alt Hacker NewsWhat's often understated is how much of an advantage the US has because it speaks the language of global commerce and technology, which for the entire 20th century and the first quarter of the 21st has been English. That's huge. It means teenagers reading man pages are reading fluently.
At some point, though, the balance could tip. It's impossible to say, and it'd be irresponsible to try to predict it, but there isn't any reason English is natively superior, any more than French was 150 years ago, or Latin 600 years ago. But it's a major advantage the US has that isn't acknowledged often enough.
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I think English is definitely a reason that I took for granted. To add to that from my experience:
- The culture is, I think, the root of the flywheel. The entrepreneurship and competitive intensity is unlike anywhere else I've lived (not an American). It's okay to go bankrupt. It's okay to fail multiple times and burn millions in VC money, in fact it's encouraged! Take a break and raise another round and go again, VCs like second time founders. In my home country having one business go under is the worst thing imaginable.
- The capital markets, even YC (one of the lower tier accelerators by now) gives you 500k for 7%, sometimes pre-revenue. That is an absurd proposition elsewhere
- Surrounding yourself with top talent raises the ceiling for what you think is possible and accelerates your career really fast. It's inspiring for me to be around so many smart and successful people.
The language of global commerce and technology has not and has never been English
It is money.
Specifically, right now, petro-dollars. For a while before that, it was pounds
The writer is asking how much longer that will continue to be true that it is petro-dollars.
> but there isn't any reason English is natively superior, any more than French was 150 years ago, or Latin 600 years ago.
Actually, there is. English is relatively unique in its ability to incorporate loan words and features of other languages. This is in part due to its history as a merger of 10k French (thus, Latinate) words into an otherwise Germanic language. But it's also due to the unfortunate history of the British empire, followed by American hegemony, which spread English to many other cultures who freely adapted it.
Whether this is enough to justify a continuing status as "the international language" is obviously debatable. But English is different from almost all other human languages, not because it is better, but because it is just ... more
I’m on a motorhome holiday in Norway right now. The younger people I’ve spoken to, from the Netherlands, through Germany and Denmark and into Norway have as good English as me. As with most American-exceptionalism, you ain’t that special. On previous holidays in France, often held up as “never-willingly-speak-English”, we’ve had similar experiences.
Older people here in Northern Europe often seem to speak English quite well, in France less so.
It's an advantage, but I don't see that changing for a very long time:
1. English became the lingua franca right when the world really became globalized. So everyone from Europe to Asia to Africa has wanted to learn English as a second language for decades. So even if American power went away, I still don't see English falling from its perch. I often say it's really hard for Americans to learn another language because if you go to another country hoping to learn that language, so often you'll find many/most people just want to speak to you in English.
2. The only other power I could see surpassing the US in the mid term is China (and that's in no way guaranteed), but the Chinese language (Mandarin), and especially Chinese writing is inherently more difficult for foreigners to learn. I'd also argue the Chinese writing system is inherently more poorly suited to the digital world.