Reference News Network, December 7 report: On December 4, the Spanish website "El Mundo" published an article titled "The Golden Age of the World's Four Major Languages," authored by Spanish sociolinguist Rafael del Moral. The following is an excerpt:
The vitality of a language depends on the number of its speakers and the proportion of native speakers. It also relies on the social functions that the language carries (family, civic life, institutional operations, scientific research, etc.), as well as the continuity of intergenerational transmission: whether parents pass the language to their children or break the chain of transmission.
Only four languages clearly meet all the above conditions and are still expanding: English, Spanish, Chinese, and Portuguese. Other major languages have shortcomings in one key dimension.
Arabic and Hindi are not currently in a prosperous period. Although benefiting from the influence of politics, economy, religion, and population growth, these two languages are still expanding, but they have entered an irreversible process of dialectal differentiation.
Russian, German, and Italian are experiencing stability or decline despite their deep cultural influence: the number of native and non-native speakers is decreasing, and their international influence continues to weaken.
Japanese shows no sign of expansion. Japan's population has been declining for more than a decade due to low birth rates, and it faces severe aging problems. Its immigration policy remains strict.
The expansion of English is undeniable, making it the world's largest language. It has about 1.5 billion speakers (including 400 million native speakers), with a significant advantage. Although there have been "lingua francas" in human history, no language has ever been as deeply rooted and continuously expanding as English.
The Mandarin Chinese native speaker community is extremely stable (about 930 million), and it has achieved remarkable development in the fields of humanities, literature, technology, and science. Its language system is efficient in expressing technical achievements such as architecture, railways, and space exploration. Overall, the total number of Mandarin Chinese speakers continues to grow, and the global demand for learning it as a second language is also increasing. This growth is steady and moderate, especially among native speakers. Its greatest potential for expansion lies in the field of foreign language learning. In terms of the number of native speakers and development in the technical field, Mandarin Chinese is the world's largest language.
Portuguese is the most widely used language in the Southern Hemisphere. In Africa, the number of native speakers and those who acquire the language in the younger generation is growing, and its international influence is continuously expanding. Its future growth potential places it among the fastest-growing languages globally. Currently, Portuguese has about 240 million native speakers. However, it faces an irreversible trend: language differentiation. Translation work in Portuguese now needs to distinguish between two variants: within the next one or two generations, "Brazilian Portuguese" may become an independent language among the world's major languages, while the influence of traditional Portuguese will be weakened.
According to data from the 2025 "World Spanish Yearbook" published by the Cervantes Institute, there are approximately 520 million native Spanish speakers, 92 million speakers with limited proficiency, and over 24.5 million learners. The dominant position of Spanish is evident: it ranks third in the proportion of native speakers and monolingual speakers; it ranks second in terms of internationalization and internet usage frequency. The common strengths of English and Spanish lie in: a large base of native speakers, high internationalization, increasing number of speakers, strong demand for learning as a foreign language, and a unified language without obvious signs of dialectal differentiation. (Translated by Han Chao)
Original: toutiao.com/article/7581017730791244328/
Statement: This article represents the views of the author.