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> what would be the alternative? I'm pretty sure that before English become what it is nowadays - a tool that helps bridging the communication, it was French t
by pndy 5y ago
> what would be the alternative?
I'm pretty sure that before English become what it is nowadays - a tool that helps bridging the communication, it was French that people were using and way earlier, it was Latin. Russian language was the one used in USSR on a daily basis (even taught in schools as mandatory subject of Warsaw Pact countries back then) and still is being recognized in post-soviet countries as a language that you can communicate in. It's still being used in international organizations.
The dominance of the particular language or languages doesn't come out of nowhere - it is indeed tied to geopolitical actions of the countries and their people.
- bradknowles 5y agoBefore English became more common, yes — French was the main “Lingua Franca” in the western world. There have been attempts to create an alternative language that would not heavily favor or disfavor any speakers of any natural human language, but they haven’t gotten a lot of traction. Look up “Esperanto”. Prior to French, I think it probably was Latin. But that’s still the western world. But in the Eastern world? I don’t know what the primary language was before Mandarin, which itself was created only relatively recently because the ruling party didn’t like people using Cantonese and they wanted one unified language that they could force on everyone in the country.