> As an example, look at Dutch: the Netherlands is another country that got rich from trade, and was also a colonial power. But who outside of the Netherlands s

> As an example, look at Dutch: the Netherlands is another country that got rich from trade, and was also a colonial power. But who outside of the Netherlands speaks Dutch? That has more to do with the way the Dutch administered their colonies than anything else. Take Indonesia for example, they didn't push Dutch that much and instead let Bahasa Indonesia stay the lingua franca. While some people could speak Dutch and there were some schools, it's not been pushed on the population. See this answer on reddit discussing this https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/hg6sz3/how_come_dutch_isnt_spoken_in_indonesia_while/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/hg6sz3/how_c... On the other hand, French is also a frustrating language with complicated grammar yet a lot of people in Africa still speak the language. That's due to the different philosophy of French colonialism which was the so-called "mission civilisatrice" (as an example see Jules Ferry's speeches among many others). A part of that was enforcing the use of French within its colonies.