Anaxagoras
Banned
French could become the dominant language of the world if the French win the Battle of the Plains of Abraham outside Quebec in 1759.
European language other than English becomes International language
- Thread starter Rex Romanum
- Start date
Valdemar II
Banned
Spanish are rarely used as lingua franca, yes there are many people whom speak the languages but it's primary native speakers, a international language are a language with a large portion of secondary speakers. French on the other hand have a much large portion of secondary speakers, and I would agree with you that it already are a uinternational language.
Considering that the official language of the Olympics is STILL French; and that several multinational bodies had French as the norm (especially until recently), I think that French could easily have kept its dominance in the international sphere if the world was more linguistically multipolar.
For instance metric is officially SI - Système International
The precursor to the ITU was the CCITT (Commité Consultatif International Téléphonique et Télégraphique...)
The global medical response organisation is MSF (Médicins sans Frontières), etc.
A world where e.g. German and Russian were almost as important as English could let French survive by inertia - the Germans and Russians would refuse to let English take over...
For instance metric is officially SI - Système International
The precursor to the ITU was the CCITT (Commité Consultatif International Téléphonique et Télégraphique...)
The global medical response organisation is MSF (Médicins sans Frontières), etc.
A world where e.g. German and Russian were almost as important as English could let French survive by inertia - the Germans and Russians would refuse to let English take over...
archaeogeek
Banned
Supposedly some people trace French's diminishing position as language of diplomacy basically on world war 1 - the french president agreed (or offered, I'm not quite sure) that treaty negotiations at Versailles would be in English, and with the Russian revolution the other great power to use french as a language of administration moved to russian only.
How?How about Русский язык?
Russia was never predominant on the world stage like that. Moreover, it uses a different alphabet to all the other major powers, which could be a problem.
English, French and Spanish, for instance, not only use the same alphabet, but share huge amounts of vocabulary (mostly from Latin), which means that it is 'easy' to learn one of the others. Russian is ... different. Sure, it's Indo-European, and you're not starting from scratch, but whereas after high school French or one course in college in German I could READ those languages (OK, so not horribly complex stuff, but still), with Russian, I was still translating after one class. Which is a huge difference.
archaeogeek
Banned
How about Русский язык?
You'd need the Russian government to stop using French before the 20th century in the first place
The Grin Without a Cat
Banned
1. Do as much landgrabbing as Britain did in the 18th and 19th centuries.
2. Install your native (European) language in the conquered territory.
3. Wait till' the respective colonies grow into stable countries with your language as their own.
4. ???
5. Profit as you now have a shitload of people speaking your language internationally.
No really, the only reason that English is the "international language" of Earth, is due to the primary language of the United States being English, as the United States is the most powerful nation in the world, economically and militarily, as well as the biggest producer of music and movies in the Western hemisphere. The fact that there is a whole "Anglosphere" community helps, so, the only real way to make French, Spanish, Portuguese or Dutch to be such an important language is to give France, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands and Germany a colonial Empire the size of England's, and make their native language the respective primary language of all colonies (unlike the Netherlands and Indonesia).
2. Install your native (European) language in the conquered territory.
3. Wait till' the respective colonies grow into stable countries with your language as their own.
4. ???
5. Profit as you now have a shitload of people speaking your language internationally.
No really, the only reason that English is the "international language" of Earth, is due to the primary language of the United States being English, as the United States is the most powerful nation in the world, economically and militarily, as well as the biggest producer of music and movies in the Western hemisphere. The fact that there is a whole "Anglosphere" community helps, so, the only real way to make French, Spanish, Portuguese or Dutch to be such an important language is to give France, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands and Germany a colonial Empire the size of England's, and make their native language the respective primary language of all colonies (unlike the Netherlands and Indonesia).
archaeogeek
Banned
What is Latin America (also most of the british empire is uninhabitable waste
) and French Africa (the subsaharan part that is)? And as has been pointed out, French still IS an international language.Solomaxwell6
Banned
What is Latin America (also most of the british empire is uninhabitable waste
To be fair, neither have the same sort of influence as English. English is definitely as popular as it is because of UK being the strongest nation in the world for most of the 19th century, and the US being the strongest nation in the world for most of the 20th century. If it was just a matter of numbers, Spanish would probably be the predominant language (Mandarin is too centralized to China). But it's not.
I think that what made English so spectacularly influential is because there was never any discrepancy between when it was "in power". The British Empire stepped off the world stage at the same time that the USA was stepping on, thus English-speaking institutions throughout the world remained popular. What you'd need is a powerful, worldwide influential French or Spanish nation.
In 1919, when the British Empire was at its greatest, the USA was already a superpower.
Your point that English was continuously in power is still correct though.
Well it all depends on one's definition of superpower and the height thereof.
I think that somebody hit the nail on the head earlier. Without the French Revolution, French would have never lost its status as the lingua franca throughout Europe.
So, now go a little earlier and have the root cause of the French Revolution removed; France's debt from the ARW, which ultimately stem from the 7 Year's War. Make France's losses less disastrous and chances are that French will remain an influential and widespread language in Europe and the Americas.
Rex Romanum
Banned
Well, then...
Spanish: superpower Mexico?
Portuguese: superpower Brazil?
French: superpower Congo?
Dutch: superpower Suriname?
German: superpower Namibia?
Italian: ???
New Amsterdam? That has nothing to do with it. The Dutch dominated part of the spice trade, and that was way bigger than the New World. Not to mention the banks in the Netherlands, and the Amsterdam stock exchange.
Here's a weird one. How about Esperanto? It's "European" in that an European invented it.
How could Zamenhof's original intent for his invention, that it would be used by everyone as their secondary language, come to be? Scientists correspond with each other in Esperanto much like they used to in Latin? The participants of a major diplomatic conference decide to negotiate in a "neutral" language spoken at the same level of fluency by them all?
How could Zamenhof's original intent for his invention, that it would be used by everyone as their secondary language, come to be? Scientists correspond with each other in Esperanto much like they used to in Latin? The participants of a major diplomatic conference decide to negotiate in a "neutral" language spoken at the same level of fluency by them all?
Well, then...
Spanish: superpower Mexico?
Portuguese: superpower Brazil?
French: superpower Congo?
Dutch: superpower Suriname?
German: superpower Namibia?
Italian: ???
The bolded ones are vaguely possible, if slight changes in the formations of those two countries or their ATL analogues are made.
It's not impossible for there to be a superpower Francophone state in France, but I'd put my money down on a French-derived southern Indian state or maybe Quebec/Louisiana. The Dutch simply need to retain control over the Indian Ocean Trade for longer (the EIC was a superpower in its own right). I don't see German or Italian taking off, however.
I agree with all this. Though I do thing that were the West India Company to dominate the fur trade too, Dutch as the language of finances could certainly be possible.
The Grin Without a Cat
Banned
When Zamenhof created Esperanto he intended it to be used as an international language, the thing is we don't need a new language that will recognized everywhere on Earth as the international language, because we already have one, English.
The Grin Without a Cat
Banned
In a certain way it already is.. Nah lol, but really. Eventhough more people obviously speak English and all, you'll always find an ambitious Dutchman somewhere high up in the industrial foodchain, that's where speaking Dutch comes in handy, as you'll have a good negotating advantage.
Not quite. He intended it to be an international secondary language. Everyone would still speak their mother tongue, but everyone could also converse in Esperanto.
When you remember that Zamenhof lived in eastern Europe where people often had to speak two, three, or more languages in order to get succeed in business, science, government, and other fields, you begin to understand why he came up with the idea of an universal secondary language.
The thing is we didn't have English as a universal language in 1888 when Zamenhof made his suggestions.
And, seeing as this in the pre-1900 forum, we're discussing a period in time before English grew to the overwhelming dominance it enjoys today so dismissing ideas because English already fits the bill is a gross conceptual error.