Quote Originally Posted by Marcus View Post
Esperanto is much simpler than English. But it hasn't replaced English. The same will be with Chinese: it will simply replace English.
I'm pretty sure this won't happen.

In fact, I'm so sure, how about this: if it DOES happen, I'll buy you a Coke.

Look: As I understand it, there was a long time when old Russia was entranced by France, and were taking steps to become more European under Peter the Great.. Well, nobles even learned a lot of French, right? Even the books say they were embarassed to speak Russian and preferred to speak French to save "face" during that time. Well, to ask all of Russia to BECOME French-speaking was simply too much for a country of people, many of whom LIKED their native language. It's the same with English and us in the West. Anything can happen, but we'll keep our native language, because we like it. And no amount of foreign influx is going to change THAT - though we happily let a lot of things change as people come here.

I'm pretty confident as a student of history that I can stand in the shadow of the distant future and say that we in the US will continue speaking English as a native tongue.