Satus--it means 'the beginning' in Latin, but how many people would know that?

Once the preeminent language of the world, Latin not only fell off the top spot but went out of use altogether. Spread out across the Roman Empire it developed into the modern Romance languages of today, including French, Spanish, and Italian.

Not so many years ago observers were predicting that English would become the global language, and some still do, but with the rise of China could its dominance be challenged by Mandarin, and could it even go the way of Latin?

English is the most widely spoken language in the world. It is the official language of more countries than any other with speakers hailing from all around the globe including the U.S., Australia, England, Zimbabwe, most of the Caribbean, South Africa and Canada. It is also the most widely spoken second language on the planet.

One look at the classifieds of any ex-pat magazine confirms the popularity of English as a second language. There are likely to be columns of advertisements either from teachers offering lessons or from students looking for a language partner.

The English language has arguably become a common language for people around the world to communicate in, as well as the language of business, the most heavily used language of the Internet, and in science and literature.

But while English is still firmly in place as the 'world language' it is not the most heavily spoken. That place goes to Mandarin, which with more than a billion native speakers roughly doubles the number of English speakers according to some statistics.

China is expanding rapidly both economically and socially, which is giving the Chinese language greater clout around the world. With so many native speakers, and so much interest in China, could it become the world's dominant language?

Although Mandarin may not yet have toppled English, it is already forging its own strong foothold as a second language. While the most studied languages in Britain have traditionally been French, German and Spanish, Mandarin is on a rapid rise. In fact, according to the British Council in Beijing, it is set to become the second most popular language taught in UK schools, and is already studied by more children than German or Russian. French and Russian currently remain more popular but if the rise of Mandarin classes continues it will overtake Spanish in three years. Currently an estimated 100 schools in the UK teach Mandarin, with around 2,060 candidates at A-level, the qualification taken aged 18.

In the U.S. too Mandarin is becoming increasingly popular. The number of students taking Mandarin nationwide remains very small at around 24,000, compared with around 3 million who study Spanish, the most popular language in U.S. schools.

But Mandarin programs have been launched in a number of U.S. city schools including Houston, Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia.

When the U.S. College Board's World Language Initiative asked high schools across the country whether they would consider adding advanced placement courses in Italian, Russian, Japanese and Chinese, the response came out heavily weighted towards Mandarin. Fifty schools said they would offer Russian, 175 Japanese, 240 Italian and 2,400 Chinese.

English is the international lingua franca of business and this position has been strengthened by its place as preeminent language of the Internet, where an increasing amount of modern business is conducted.

However, this position too may be challenged in the coming years as millions more Chinese begin to go online.

When the Elon University School of Communications and Pew Internet and American Life project asked internet stakeholders whether by 2020 the Internet could have leveled the world into one political, social and economic space with English so indispensable for communication that it displaces some other languages, it received mixed responses.

The majority of respondents, 57 percent, said they believed this scenario would not come to pass, while 42 percent said it probably would, and 1 percent failed to respond.

While the survey question itself suggested that English would continue to dominate world languages, a number of responses put Mandarin in the picture.

Alejandro Pisanty, Vice Chairman of the board for the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers and member of United Nations' Working Group for Internet Governance, replied, "I both agree and disagree. English will be the lingua franca and in some communities, more functional than local, displace other languages. But the overwhelming amount of communications over the networks will occur in Chinese."

Glenn Ricart, Executive Director of the Price Waterhouse Coopers Advanced Research and a member of the board of trustees of the Internet Society, said that the "thirst for knowledge leads one invariably into Chinese and English."

Howard Rheingold, an Internet sociologist and author, commented, "Sure, English will displace some languages. But as the century advances, Chinese becomes more dominant, strictly because of demographic drivers."

And Robert Shaw, Internet strategy and policy advisor for the International Telecommunication Union, said, "If any language is to ultimately dominate, it's likely to be Chinese where most of the future growth of the Internet will take place. English-speaking countries have a diminishing share of the presence on the Internet."

According to Nina Gorobina, Chief Representative of Russian bank Joint-Stock Commercial Bank Promsvyazbank in Beijing, Chinese is already developing as the business language of Asia, ahead of English.

"In much of Asia Chinese is the international language and this will probably expand," she said.

The growth of large Chinese communities abroad is also helping to drive the international use of Mandarin, she added. "In many other countries, including Australia and Canada, there are large Chinese communities. In Vancouver for example, 40 percent of the population is of Chinese origin. Chinese is an important language in these countries. The influence of Chinese is growing around the world."

Although the influence of Mandarin is expanding rapidly, so is the spread of English, and with its significant head-start, and relative ease of use and learning compared to Chinese, it is difficult to imagine it being replaced.

Jason Kelly, an advanced student of Mandarin living in Beijing, said that having witnessed the rise of Mandarin, while also experiencing the trials of learning to speak, read and write it, he could not see it replacing English globally, although it would become dominant in Asia.

"English has the advantage that it has already spread. The market for English lessons is a whole big institution. It is difficult for Chinese to make inroads into that and it would take a long time," according to Kelly.

However, he said he had seen Mandarin class enrolment at Yale University in the U.S. quadruple and had heard that the language was experiencing a similar surge in other American universities.

In Beijing too there is evidence of a mushrooming Chinese language industry, he added.

"In Wudaokou there are so many foreigners studying Chinese and it is only since 1978 and China's opening up that this huge Chinese language industry has sprouted," he said.

"I would be really surprised so see Chinese replace English as the global language of business and education, but in Asia it will dominate, I can see it growing in business exponentially."

In academics, however, Mandarin faces a funding barrier, according to Kelly.

"A lot of money for research and development is still in the West, so because of that a lot of Chinese people studying science, philosophy, etcetera are speaking English, so there is less need for people outside China to speak Chinese," he said.

According to Elizabeth Aab, an American who studied Mandarin in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, and is now seeking work in the alternative energy field in Beijing, the grip of English is too tight to be broken.

"American songs and movies dominate the international media; after all, of all the things that America is best at, marketing and advertising lead the pack," she said. "We have managed to sell our culture, image, and yes, language around the world, and not the least to China.

"America's business with China is and will continue to be amazingly important. But more than that, English already is the language that is the common denominator between all countries that don't share another language. For instance, I was at a conference last year where five ambassadors to China from non-English speaking nations participated, and watched all of them put in their earpieces to hear the simultaneous translation of the Chinese speakers into English."

While the English language's head-start over Mandarin will help it to remain dominant, the Chinese people's head-start in learning English is another factor, according to Aab.

"Chinese students have a deserved reputation for diligently studying, and the system for learning languages is already built in here," she said.

"In America, for instance, there is extremely little Chinese language education. What's the point, one might think, if all businessmen and professionals in Chinese speak English?"

Indeed, "when China cooperates with other regions it does so in English," according to Gorobina.

The pervading view is that while Mandarin may challenge English it will not overtake it as an international language. Firstly English has a strong foothold in that position, one that would be difficult to dislodge. The U.S. is still the world's most dominant country and is English speaking.

There is also the difficulty for foreigners of learning to speak, read and write Chinese, which comes with a completely different set of characters as well as speaking tones.

According to Amos Davidowitz, director of education, training and special programs for Institute of World Affairs, Association for Progressive Education, responding to the Elon University School of Communications and Pew Internet and American Life project, "Predictions of Chinese taking over are not serious, the cultural and cognitive differences entailed in learning Chinese will not allow most of western society to be able to master it."

But learning Chinese is becoming increasingly necessary for businesspeople and popular as a second language even with non-business people.

"There is a tendency now for non-Chinese countries to have more and more specialists who speak Chinese," said Gorobina.

There is another possibility that some observers have muted--the development of Chenglish. Far-fetched as it might sound, English has long been a developing language with many words borrowed from other nations--including kowtow and typhoon from Mandarin--and it is conceivable that if China's economic and social strength continues to grow the two dominant languages could become intertwined to some extent.

For now it looks like English remains the lingua franca, with Mandarin on the rise to take the number two spot, but then Spanish is also widely spoken and French has its moments…so who knows for certain how we will be speaking in a generation or two?

Terminus, jié shù, la fin, el final, the end.