Why is there no global language that at least nearly half the world speaks (3.5 billion, I'm talkin', including non-native speakers)

Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 62 points – 1 months ago

Is the Tower of Babel still affecting us or something?

Edit:

We have 8 billion people, yet the best we could muster for the most total speakers of a language is under 2 billion, including non-natives...

English (1,452 million speakers) First language: 372.9 million Total speakers: 1.4+ billion According to Ethnologue, English is the most-spoken language in the world including native and non-native speakers.

https://www.berlitz.com/blog/most-spoken-languages-world#:~:text=1.,English%20(1%2C452%20million%20speakers)&text=According%20to%20Ethnologue%2C%20English%20is,native%20and%20non%2Dnative%20speakers.

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Maybe it's Interlingua. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlingua Most people who speak a latin based language already understand interlingua. That would be the best chance of getting a majority of the world on the same language. It would include a big part of Europe, all of South and Central America and half of North America

Interlingua: Da nos hodie nostre pan quotidian,

Esperanto: Nian panon ĉiutagan donu al ni hodiaŭ

English: Give us this day our daily bread;

We have our choice between Spanish Latin, Romanian Latin, or super complicated Latin that contradicts itself and absorbed things from everywhere at random.

or super complicated Latin that contradicts itself and absorbed things from everywhere at random.

English borrowed a shit tonne from Latin & Romance languages, but it is at its core a Germanic language.

To make a joke that still sticks with the facts, maybe something like "wannabe Latin", or "that shitty Romeaboo language".