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How popular do you think English would be | ||
Tags: Lingua franca | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Rykketid Diglot Groupie Italy Joined 4833 days ago 88 posts - 146 votes  Speaks: Italian*, English Studies: French | Message 1 of 13 11 December 2012 at 4:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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if it wasn't today's lingua franca?
Very probably it would still be a popular language since it is spoken in many countries, but let's assume it never spread overseas, remaining only the language of the UK. In that case, how "fashionable" could it be? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4715 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 2 of 13 11 December 2012 at 4:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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Probably just as fashion as German.
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| zerrubabbel Senior Member United States Joined 4600 days ago 232 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 3 of 13 11 December 2012 at 4:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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well, Im not totally sure how other cultures view English, but I think part of its popularity is that its paraded around
as an easy and widely spoken language... and I think when people believe its an easy language, they probably get some sort of placebo affect from the hype... so to answer your question, I think it probably had to end up the way it is today, but if it didn't, it probably would still have a large niche in the world 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 13 11 December 2012 at 4:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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If the Armada of Philip II had conquered England in 1588 then North America might have been speaking Spanish, and then English would have had more or less the same impact on the world as German or Italian have today. And Rykketid would have posed his question in Spanish about the undisputed lingua franca Spanish.. Edited by Iversen on 12 December 2012 at 4:29pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Quique Diglot Senior Member Spain cronopios.net/Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4682 days ago 183 posts - 313 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: French, German | Message 5 of 13 11 December 2012 at 4:44pm | IP Logged | ||
How popular would Spanish be if Spain had not conquered Central America, half of South America and part of North America? How popular would Portuguese be if Portugal had not conquered Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, etc? How popular would French be if France had not conquered half of Africa and New France (Québec)? Probably they would still be important, but not much more popular than the languages of European countries that didn't colonize so many other countries (Danish, Dutch, German, Italian...) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5532 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 13 11 December 2012 at 5:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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I suppose it depends on how you look at the question. As several folks have already said, if it weren't for the colonies, English might be about as a popular as German: England would still be a major European economy without the colonies.
But if you try to take this scenario seriously, it really changes history. If it weren't for the US and Canada, then World War I and World War II would have been very different. Going further back, I'd guess that North America would wind up divided between the French and the Spanish. This also leaves the question of the British Navy and the Monroe Doctrine. The US announced the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, which told the European powers that newly-independent colonies of Spain were off-limits. But the US couldn't really enforce it in 1823 without the British Navy's sea power, according to my history classes. So it's not clear at all who would wind up controlling the natural resources of the Americas by 1900. So really there's no way to eliminate the English colonies without changing the last 300 or 400 years beyond recognition. You'd have an entirely different set of colonial powers, major economies, and 20th-century superpowers, so what would happen to the languages of the world is anybody's guess. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| limey75 Senior Member United Kingdom germanic.eu/ Joined 4399 days ago 119 posts - 182 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Norwegian, Old English | Message 7 of 13 11 December 2012 at 5:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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In my view English would be less popular than German, in such a case. It would probably be about as popular as Italian. One reason people might study it is because it is an interesting hybrid language, though it would be slightly less hybrid through not having had its overseas empire.
Plus island nations are often interesting (personally, I'm obsessed by island cultures and how linguistic and cultural features are developed and preserved in insular societies). Edited by limey75 on 11 December 2012 at 5:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4639 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 8 of 13 11 December 2012 at 5:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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This question reminds me of the book What if? by Robert Cowley, where historians try to imagine alternative outcomes of historical events. I don't think the question of languages was raised though.
Obviously English is today's lingua franca to a large extent because of the USA and its economic power and cultural influence over the last 50-60 years. However, if you go back to pre-world war Europe, English was in fact not so dominant. When my father was a kid in Norway back in the 30's more people learned German than English at school. And French was still the language of diplomacy par excellence. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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