Say like they picked French or Spanish to use instead
Because American Media has a lot of influence so I wonder what if English wasn’t chosen. Would there be people that would see French/Spanish as a desirable language to learn?
If the USA was going to pick another language, it would be German.
Gestapo is already in their daily vocabulary
If they knew their vocabulary they’d knew that
- ICE is a fucking train
- ICE is always late
- ICE has broken air conditioning
- ICE arrives in the wrong order, today
British colonialism shaped the wide use of English throughout the world a lot more than anything to do with the US.
In the sense that the US is a product of British colonialism then yes. Global communication wasn’t anywhere near robust until the empire was in decline.
i mean sure initially and the same is true of why French and Spanish are spoken in so many places on the planet.
I don’t think it explains why it’s such a common backup language in so many parts of Europe today though. I think the majority of the internet being in English is probably the reason for that and I don’t think that can be chalked up to anything other than US influence
English had that role even before the internet. Do you really belive we became fluent in English only in the 90s?
anyone under 30 I do :)
but on a serious note I would chalk that up to post-WWII US influence, do you think that British colonialism was a bigger influence? or that it predates WWII?
That’s hard to find out. When I was in school I was captivated by American movies and music, mostly all blockbuster movies came out of the us. I’m Gen X and as a teenager I had my TV tuned in to MTV a lot (when it wasn’t in use with the Commodore 64)
Before that - I’m from the southern part of Germany, so we had a lot of US influence after WW2, whereas other parts of Germany had French, British and Russian military here.
I suppose WW2 had a big impact in Europe, as English speaking troops came in and saved people from Nazi Germany. Interestingly that’s how it feels in some parts of Germany even (they saved us from the Nazis) - as absurd as it is, when you’re aware how much support the Nazis had in the population.
Nevertheless English was a big positive thing - and the answer probably is “both the UK and the US”. My dad was a huge Beatles fan as a teenager and fans want to understand the lyrics. All you need is love.
Also don’t forget Europe has so many languages - so when we talk to each other we use what the most of us know - English. I do believe that the “EU” with its more open borders also brings people to use more English.
Unfortunately I (unsuccessfully) was taught Latin in school as a third language , not French - so English is my only tool in Europe to communicate beyond my native language. It worked everywhere I visited. From Latin everything I remember is “Marcus hodie in colloseo est. Ubi est Cornelia?” (really. that was chapter 1 in my first latin book, and it’s all I remember)
In some countries there’s a age gap, with people below 40 or so are much more fluent in English, but AFAIK it’s mandatory as a second language across schools in a big part of Europe. Even in my Generation - I have a lot of friends whom I just share English as a common language with.
Ecce! In pictura est poella Romana.
bibbo ergo sum
Seeing as the first Nazi loss was by British and Norwegian hands during the war, and the main argument for most Scandic communists before it was more anti British than anti US, the British commonwealth probably still is the major driver by it being a major western world second language, starting before major US influence started 80 years ago.
First of all, they did not pick any language at founding. They refused to settle on one. And I don’t think they ever changed that (although I wouldn’t put it past the current administration to do something like that because 47 has the best words as we all know). English is de facto the language of the US like Bern is de facto the capital of Switzerland but it isn’t set in stone.
German was briefly seriously discussed. That would have been funny.
I think the influence of the British Empire has done more to make English the lingua franca. But I think it is conceivable that we would be conducting a lot more diplomacy in French or Spanish if they had won out. But there are still huge chunks of Africa and Oceania that speak English. And Hockeyland. And big business hubs like Singapore or Hong Kong - the language of trade would still be English.
“de facto” literally means that it wasn’t decided.
I think the USA had enough German influence that it could have been a major second language if things where different politically at that critical time.
i think so, mrdown had a good point about science and business but I think another big point that hasn’t been mentioned yet is the internet. a quick Google search (proper citation needed) showed a bunch of numbers all over 50% of the internet being in English.
now I would be interested to hear positions arguing that’s not US influence… I can’t think of where they would place it but I’m interested to hear theories
If only the government “decided”. no one will care and Americans will continue using English as usual.
If all Americans decided to speak Spanish. World would still continue to speak in English because currently all information in all fields are mostly in English.
If all Americans decided to speak Spanish and translated everything into Spanish then probably world will start speaking Spanish.
A real life example is when Romans conquered all Greek territories, all those nations continued for decades writing in Greek.
I know for a fact that in Egypt all taxes and government related stuff remained in Greek even decades after Arab conquest.
Sure, French was itself something of a lingua franca in centuries past (and still is to a degree), and Spanish is already a great candidate because it has, right now, more native speakers than English. I learned Spanish in school as a third language just because (we had to choose between Spanish, French and Latin) - didn’t stick, though, listening comprehension for Spanish is very hard and there wasn’t enough incentive for me.
English’s hegemony as a lingua franca is to a very large degree because of the US, especially after the UK lost almost all of their colonies after WW2. That said, English would probably still be a minor lingua franca in northern Europe, because it’s a lot easier to learn than a romance language if your native language is germanic.
Mandarin
Problem is that it:
- lacks the amount of colonization as British empire had
- Mandarin-media is so boring. They’d never get widespread like Hollywood stuff. I used to watch them as a kid, but then I just realized they’re repeating the same cliches too often… It’s basically just half anti-japan stuff and half set in imperial China, never anything exciting.
what about Wolf Warrior 2 tho
Lmao, skimmed the plot on wikipedia and it sound so wild.
Maybe I’ll look for a torrent.
Bizzare plots are kinda fun sometimes.
Like… it doesn’t sound like a “good” movie, per se, more like one of those “silly” movies imo, similar to “Olympus has fallen” or “Moonfall”, if you know what I mean. Sometimes these silly movies are kinda fun to watch, like ridiculous movie action is always funny.
yeah I heard it mentioned in passing in a video essay and looked it up to see it was the highest grossing domestic movie in China when it was released, definitely on my watchlist now
doesn’t sound like an arthouse masterpiece but fun action schlock I agree lol
Science and business are the biggest contribution to language adoption
Nothing much. Bad timing. USA is losing its position as an engineering/scientific center. Hollywood is unimportant in the sense of language spread. English is the current lingua franca, not American language.
