English is so widespread and frequently used that it’s aptly called the global language. No other language has ever achieved this status, and English appears well entrenched at the top of the global linguistic order.
There is, however, much debate about whether it will continue to be so in the future, and much of this has focused on whether China’s rise will lead Chinese to replace English as the global language.
Many scholars have argued that the character-based script used to write Chinese will prevent this from occurring because characters are too difficult and time-consuming to learn.
John H McWhorter, for example, says that “truly mastering the writing system virtually requires having been born to it”, while Paul Bruthiaux argues that the “continued reliance on a primarily logographic script is likely to limit the chances of Chinese as currently written acceding to a global role even in the likely event of a massive expansion of China’s geopolitical clout in the coming decades”. Similarly, Dan Lu says “the complexity and difficulty of the writing system handicap its spread”.
Chinese characters undoubtedly pose challenges to second/foreign language learners. But is a character-based script really so inimical to global-language status?
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