[throwaway344]

I'm curious why you think that Arabic is so predestined to be "the" language of the future. I'm saying that, as the number of people who speak English (840 million) is four times as many as the number who speak Arabic (221 million). That's not even including the lack of mutual intelligibility between different flavors of Arabic.

[justinmk]

Because s/he is extrapolating a curve based on the current birth rate.

> Arabic speakers are reproducing at a rate that virtually guarantees it.

That's ridiculous. In the 1970s, Chinese birth rate was ~5/woman [1]. It turns out that dynamic systems change with time.

Anyways, to get back on topic: more accessibility will only improve things.

[1] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy

[unhammer]

Some other HN comment I can't remember mentioned this: A logistic curve looks a lot like an exponential curve if you can only see the "start" of it ;-)

[GFK_of_xmaspast]

"They're outbreeding us!" has been a recurring fear among first world whites for a long time now, c.f. all that "Club of Rome" stuff from the 70s.

[zmguy]

I don't think it is something to fear if it is true. It's just a trend that is talked about. I don't personally care what demographics make up the future population.