Rumor: Brotherhood of Steel in Fallout New Vegas

[Frater Perdurabo]

Curious detail: My English teacher back in high school used to say that I have an American accent. Too much Hollywood movies, I guess?

Rock on.

I was an English major in college. In my experience, American English tends to be more accessible and rolls off the tongue easier.

The British may have invented English, but we perfected it. I also find it highly amusing that many British people I've met can't pronounce most of the letters in the alphabet (like t's and r's) during normal speech.

I went to an international boarding school, with kids from all over the world (something like 52 different nationalities in the student body of 280). Even though there weren't that many Americans, most of us graduated with an American accent. However, ever since I went to university in London, I've changed my prose substantially. American English sure is easier to speak, however I find proper English far more of a sophisticated and rich language.

[Yonmanc]

Nuffin wrong wiv ow we talk, specially tup norf

[Retlaw83]

Frater, no offense, but the opinion of English that comes from a person who lives in France and enjoys French culture is absolutely worthless, given the centuries of oppression and attempts to destroy English as an independent Germanic language by the French.

[Frater Perdurabo]

I don't live in France (only did for one year), not a particular fan of their culture either. If anything, I could be an anglophile, but only to a minor degree.

[Retlaw83]

In that case, I disagree British English is more sophisticated. It's more formal, but my view is sophistication of language comes from ease of use.

To each his own, however. Any way you slice it, English today enjoys a popularity French could only dream about back when it was the neutral language.

[Kashluk]

Which is also quite silly, because English isn't 'logical' or really that easy in any sense. The words are written completely different than they are spoken (silent letters, kazillion different exceptions) and the grammar's full of contradictions. I've never learned French, so I can't compare, but there are plenty of languages (hey, remember Esperanto, anyone?) that would be more 'suitable' to be lingua franca.

[Yonmanc]

Which is also quite silly, because English isn't 'logical' or really that easy in any sense. The words are written completely different than they are spoken (silent letters, kazillion different exceptions) and the grammar's full of contradictions.

See, we took something simple like language, and made it exciting! This is the thanks we get!? Bah!

[Caleb]

If only we had kept german or latin grammar...case systems are so fucking easy to use.

[Stainless]

(hey, remember Esperanto, anyone?)

I remember how every book Harry Harrison wrote; everyone spoke a form of Esperanto. I don't think I ever read a single book where it wasn't mentioned. Then again; he was a pretty big pusher for the language.

[Ausir]

Hell, even Klingon would probably make a better lingua franca.

[Kashluk]

I belive that there might be more Klingon than Esperanto speakers to begin with.

[Ausir]

There are probably more speakers of Na'vi than Esperanto already.

[Frater Perdurabo]

Which is also quite silly, because English isn't 'logical' or really that easy in any sense. The words are written completely different than they are spoken (silent letters, kazillion different exceptions) and the grammar's full of contradictions. I've never learned French, so I can't compare, but there are plenty of languages (hey, remember Esperanto, anyone?) that would be more 'suitable' to be lingua franca.

Overall, English grammar is very simplistic, making it ideal for every other fucker to learn it. As a result of every other fucker having "learnt" English, the common everyday word use is very small, one can get by with a vocabulary of about 500 words. However, English has a wonderful literary heritage, so if one wants to learn the language in more depth the resources are there.

Compare it to declinations in the Finno-Ugric languages, which would be a total whore for anyone to learn.
Or the monotony of German vocabulary and their grammatical exceptions. And genders.
French requires a fairly thorough understanding to start off with, due to so many things having to be inferred becaues they are pronounced in similar fashions, needless to say genders.
Spanish is fairly easy to start off with, however advanced grammar can be quite difficult. Out of all the aforementioned languages, Spanish is probably the easiest though.
Italian: there are no common standards for Italian, grammar rules vary depending on what area of Italy you are from.
Other real alternatives would probably be Russian or Mandarin, but those use a different alphabet, leading to excessive burdens to ordinary use.

That's why I'd say that English is ideal. Personally, I like to say that I speak 5 languages fluently (Estonian, English, French, Spanish and German) and I've also taken numerous courses and private lessons in learning others (Italian, Latin, Russian, Japanese, Portugese). However, I'm glad I opted for a law degree instead of linguistics.
They are also a bitch to maintain, if you don't use one for a couple of years, you are prone to forget a lot and only active use will restore it to some kind of degree. And never forget that copious alcohol use will always improve your verbal skills.

[King of Creation]

There are probably more speakers of Na'vi than Esperanto already.

Klingon probably beats them all

[SenisterDenister]

[VasikkA]

[Kashluk]

this and that

Well, yeah, I agree -for the most part- with what you're saying. But I still must disagree with there being any better alternatives for English. During the 8 year long indoctrination I've come to accept Swedish as a useful language, despite all the youth rebellion. And that language is really quite simple, a lot easier to cope with than English in my opinion. The grammar is logical and easy for everyday speech, only the pronounciation can be a bugger some times - but then again, people around Scandinavia already speak (basically the very same language, Swedish) their languages in different ways, but they can still understand each other. Of course the historical background and more practical reasons matter more in which language 'overcomes' the rest, but I guess that if Sweden had somehow managed to hold onto its position as an Englightment-period great power, Sweden could be a worthwhile alternative. And that being said by a person with quite limited knowledge of all the world's languages. I bet there are some languages spoken, say in parts of India, that would be awesome 'lingua franca -material'.

I personally speak Finnish and English fluently, have modest skills in Swedish (Jag kan prata om arbetslöshet eller om folkmakts hot och möjligheter, men jag vet inga ord för djur, mat och andra olika 'small-talk' saker... Det är ganska komisk.) and a grasp of the basics in speaking German (Ich habe Deutsch doch für 6 Jahre studiert... Ich verstehe texten ganz gut, aber zu diskutieren ist sehr schwer.), but the funny part is that I actually know the least of grammar in Finnish. It's my 'mother tongue', so I never really bothered to check in the books what are the rules involved. Especially because they are so difficult. But so far Swedish has been easiest - I just lacked the motivation and the willingness to learn (since it's obligatory).

[Retlaw83]

English is ideal because it's so complicated. The extensive vocabulary and the fact you can play hard and fast with the rules of grammar makes it so virtually anyone is understandable, and those who have mastered it get their point across exactly.

I took some French in high school, and was once fluent in Afrikaanse and Northern Sotho. In all three of those languages, I constantly felt like I couldn't communicate my point exactly; not because it was a second language, but because of a combination of strict grammar and the fact that the vocabulary simply not existing for that language.

Nouns for modern things were by far the worst. It seems most languages don't put forth the effort to name things anymore and simply borrow or twist the English word.

[Kashluk]

A funny little detail: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yooper_dialect

Here's "Yooper" in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyYkkjs9rsc

[Thor Kaufman]

she's a pretty hot yooper