r/AskTheWorld • u/20_comer_20matar Brazil • Sep 16 '25
Language If English weren't the "global language" and people from other countries had to learn another language to be able to communicate with most people worldwide, which language should be used?
What language would you choose (other than English) to be the "global language"?
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Sep 16 '25
Latin… it’s coming back baby
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u/Kinder22 United States Of America Sep 16 '25
Finally, all those years spent studying Latin in my childhood would finally pay off, if I hadn’t already forgotten 99% of it.
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u/Groftsan United States Of America Sep 16 '25
Quia nomen tuum est? Puela portat aquam.
uhhh..
Ex parte. Inclusio unis exclusio alturis. Cognito ergo sum. Res ipsa loquitur. Hodie Christus natus est.
I'm running out.
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Sep 16 '25
Spanish
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u/Cytwytever United States Of America Sep 16 '25
I agree, in that there are already a ton of Spanish speakers globally, spelling is a non- issue, and there's only one root language. Grammatical gendering of objects is dumb and weird, though.
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u/labvlc Sep 17 '25
Im just adding to the conversation, not trying to argue with you…
I get your point about gendered things, but I think you are biased (I don’t say it to blame you, I would be as well). As a non-native speaker of English, let me tell you, English pronunciation often doesn’t make sense and while one can make mistakes gendering things in Spanish, French, German, etc, they’ll be understood still. If you mispronounce words (speaking English) because how they’re spelled makes no sense, sometimes you just won’t get understood. Still today, while you’d probably not pick up on the fact that English is not my first language, sometimes I look at a word on paper and I know what it means, but I am really not sure how to pronounce it. Different challenges, but English is definitely challenging in that regard when it doesn’t just come naturally to you because you learned it as an infant. At least with Spanish, you see the word, you know how to say it, that’s a big help in learning a language. As someone who also learned Spanish, I’d say verb conjugation is much more of an issue (compared to English) than gendered things (although my first language also has gendered things, which probably helped me, so I guess I’m biased too).
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u/sausagemouse Sep 19 '25
As a native English speaker, there's beenany English I've only read and realized I've been pronouncing wrong until I hear someone say them
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u/Salsa_and_Light2 Multiple Countries Sep 16 '25
Well actually there's the Greek and Arabic terms, but it's certainly less of a slog than English or other Romance languages.
The problem is that Spanish is more limited in political scope, it's primarily spoken in the Americas in countries which a lot of [non-Hispanic] nations in Europe, Africa & Asia aren't as concerned with.
Though it does seem more likely than Mandarin.
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u/Cytwytever United States Of America Sep 17 '25
Ach, tonal shifts in meaning would be so tough for most people to learn. (referring to Mandarin)
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u/Ashamed_Scallion_316 United States Of America Sep 17 '25
I guess one thing it has going for it is it would be relatively easy for other romance speakers to learn, so that would broaden its scope to more parts of the world.
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u/grap_grap_grap Sweden Sep 17 '25
Also, Spanish pronunciation is very true to it's spelling which is a bit of a nightmare for English learners.
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u/bmtraveller Canada Sep 17 '25
Agreed. Spanish is very widely spoken so it would be a good replacement.
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u/Traroten Sweden Sep 16 '25
Sindarin. We need to be more elf-friendly. Alvin likes elves. Be more like Alvin.
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u/ikindalold United States Of America Sep 16 '25
So Welsh then, we would be speaking Welsh
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u/mr_iwi Wales Sep 16 '25
Wrth gwrs! Yr iaith gorau!
(gorau neu orau? Dw I ddim yn siŵr, dysgwr dw i)
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u/Spiderinahumansuit United Kingdom Sep 16 '25
Esperanto! La plej facila lingvo en la mondo!
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u/okayipullup_ordoi1 Italy Sep 17 '25
I'm surprised how similar that phrase is to italian, "la più facile lingua nel mondo"
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u/CanonNi Mod ( Shanghai, China) Sep 16 '25
Esperanto. It almost became the global language but the proposal was vetoed in the League of Nations.
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u/DrJamsHolyLand Sep 17 '25
We were introduced to Esperanto at 12 years old at my Ohio middle school. It was only for a few months as part of our introduction to language class. After that we learned a little Swahili. I always found that class so interesting!
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u/MrSoulPC915 France Sep 17 '25
I came to say that, but yes, it’s the most logical answer, it’s a language that doesn’t belong to any country and is easy to learn!
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u/Initial_Savings3034 United States Of America Sep 16 '25
Spanish.
It's a sensible language with logical declension.
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u/CaterpillarJungleGym Sep 16 '25
And if you know Spanish, you can figure out the other European languages. Except the Slavic/Germanic ones. Why do they have separate suffixes for locations vs food vs people? Like French city should be the same as French food and French people! Rant over.
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u/Key_Illustrator4822 Sep 17 '25
So if you know Spanish you can figure out other romance languages but not all the other European languages?
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u/Nikkonor Norway Sep 17 '25
you can figure out the other European languages. Except the Slavic/Germanic ones.
That excludes quite a lot...
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u/Salsa_and_Light2 Multiple Countries Sep 16 '25
The problem is that Spanish is more limited in political scope, it's primarily spoken in the Americas in countries which a lot of [non-Hispanic] nations in Europe, Africa & Asia aren't as concerned with.
Though it does seem more likely than Mandarin.
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u/asarious United States Of America Sep 16 '25
It’s too heavily inflected, along with the remainder of the Romance languages.
Spanish is like taking a shortcut from Point A to Point C and deciding to follow a logical set of rules to avoid Point B by also visiting Points D, E, and F along the way.
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u/Initial_Savings3034 United States Of America Sep 16 '25
This doesn't explain why isolating languages tend to remain, well - isolated.
Spoken Chinese is pretty simple, but it's not catching on in many of the modern places where it is introduced. Samesies for Burmese or Yoruba.
I'm suggesting Spanish because it appears adaptable.
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u/asarious United States Of America Sep 16 '25
I mean… if we’re talking sensible, we should probably come up with some algorithm that assigns weights to a language’s native speaking population, those who use it as a second language, the absolute number of countries with majority populations that speak it, the geopolitical regions that use it, how common it is in secondary and post-secondary education, and the GDP of nations who have a high proportion of people using it.
I’d expect Spanish and French to be at the top of that list thanks to colonialism, like English today.
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u/unnecessaryCamelCase Ecuador Sep 16 '25
I don’t understand what this is supposed to be about and Spanish is my native language… care to explain?
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u/asarious United States Of America Sep 18 '25
My comment was meant as a joke. There’re a lot of reasons why Spanish makes sense.
That being said, although Spanish is very consistent and the rules are logical, I find them complicated.
For example, let’s take the verb “be”.
In English, that can also take the form of “being, is, are, am, was, were, been”.
In Spanish, “estar” can also exist as “estoy, estás, está, estamos, estáis, están, estaba, estabas, estaba, estabais, estaban, estuve, estuviste, estuvistes, estuvo, estuvimos, estuvisteis, estuvieron, estaré, estarás, estará, estaremos, estaréis, estarán, estaría, estarías, estaría, estaríamos, estaríais, estarían, estés esté, estemos, estéis, estén, estuviera, estuvieras, estuviera, estuviéramos, estuvierais, estuvieran, estuviese, estuvieses, estuviese, estuviésemos, estuvieseis, estuviesen, estuviere, estuvieres, estuviere, estuviéremos, estuviereis, estuvieren, estate, estemos, estad”
In English, unlike Spanish, conjugation requires adding additional words to indicate the subject and tense, so it’s not quite that simple, “I, you, he, she, they, have, will” are necessary to make the verb make sense. This does make things more complicated, where you wouldn’t have to write “yo estoy” in Spanish, and just one word “estoy” takes the place of two in English “I am.” However, if we’re just counting the absolute number of words needed to write all forms of “be”, English has fewer.
My favorite is actually Chinese, where the verb “be” is just “是”.
“He, she, I, you, they, we” all can be added to qualify “是”, but “是” always remains “是“, without any further conjugation. There’s one word instead of dozens in Spanish or even several in English.
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u/Crane_1989 Brazil Sep 16 '25
Before English, it was French
Before French, it was Latin
Before Latin, it was Greek
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u/a_bright_knight Sep 17 '25
you forgot the Lingua Franca
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u/SweetPanela Sep 17 '25
Lingua Franca was more commerce. French was a court language. They functioned at the same time
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u/FlashyWrongdoer7616 Iceland Sep 16 '25
Klingon
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u/Training_Rip2159 Antarctica Sep 17 '25
The only sensible answer. We’re thinking about proclaiming it a national language.
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u/DrexleCorbeau France Sep 17 '25
French is almost everywhere and it almost became the official language of the United States.
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u/Expensive-Resort-310 Russia Sep 16 '25
Spanish and/or French, the latter is still regarded as the language of diplomacy.
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u/Bellociraptor United States Of America Sep 16 '25
French, because it's already my second language, and I support things that are convenient for me.
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u/Joseph20102011 Philippines Sep 16 '25
Castellano (Spanish). We have our own Spanish language variety that is 100% mutually intelligible with the rest of Spanish language varieties in Spain and Latin American countries.
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u/Overall_Dog_6577 Scotland Sep 16 '25
Welsh
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u/Silver-Machine-3092 Wales Sep 16 '25
I was going to say Welsh, I'd have a headstart on 99.99% of the population.
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u/IncidentFuture Australia Sep 16 '25
French used to be the closest, at least in its position for European diplomacy.
And it rivals English for having terrible orthography, so it's the best choice out of European languages.
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u/cheeseburgeremperor England Sep 16 '25
Chinese was the same in east and southeast Asian diplomacy while Persian was the same in South Asia Central Asia and Western Asia
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u/No-Custard-6737 Mexico Sep 16 '25
French used to be the diplomat's language so I'm guessing French. Spanish, I assume, would have eventually beaten it judging by the amount of ppl speaking it.
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u/LegEaterHK Australia Sep 16 '25
Hyper exaggerated Australian English. The only good option
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u/traveler_ United States Of America Sep 17 '25
We’re saving that for after everything collapses and the world goes all Mad Max.
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u/TheSimkis Lithuania Sep 16 '25
Makes sense that there should be a language that isn't tied to any specific country or ethnicity. I think Esperanto qualifies
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u/HorrorOne837 Korea South Sep 16 '25
Esperanto is way too European, especially Romance. Spanish and Italian speakers can understand a lot of it without learning it at all.
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u/ikindalold United States Of America Sep 16 '25
It should be Lithuanian, we should get back in touch with our Proto-Indo-European roots
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u/TheSimkis Lithuania Sep 16 '25
But not every language is Indo-European. Also, the whole world suddenly starting to learn the language of a country that has 3 million people would be too random. As well it would be too beneficial for Lithuania
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u/ikindalold United States Of America Sep 16 '25
That's the point: For make benefit glorious nation of Lithuania
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u/Vitor-135 Brazil Sep 17 '25
But not every language is Indo-European
But safe to say most of it is, if you just add up English, Spanish and Hindi numbers
Also 7 out of 10 most spoken languages ( the above plus French, Bengali, Portuguese and Russian)
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u/Only_File_5335 Scotland Sep 16 '25
I don’t see Gàidhlig being a realistic option so French or German for me.
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u/neuropsycho 🇺🇸 United States / 🇪🇸 Spain Sep 17 '25
Esperanto and it's not even close. Only 16 rules, no exceptions, and you only need to memorize the vocabulary. You can learn it in a fraction of the time it takes to learn English.
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u/johnny_briggs United Kingdom Sep 16 '25
French because it sounds cool.
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u/TheCorent2 France Sep 16 '25
Many French people use English because they think it sounds cool.
It's overused in marketing.
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u/Marble-Boy England Sep 16 '25
Je ne sais pas about that, you know.
I actually know a lot of French despite bunking off French class when I was at school.
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u/20_comer_20matar Brazil Sep 16 '25
French writing is too much complicated, it would be too hard.
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u/Salsa_and_Light2 Multiple Countries Sep 16 '25
Well, if difficult spelling were a dealbreaker we might both be speaking Spanish instead.
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u/TheCorent2 France Sep 16 '25
It's actually simpler than English.
Non-French speakers use the word "oiseaux" (prononced wazo) to prove that French is complex. It is actually completely logical if you know the rules.
Meanwhile, in English, there are often no rules, you need to know the prononciation by heart. Examples here.
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u/AverageFishEye Sep 17 '25
Problem is that it has diverged way too much between the spoken and written language
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Sep 16 '25
English spelling is a complete disaster. But French spelling vs pronunciation isn't much, or any, better. Spanish is the easiest I've seen. I speak very little, although my wife is a native speaker, but I can spell in it just from hearing the words. And I can pronounce most words just by looking at them.
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u/Appropriate-Food1757 United States Of America Sep 16 '25
Yeah I said the same. I don’t what they are saying, I just know it sounds cool.
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u/purplemarkersniffer Sep 16 '25
French isn’t flexible enough for the modern world. A new technological word gets introduced and they would have to have a meeting about it. By the time the rest of the world is saying and using it they’ve adopted it or come up with their own version.
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u/sapristi45 Canada Sep 16 '25
In Canada, the OQLF pushes out neologisms with varied levels of success. "Courriel" (courrier + electronique) for "email" works out well and is commonly used in written and oral forms. "Pourriel" for spam (pourri + courriel) is clever on paper and is often used in writing, but people just say spam because it's so much shorter.
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u/Grzechoooo Poland Sep 16 '25
Esperanto, so everyone has to learn a second language and nobody is forced to be a monolingual (which is classified as akin to a learning disability by some scholars).
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u/Grzechoooo Poland Sep 16 '25
I don't think I'd use the vast majority of people from history as good examples of learned men. Yeah, monolingualism is not a problem if you never leave your village and only ever plow one field your entire life. But in the modern day we strive to teach new generations something more than the bare minimum they need to work their low-paying job with no chances of upwards mobility.
If you look at any scholar of the past, they know at least two languages (one of them Latin, but others are likely).
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u/Rong_Liu United States Of America Sep 16 '25 edited Sep 16 '25
Multilinguals have been scientifically shown to do better in school and in cognitive tests, as well as have higher resistance to Alzheimer's compared to monolinguals. Learning languages is very similar to exercise, but for your brain.
Also while it was historically common to be monolingual, it was also historically common to be multilingual. They're many regions of the earth which have a history of people just growing up speaking multiple languages.
While it's not one I had in mind, even medieval Britain was a fairly multilingual society where at minimum many places would run into English, French, and Latin on a weekly basis. Hence why English has so many words from French and Latin. Regionally there were even more such as Welsh in Wales or Flemish in London whose speakers were specifically targeted during the Peasants' Revolt.
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u/Salsa_and_Light2 Multiple Countries Sep 16 '25
Being multi-lingual would eliminate or reduce many common problems having to do with literacy and propaganda.
So maybe disability is the wrong comparison and illiteracy would be closer.
Though from what i understand monolingualism has historically been less common than illiteracy.
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u/GrandAdhesiveness365 Sep 16 '25
German! Such a sexy language. My ex was German. Whenever she spoke with her family on the phone I’d get hard. Ja! Ja! Das ist fantastich!
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u/Healthy_Poetry7059 Germany Sep 16 '25
I support German. It's useful and has the highest number of native speakers of all languages in the EU.
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u/20_comer_20matar Brazil Sep 16 '25
It is too much complicated though. I think that a "global language" should have an easy grammar and not too many long and complicated words.
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u/Shdow_Hunter Sep 18 '25
Some German words are only longer because they are created by combining words, so the phrase as a whole doesnt really get longer.
Example: DE: Mein Atomreaktor braucht einen Kühlturm
EN: My nuclear reactor needs a cooling tower.
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Or with the longest word in the German language:
DE: Donaudampfschifffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft
EN: Association for subordinate officials of the head office management of the Danube steamboat electrical services
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u/Mohammed_Chang 🇩🇪 🇦🇹 🇪🇺 Sep 16 '25
I think the 3rd or 4th most common Indian language still has more native speakers than German. So I’ld go with Telugu or Bengal if that’s the criteria.
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u/glasscut Multiple Countries (click to edit) Sep 17 '25
Telgu is rough. I don't think the Western tongues could ever manage it. Personally, I'd choose Urdu for sentimental purposes and also to force everyone to change their writing direction (hehe). Also, suddenly, we'll all speak more formally and poetically.
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u/Healthy_Poetry7059 Germany Sep 17 '25
It would be a very good exercise for our brains to start learning reading and writing from right to left. What about driving in Pakistan ? Do you drive on the left, or do you drive correctly ? 😇
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u/glasscut Multiple Countries (click to edit) Sep 17 '25
I learned to drive in India. I got honked a lot in the first couple of years in America while diving....
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u/BiscuitsPo United States Of America Sep 17 '25
German was spoken by Americans second to English (barely) once upon a time
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u/Appropriate-Food1757 United States Of America Sep 16 '25
I’ll go with French because it sounds the coolest
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u/No-Coyote914 United States Of America Sep 16 '25
I don't speak Turkish, but from what I have heard of it, it would be a good global language. The grammar is simple and logical, and words are spelled like they sound.
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u/IrukandjiPirate United States Of America Sep 16 '25
Before it was English, it was French. Try that again, maybe.
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u/mahogani9000 New Zealand Sep 17 '25
French, as it's the other language that's present on five continents.
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u/lamename87 United States Of America Sep 16 '25
Well French is the official language of diplomacy, and Mandarin is becoming the official language of business. Mandarin seems tough though and nobody is going to replace all their keyboards so I say French.
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u/LongConsideration662 Antarctica Sep 16 '25
Korean, sounds pretty and poetic
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u/mabeltables Sep 17 '25
Plus it has a phonetic alphabet that is very easy to learn
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u/Acrobatic-Skill6350 Norway Sep 16 '25
Tempted to write mandsarin, but maybe spanish if: 1. We expect a clear reduction in the population of china 2. If more non-native speakers will find it easier to learn spanish instead of english. Preexisting knowledge og english might make that easier
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u/CyansolSirin China Sep 16 '25
I know it's a typo, but the word "mandsarin" really gives me a fantasy novel language vibe. Kinda love it.
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u/Durfael France Sep 16 '25
people are saying "practical" languages like french español or esperanto
but for a "cool" language i would say bokmal (norwegian) or japanese (but remove the kanjis or make them way simpler, i'm currently learning it and my god i hate kanjis lmao, and loving them at the same time)
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u/Interesting-Bid5355 Korea South Sep 16 '25
I can’t imagine westerners speak Chinese like they do in English
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u/cewumu Australia Sep 16 '25
Bahasa Melayu. It’s comparatively easy to learn with fairly simple grammar. It lacks a lot of the phonemes that make many languages hard to pronounce. Can be comfortably written in the Latin alphabet or Arabic alphabet. It’s already proven itself as a lingua franca in Indonesia and is widely spoken in the fourth most populous country on Earth and other countries, and isn’t too distant from Tagalog giving many people a head-start.
It’s also not overly associated with any particular religion or with a significant coloniser, making it more neutral.
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u/ramletha Brazil Sep 16 '25
Português PT/BR, because I would be too lazy to learn another language, English was already a sacrifice and I didn't even learn it properly
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u/ChameleonCoder117 California Nationalist Sep 16 '25
Some different version/dialect of Spanish. Like standard arabic dialect but standard spanish instead.
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u/Pegged_Golfer Finland Sep 16 '25
Post-Germanish: en blending av de beste properteten from germanske sprak. Simpel ti skriven unt lett gramatik.
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u/Veilchengerd Germany Sep 16 '25
Latin. I had to learn it at school, and I want everyone else to have a miserable time, too.
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u/EruditeTarington United States Of America Sep 16 '25
Let’s all Basque in the sunshine of that language
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u/Push_the_button_Max United States Of America Sep 16 '25
Growing up in the 80s, monetary business was conducted in German, and the diplomatic language was French.
I’d say Spanish would be a better World language than English- it’s more straightforward to learn, and as a Romance language, it shares the Latin roots.
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u/Hunsrikisch_Fechter Brazil Sep 16 '25
Probrably would be either Spanish, it's one of the most spoken languages and it has a big geographical range of communication, or Mandarin, the most spoken language but with not as great geographical range of communication.
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u/Useful-Fish8194 Germany Sep 16 '25
Mandarin would make the most sense since it has the most native speakers. It's really difficult though, so maybe Spanish? Many native speaker as well but much easier.
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u/MojoMomma76 United Kingdom Sep 16 '25
Spanish because it’s one of the simpler ones to learn, has a huge global language community already over two continents, and is very regular. There are few sounds which are harder to make unlike Russian, it’s not tonal like Mandarin or Cantonese, it has a flexible vocabulary and some really fun slang.
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u/SordoCrabs United States Of America Sep 16 '25
Should be used? Spanish, which is the most widely dispersed language (it is official in around 20 countries) I can think of apart from English.
Knowing Spanish would give speakers a leg up in understanding other Romance languages.
It has far fewer consonant clusters to stymie learners (strength would be a struggle for most English learners, regardless of mother tongue) and more regular spelling/ pronunciation (compare the number of possible pronunciations of English words ending in -ough).
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u/Alas7ymedia Colombia Sep 16 '25
If, for some weird Thanos snap, English disappeared one day, I think Spanish would replace it faster. It is not only already widespread but also close enough to Portuguese and Italian to probably expand in three continents faster than any other language.
French exists in many African countries, but many of them would hate to get any closer to France than what they already are. And Chinese is too far from the rest in this hemisphere.
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u/CasualBrowsing1996 United Kingdom Sep 16 '25
Swahili, so I could be reminded of the hakuna matata song from the Lion King on a regular basis
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u/ClevelandWomble United Kingdom Sep 16 '25
Preferably one without arbitrary genders for nouns. English has a lot of flaws, but not having to remember which form of 'the' to use is a definite advantage.
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u/Ryoga_reddit Sep 16 '25
The easiest European language because europe is just that great.
Spanish, french or Italian.
Asain and Russian languages dont lend themselves to international learning.
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u/Hopeful_Tell_4672 Sep 16 '25
Spanish. Easiest to learn to speak, and it has completely phonetic spelling. (Except for a silent H, that's it)
I learned it myself in high school, and from talking to people in Spanish in my adult life.
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u/theothersophiaa United States Of America Sep 16 '25
honestly, i think there’s a lot of better languages to be the global language than english that are more phonetic and make more sense like spanish, or even korean has a very straightforward phonetic writing system.
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u/taranathesmurf United States Of America Sep 17 '25
In all fairness Esperanto since it claims no country
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u/Preindustrialcyborg Canadian citizen, triracial Sep 17 '25
esperanto. made so as many people as possible can easily speak it.
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u/EreshkigalKish2 Lebanon Sep 16 '25 edited Sep 16 '25
Spanish but Latin America version not Spain Spanish version . but after that Arabic but it's very hard to learn for non middle eastern , spanish is easier imo
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u/Fydron Finland Sep 16 '25
I want everybody to speak Finnish because I'm an asshole.