Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Before around 1940. Europe had two linguae francae -- English and French; those two nations also wielded most of the power in that portion of the world under colonial rule.
In addition, since the replacement of Feudalism with the concept of the nation-state and expansion to the New World, one nation has usually dominated. Spain was first, but lost that position with the defeat of the Spanish Armada. This created a power-vacuum, which the French filled for about a century. The French then gradually lost ground to the English -- possibly due to the weight and stridency of the French aristocracy.
Thanks for the comment, I appreciate it. I can tell European languages seem to switch in prestige deepening on who is in power.
Oh if we are talking about THOSE times, then FRENCH was the lingua franca in Europe - no doubt.
It was the language of diplomats, "higher circles," international relations and so on.
In Russia of Tolstoy times in particular (and Napoleon invasion) it was even more bizarre.
In "War and Peace" book there is an episode, where the Russian nobility decides to boycott the French, and that meant boycotting French language as well.
So they try to boycott it, and then they have problem communicating with each other in Russian, because they were all raised by the French governess, being taught to speak French from their childhood, and hence the result.
Then on March 30–31, 1814, Tsar Alexander I of Russia led the Coalition Armies in to Paris, ended the War of the Sixth Coalition, and liberated Europe from Napoleon I. They all spoke a smattering of Austrian, Prussian, Russian, and of course French; perhaps some English, Portuguese, Swedish, Spanish too.
When the Russian left, the French picked up some Russian words, including "bistra", ....
Too bad no monument in Paris was erected for Tsar Alexander I, but there was one in Paris named after his grand nephew, Tsar Alexandre III.
Then on March 30–31, 1814, Tsar Alexander I of Russia led the Coalition Armies in to Paris, ended the War of the Sixth Coalition, and liberated Europe from Napoleon I. They all spoke a smattering of Austrian, Prussian, Russian, and of course French; perhaps some English, Portuguese, Swedish, Spanish too.
When the Russian left, the French picked up some Russian words, including "bistra", ....
Too bad no monument in Paris was erected for Tsar Alexander I, but there was one in Paris named after his grand nephew, Tsar Alexandre III.
You know, I hate to bring seemingly irrelevant subject here, but under the current circumstances Russian government has noted that "US policies ( of building the anti-Russian coalition via the conglomeration of Poland/Ukraine/Belorussia/Baltic countries,) is an attempt to cut Russia off from the "Old Europe," with which modern Russian state (starting from Peter the Great times) was connected by the umbilical cord.
And in this respect Russia is far more European than Ukrainian taliban ever will be.
You can be in Spain and then drive to France and its a different language. While there are similarities its still not as mutually intelligible as say Spanish with Portuguese. If you continue driving and reach Germany its now a completely different language.
People didn’t travel much pre-WWII. Back then, educated people generally spoke French.
English was spread around the globe by the British Empire, 1/4 of the world's population, if anybody can't see the relation to that and English being spread around the world can't be thinking very hard!
Long story short Latin was the lingua franca for centuries, then Latin in most of Western/Southern Europe and Greek in South Eastern Europe. The north of Europe like most German lands, Scandinavia, Baltics, Poland was undevelopped and barbarian in those days. After that came French, German and English.
Nowadays the lingua franca is the barbarian language I am writing in.
Hopefully it will change and we can go back to something "classy"
Feel free to b*gger off to some other forum, perhaps one in Greek or something (if you can find one)?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
