Is there any other language that could genuinely challenge English for global dominance?

[Tooting Carmen]

Discuss.

[Kouros]

Chinese

[zhaoyun]

No, I don't think so. Chinese will gain in influence, but cannot challenge the entrenched use of English which was established due to the vast colonial empires of Britain and the US.

[Dandelion]

Hard to tell. History has odd leaps and bounds. I do predict the knowledge of Chinese will improve. People here told me that if Chinese cultural output were stronger, they'd doubt it people would still be able to recognise Chinese symbols/radicals and their meaning, but I deem it evident they would.
People overestimate Chinese writing being a handicap for it spreading in influence IMO. Especially if the weight of a strong culture and a population of people interested in it are high enough, the difficulty of learning it decreases (as such is the effect of a collective effort)

I'm not seeing English influence diminish, though. The most logical candidates for replacing it after some centuries from now are probably Spanish or Mandarin, as like I told, on a technical level they aren't that disadvantageous over English than people believe. However for it to happen that's just conjecture.

Back in the 17th century more English knew Dutch than Dutch knew English for instance. Unimaginable today to ever having been such situation in the world. If the Anglo-Saxon world were to not be at the world top anymore, its language being the lingua franca would also be in peril. Good thing the Brits colonised a lot of land and resources to guarantee relevance perhaps for the remainder of mankind's existence.

[Dandelion]

One thing though. If a culture is more relevant, it's by no means a guarantee it'd spread. Especially not if the less relevant culture has a strong cultural output itself. Think about how barely any Japanese knows to speak English or even understand it.

[Tooting Carmen]

One thing though. If a culture is more relevant, it's by no means a guarantee it'd spread. Especially not if the less relevant culture has a strong cultural output itself. Think about how barely any Japanese knows to speak English or even understand it.

That's a slight exaggeration, but I know what you mean.

[Tooting Carmen]

bump

[Gediminas]

Spanish is the only serious contender

[Marinus]

Castilian is the only contender, and even then something catastrophic has to happen to the Anglosphere for that to take place.

https://thepienews.com/news/chinas-d...ys-government/

It'll be very tough getting Western people to want to trade English for Mandarin as the lingua franca for diplomacy, air space, science and so on..... so they may just teach their own people Castilian instead and promote other countries to adopt its use internationally also.

https://www.languagemagazine.com/chi...nish-speakers/

[Dandelion]

Castilian is the only contender, and even then something catastrophic has to happen to the Anglosphere for that to take place.

https://thepienews.com/news/chinas-d...ys-government/

It'll be very tough getting Western people to want to trade English for Mandarin as the lingua franca for diplomacy, air space, science and so on..... so they may just teach their own people Castilian instead and promote other countries to adopt its use internationally also.

https://www.languagemagazine.com/chi...nish-speakers/

That can also be a thing. One can look not just at the Anglosphere or Hispanosphere as completely detached. If the Anglosphere were to decline due to gradual degradation over the centuries or disaster, people might just look at another language still belonging to the Western culture due to it being more familiar.
Mandarin is very foreign and exotic. It'll need more influence to be considered replacing English. However, my point still stands. If Chinese make really good culture and excel at every field in being innovative and the culture reaches us, collectively people would want to know about it and learning Chinese would be considerably less difficult than it is today. An entire society of people can move mountains. It's a driving machine, cultural output. Now the individual has to drive him-/herself forcefully and make sure he doesn't come to a standstill ever. Hence Chinese is very difficult to learn in today's world. Not if Chinese were everywhere in our daily lives with everyone around it emulating it it wouldn't be.

What generally only geeky hobbyists manage to pull off half-assedly, Israelis managed to pull off excellently. Revive a dead language with a fairly complex grammar and make it a modern language, Hebrew. They did because an entire society worked toward it together and they lacked a modern lingua franca when building their nation.

People outside of the Western world also learn English in the end and a 'cultural barrier' didn't prevent them to. Anglo soft power is just that influential.