4 ms·
Too much pop culture outside of the US is produced in English even though it's consumed mostly by non-english speaking markets. Swedish music, for example. And
by pimmen 9y ago
Too much pop culture outside of the US is produced in English even though it's consumed mostly by non-english speaking markets. Swedish music, for example.
And lets not forget that software engineering's lingua franca is still English, regardless of where the finished product will be consumed.
China might supplant the US as the consumer market but it will take a long time for the rest of the world to adapt to its language. Japanese, German and Russian doesn't even hold a candle to English dominance during the 20th century even though the German and Japanese economy were going very strong and the Soviet Union had a very powerful presence. Even in Finland English edged out Russian.
- hsivonen 9y agoHow you mean "even in Finland" and "edged out"? Finland resisted Russification when under Russian rule and was more on the Swedish and German language orbit before English took over after WWII.
- pimmen 9y agoBecause after WWII Finland was very influenced by the Soviet Union. Finland tried to avoid enacting or supporting policies that opposed the Soviet Union during the cold war, especially during the first half when the USSR was Finland's largest market. There's even a word for it, "Finlandization", which means not upsetting the super power right next door even though you secretly really don't like it. But since Finland wanted to have access to the global, capitalist market English was the way forward. I don't think national pride made them break away from the Soviet sphere of influence it was money, and English is still the language of global business. Until the opportunity cost of learning some other language than English for your field is too big countries will most likely stick with English.