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Things like this make me blame myself for being lazy and unfocused. I should be actually learning some Chinese*.
Anyway. I think it’s over; even if hypothetically speaking USA gets a scientifically-inclined muppet-in-power in 2029, that would only slow the “institutional decadence” of science there, not revert the shift. I’m saying this because of a few things:
- USA persecuting exchange students there might not continue after 2029, but the damage was already done. If you’re considering studying abroad you’d rather go elsewhere “just in case”.
- Network effect is nice until you lose it. All those connections matter in science, it’s the difference between “I authored a meh paper on my own” and “we authored a damn great paper in collab”.
- Some people see no political issue with their intellectual output being used to fuel mass murder, but a lot of them do. And I believe scientists are specially keen on that.
On #3, that reminds me of a cooling system from furries being adapted by USA’s military. You might argue “this is not science, it’s tech”, but the same principles apply: you simply won’t get this flow of ideas into USA any more.
But think, also, of America’s international standing. Can a nation that has forfeited its role as a leader, or even a contender, in global science, still be a Great Power? // No.
I’d go further: what’s happening there is a lot like someone eating the seeds for the next harvest. Sure, the scientific output of the past might help maintaining a military edge in the present, but eventually it’ll be gone.
*And by “Chinese” I don’t mean Middle Chinese, given my heavy bias towards ancient languages. I mean enough written Mandarin to read a sci paper in it.
Addressing an egregiously HN-like comment:
Unlikely. Adaptability of the language to new concepts as well as ease of adoption for second language learners matters. English - indeed every other candidate global language (Spanish, French, Portuguese, Arabic) - excel Chinese in these respects. I’d wager that even we’re [SIC - were] American hegemony to go the way of the UK, English will persist. It may become more Indian or Singlish, but this demonstrates its strength.
The user is assuming a metric out of thin air, then re-eating their own vomit to justify some conclusion.
Even if we make a steel man* out of this shit, and pretend “adaptability” is mensurable (yeah, nah, good luck), I genuinely do not think the Chinese languages (including standard Mandarin) are less able to incorporate new concepts than the four languages mentioned there.
“But the writing” - phono-semantic borrowings are a thing, and if there’s pressure for new characters they eventually get incorporated into the writing; cue to ⟨⟩ tā as a gender-neutral alternative to ⟨他⟩ tā “he” and ⟨她⟩ tā “she”. (In fact even ⟨她⟩ is a relatively new pronoun; as the romanisation shows, originally you got a single pronoun.)
Plus people overestimate the impact of the writing system into people learning or not a language; if that was any serious pressure you can be pretty sure L2 English wouldn’t be a thing, given English rendering of the Latin alphabet is so esoteric that even proficient speakers fuck with it. (Cue to the same user mistaking “we’re” with “were”).
Also. That’s clear ignorance on the pressures behind adoption of linguae francae. It’s power associated with the speakers and institutions promoting that language. Cue to the fate of Latin past the fall of Western Rome; Eastern Rome was rather quick on replacing it with Byzantine Greek, while the West still kept writing in Latin for more than one millennium. Why? A: because on one side the Roman Catholic Church picked up the torch on the promoting of Latin, and in the other the pressure towards Greek was strong enough to displace Latin.
Now, let me ask you. How much power is associated with Singlish in a global scale? Practically nothing. And in India you have a rather similar situation to Eastern Rome, with Hindi instead of Greek. (Note I’m talking about linguae francae, not just native languages. I’m aware of the Dravidian languages up south, and that Indo-Aryan is not just Hindustani.)
Unlike Latin, I do not think any meaningfully strong community or institution will pick up the torch for English. I think its role will mostly evolve like French, once Napoleon got wrecked, going from an “you must speak it” to a “why don’t you learn something more useful?”. (Interesting to note French is making a comeback, mostly due to Africa.)
*steel man: instead of pretending the argument is less valid than it is (straw man), you pretend it’s more valid (steel man). And if it’s still toilet paper you can be pretty sure the non-reinforced version of the argument is even worse.
