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I think you reversed cause and effect. English became the world's lingua franca not because of its inherent quality, but because the British Empire once conque
by yongjik 2y ago
I think you reversed cause and effect. English became the world's lingua franca not because of its inherent quality, but because the British Empire once conquered the world, and then the United States took up the baton.
Basically the same reason why Latin America speaks Spanish and Portuguese. It's not because the languages were "better" in some way, but because it was conquered by speakers of those languages.
And a side effect of being a global language is that you will have to get used to everybody from India to Australia to Kenya speak your language. English speakers are expected to meet widely different dialects even at the most formal business meetings.
- Retric 2y agoMost languages weren’t in the running. However, Spanish, French, Latin, or English could easily have become the international trade language. German was in the running for Scientific publishing etc yet somehow English won in multiple domains. And it doesn’t just win officially. I’ve seen groups without a common language default to English with people translating back and forth to other languages as needed even when more than one language was known to several members of the group. It’s not absolute, but there does seem to be an inherent advantage to English when translating across multiple languages.
- yongjik 2y agoThe "inherent advantage" of English is basically the same advantage of Facebook and Instagram: people use them because other people use them. When a Korean meets a Greek, chances are that neither knows each other's language but they both know English. So they converse in English.
- Retric 2y agoI’ve seen groups use English even when other languages are more well known in terms of number of people or levels of fluency. Broken English works better than broken French / German. Not sure about Spanish, but something is going on beyond English winning because it was already ahead.
- idontwantthis 2y agoEnglish is the lingua franca, because English is the only language adaptable enough that it can refer to itself with a Latin phrase that literally means “French”.
- lolinder 2y agoSorry, I have to chime in here again with more linguistic pedantry: "Lingua Franca" doesn't mean "French". The term referred to a trade language spoken throughout the Mediterranean [0], named for Western European traders (the Byzantines called all Western Europeans Franks). French later became one of many lingua francas, but that was after the term was already in common usage to refer to any language used as a bridge. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_Lingua_Franca https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_Lingua_Franca
- DemocracyFTW2 2y agoIt becomes more correct when you consider that the reason for 'Franks' being applied to all Western Europeans is that it was used as a name for themselves by a big part of that population—the people who went on to become the French.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago> English is the only language adaptable enough that it can refer to itself with a Latin phrase that literally means “French”. lolinder has already pointed out that this is untrue, but I should note that it's also logically impossible - the Latin phrase referring to French would be lingua Latina, the Latin tongue. If you interpret lingua Franca as Latin, you get "the Frankish tongue", which is a variety of Germanic.
- DemocracyFTW2 2y agoNever in the course of history has "the Latin phrase referring to French" been "lingua Latina". If anything "lingua rustica" or "lingua Romana", but that was before vulgar Latin—not Latin—had evolved into a separate language.