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English wasn't the lingua franca until the 70s and actually its spread was rather low anyway until the complete Russian demise and the full expansion of the Internet.
During the "expansion of the British Empire" the language of diplomacy, trade and culture internationally was French.
The only reasonable stats are to look at (a) non-mother tongue language learning in general, (b) unforced non-mother tongue language learning without colonization, and (c) the language of choice between unassociated third parties.
A. The combination of the British colonization of large countries and American commercialism together with Anglo-American style capitalism and trade meant sheer numbers of English speakers dwarfed the number of French speakers going back well into the 19th century. Whilst true that French was seen as the language of culture, its numbers probably peaked in the late 19th century.
The period following the latter half of the 19th century and including thr two world wars and dismantling of the French colonialism has led to clear decline in the influence of French, certainly well before the 1970s.
In contrast, Americas growing might and Anglo-American style capitalism and trade has been the inverse of the French experience, most sharply after ww2, again well before the 1970s.
B. There has been no omnipotent force requiring the speaking of English, it just makes economic sense to do so. If one goes to Vietnam today, a country colonized by the French (colonized, lorded over as "protector", etc.), all young people speak English. The transformation was incredible and incredibly fast. English was the second language of choice for years well before the 1970s in much of Latin America, not because of its beauty or love but because it made practical sense. Those numbers dwarf the demand for French among the elites.
Obviously, behind the Iron Curtain, Russian was the language of the occupying forces. Once that compulsion was lifted, English as a second language has surged. But that phenomenon refers only to Eastern Europe.
C. Finally, use of a common language among unassociated third parties is really about the economics of that conversation. For elites and government, I am sure French hung on much longer than one might have expected given the waning influence of France. However, for the masses, the dominant spread of English has been steadily increasing, with the occasional jump up due to end of WW2, the Cold War, the internet, etc.
A cute little bird once told everybody that you've never left Colombia and all the European and African expat-life you've experienced is nothing more than a big fat fantasy.
The president of Uraguay said it himself, Americans will have to learn Spanish in the future to further their community and people should stop smoking so much in the United States.
Spanish is only important in the Western Hemisphere and has little relevance outside of it. Furthermore, none of the Spanish speaking countries have enough pull to get people outside of the region to learn the language en masse really.
If your interests are in Africa and the Middle East, Arabic, French and English are most useful.
If East Asia, English, Chinese, Korean, Japanese or Malay
If South Asia, English and either Hindi/Urdu or Tamil
In my opinion German and French are tied as "2nd language of the world" right now. Spanish has potential to reach this position, but I wanna write about something that has been mentioned only once here:
In South America(not Latin America!), although almost all countries speak Spanish, the most important language is currently Portuguese(which is only spoken in Brazil). It's much more important for someone in the Spanish-speaking countries to learn Portuguese than for a Brazilian to learn Spanish.
Speaking about Latin America now: Mexico has a big influence too, but only in Central America. Its influence may get bigger but who knows how big... Since Brazil is the biggest economy and population of Latin America, Portuguese is possibly surpassing Spanish soon, the same way it can possibly never happen. We gotta wait to see where it goes... hehe
In my opinion German and French are tied as "2nd language of the world" right now. Spanish has potential to reach this position, but I wanna write about something that has been mentioned only once here:
In South America(not Latin America!), although almost all countries speak Spanish, the most important language is currently Portuguese(which is only spoken in Brazil). It's much more important for someone in the Spanish-speaking countries to learn Portuguese than for a Brazilian to learn Spanish.
Speaking about Latin America now: Mexico has a big influence too, but only in Central America. Its influence may get bigger but who knows how big... Since Brazil is the biggest economy and population of Latin America, Portuguese is possibly surpassing Spanish soon, the same way it can possibly never happen. We gotta wait to see where it goes... hehe
Actually, it is much more important for Spanish speaking South Americans to learn English.
Brazil does not have enough economic clout yet in other South American countries for Portuguese to be important enough to learn. Brazil needs to clean up its mass corruption, cut down its protectionist economy and invest more in education before it can even focus on expanding anyways. It really cannot claim a strong economic presence in SA or LA. China has a stronger presence and influence.
Actually, there is more attention in Latin America on learning Chinese. Flights to Asia are increasing too. I see more of a growing Korean economic presence in LA than a Brazilian one.
Culturally, Brazil has been growing in popularity and importance, but in things such as sports, modeling, beauty products. That is not enough.
Last edited by rosa surf; 05-24-2015 at 04:07 PM..
I agree, but the discussion here is about Spanish and Portuguese is a bit ahead of Spanish in South America, in my opinion
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