufacturing centers there and used the cheap labor and low cost of living to turn out tons of products. But the wage level has been rising in China and more people are becoming middle class so its harder to charge the same level of wages as in the past. So they'll move on to other developing countries and exploit the cheap labor there. Where ever this happens, there will always be a high demand for people that can work in the native language there to help directly set up contracts with manufacturing and what not.

Most of SE Asia is already developed into manufacturing hubs so it seems unlikely that any new faces will show up; but Mongolia is kind of a location that very few know about and many people are starting to flock to Ulan Bator for work. Plus there may not be much care for the environment so it may be easy to do dirt cheap and dirty manufacturing (another reason why China was so popular of a manufac. hub, the government didn't care how businesses trashed the environment).

Small note.
Also robotics aren't propping up Japan at all. Cars and electronics do more than robots.

Mongolia just doesn't have the scale required (economically, politically, or culturally) for its language to become a fad anywhere in the world.

If I had to pick the next language to reach about the same status as Japanese around the world - I'd say Korean.

Isn't the Korean wave already over?

kitakitsune Wrote:Mongolia just doesn't have the scale required (economically, politically, or culturally) for its language to become a fad anywhere in the world.

If I had to pick the next language to reach about the same status as Japanese around the world - I'd say Korean.

dizmox Wrote:Isn't the Korean wave already over?

That's funny. Earlier I used the example of past movies using a futuristic Japanese city as a setting, reflecting the, at the time, growing Japanese might economically, politically and culturally.

A 2012 movie called Cloud Atlus has a variety of setting. One of those is Neo Seoul (Korea).

What I find funny is this: The Korean Wave/Fad is close to being finished and the movie is 5-10 years too late. That's not surprising because while there are clear differences between China amd Japan (and their respective pros and cons), Korea is just a poor man's Japan and Seoul is an inferior version of Tokyo. Apologies to any Koreaphiles if I offend them.

Re: Mongolian being the next fad language due to its economic future: If wages are the key, then wouldn't an African language be a more likely fad? After all, even Chinese workers cost too much these days so they need an even cheaper alternative: The great untapped African labor force.

Much has been said about China investing money into Africans and apparently the Africans appear less hostile to a Chinese takeover compared to a white-man takeover (white man does not have a good track record with blacks historically). Better the yellow devil you don't know, than the white devil you knew I suppose. Another factor are marriages between Chinese men and black women.

qwertyytrewq Wrote:Re: Mongolian being the next fad language due to its economic future: If wages are the key, then wouldn't an African language be a more likely fad? After all, even Chinese workers cost too much these days so they need an even cheaper alternative: The great untapped African labor force.

Actually Africa would be a good guess for a future power house country if it weren't for the fact fact many countries are unstable. There are a lot of countries in conflict in Africa. I still think that in the more stable regions though, we might actually seen some manufacturing centers pop up in the future in Africa.

For those that are curious- I dealt with this for 5 years so I know a bit about it- here is the info on paying tax as a US citizen abroad:

http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/Internati...-Exclusion

Currently, you do not get taxed on the first $97.6k of your income (2013). But anything above that, you get taxed at that rate.

vix86 Wrote:we might actually seen some manufacturing centers pop up in the future in Africa.

I agree. As China continues modernizing till they reach the level of USA and other Western and Western-like countries, the uppity ni- I mean Chinese "wage slave" workers will probably demand more worker rights and higher wages. Factory owners and other wealthy capitalists won't be happy about this so they'll stop hiring the once cheap Chinese workers and will try to find some other third world country to exploit. Actually this is already happening.

I wonder what this would do for demand for the learning of the Chinese language?

ya it's so true. other problems of doing business in china:
-government inspections that often require bribes
-red tape that take ages to complete before business can begin
-processed material / material for processing can not be removed from china
and the kicker...
-no corporate profits may be removed from china.

add to that the fact that chinese people are demanding higher wages, and many employers are saying screw it altogether, moving their factories to singapore and vietnam now.

i have friends who go on and on about how all smart people should be studying chinese. it's the future, etc. how many other languages has that been said about? when they no longer have a cheap labor pool the burdens of dealing with the chinese gov't and low quality production will outweigh any benefits.

at the end of the day I think the language that you stand to gain the most from is the one you're most interested in. it's that language that you'll have the staying power with to take it further than a language you study for a job...

and if you can get really good then there's plenty of opportunity in any language really...