What if the USA decided to use another language as its *de facto* national language at it's founding? How would it affect the world?

Comments

• Unquote0270@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  British colonialism shaped the wide use of English throughout the world a lot more than anything to do with the US.

  source

  • ryathal@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    In the sense that the US is a product of British colonialism then yes. Global communication wasn’t anywhere near robust until the empire was in decline.

    source
  • nylo@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    i mean sure initially and the same is true of why French and Spanish are spoken in so many places on the planet.

    I don’t think it explains why it’s such a common backup language in so many parts of Europe today though. I think the majority of the internet being in English is probably the reason for that and I don’t think that can be chalked up to anything other than US influence

    source

    • froh42@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      English had that role even before the internet. Do you really belive we became fluent in English only in the 90s?

      source

      • -> View More Comments
• HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  If the USA was going to pick another language, it would be German.

  source

  • MeThisGuy@feddit.nl ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Gestapo is already in their daily vocabulary

    source

    • froh42@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      If they knew their vocabulary they’d knew that

      • ICE is a fucking train
      • ICE is always late
      • ICE has broken air conditioning
      • ICE arrives in the wrong order, today

      source
• AE5NE@lemmy.radio ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  “de facto” literally means that it wasn’t decided.

  source
• Atlusb@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  I think the USA had enough German influence that it could have been a major second language if things where different politically at that critical time.

  source
• nylo@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  i think so, mrdown had a good point about science and business but I think another big point that hasn’t been mentioned yet is the internet. a quick Google search (proper citation needed) showed a bunch of numbers all over 50% of the internet being in English.

  now I would be interested to hear positions arguing that’s not US influence… I can’t think of where they would place it but I’m interested to hear theories

  source
• sun_is_ra@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  If only the government “decided”. no one will care and Americans will continue using English as usual.

  If all Americans decided to speak Spanish. World would still continue to speak in English because currently all information in all fields are mostly in English.

  If all Americans decided to speak Spanish and translated everything into Spanish then probably world will start speaking Spanish.

  A real life example is when Romans conquered all Greek territories, all those nations continued for decades writing in Greek.

  I know for a fact that in Egypt all taxes and government related stuff remained in Greek even decades after Arab conquest.

  source
• rumschlumpel@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Sure, French was itself something of a lingua franca in centuries past, and Spanish is already a great candidate because it has, right now, more native speakers than English. I learned Spanish in school as a third language just because (we had to choose between Spanish, French and Latin) - didn’t stick, though, listening comprehension for Spanish is very hard and there wasn’t enough incentive for me.

  English’s hegemony as a lingua franca is to a very large degree because of the US, especially after the UK lost almost all of their colonies after WW2. That said, English would probably still be a minor lingua franca in northern Europe, because it’s a lot easier to learn than a romance language if your native language is germanic.

  source
• Lembot_0006@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Nothing much. Bad timing. USA is loosing its position as an engineering/scientific center. Hollywood is unimportant in the sense of language spread. English is the current lingua franca, not American language.

  source
• mrdown@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Mandarin

  source

  • DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Problem is that it:

    1. lacks the amount of colonization as British empire had
    2. Mandarin-media is so boring. They’d never get widespread like Hollywood stuff. I used to watch them as a kid, but then I just realized they’re repeating the same cliches too often… It’s basically just half anti-japan stuff and half set in imperial China, never anything exciting.

    source

    • mrdown@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Science and business are the biggest contribution to language adoption

      source
    • nylo@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      what about Wolf Warrior 2 tho

      source

      • -> View More Comments