On Sun, 25 Jan 2009 11:46:48 -0800, Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:

>Stephen wrote:
>> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7844192.stm
>
>The funny thing is, when a bunch of bilingual Mandarin speakers get together 
>in America, they almost always speak mostly Mandarin, with only the 
>technical words coming out in English. So Mandarin still seems to be holding 
>out.

It is the same here, in the UK, with Cantonese but not with Urdu or Hindi. I
suspect that former colonial countries use English for technical discussions in
preference to their own language because modern technical innovations occurred
after English became the language used to speak to the rulers.
As an aside, a few years ago when I was working in Croatia. I overheard a
technical discussion in Croatian. I was able to follow, it by listening to the
technical words, enough to interrupt and correct some misconceptions. This
surprised my co=workers and myself as my knowledge of the language was limited
to asking for one or two beers or coffees.
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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