Schoolwork, help a hobbit out.

[Bilbo]

Thanks for the help guys but I know the major reasons, I just need details. Can't really write a report where it just says "Oh well they took over one quarter of the world, that's why, bitch."

[GoldenPlums]

You can't really answer with "British Empire". In the time of european imperialism (15th-17th centuries) most european countries had people sailing around the world trying to gain power and get rich. The spanish and portugeuse were the first to go off colonising (I don't really know what happended to them). Later the brits, french, dutch, germans and others all went off to build their empires some more successfully than others. So there was competition over who controlled the strategic and profitable places ending up with France and Britain dominating. The french empire was comparable to the british empire in size and coverage, although we probably had more useful places, like the indian subcontinent. As for north america, there were brits, french, germans, dutch and probably others all trying to colonise it.

The success of any of these empires depended a lot on what was happening back home in europe, where most countries were trying to kick the shit out of each other much of the time. The final show down between the british and french empires and much of the rest of europe was "the seven years war" (1756-1763) which took place in europe, north america colonies, india colonies and elsewhere (i.e. the first proper world war). The British side came out better and so started to dominate in north america. Had things gone slightly differently I guess the US could have ended up being french speaking. And long before this time, when the english and french royalty used to marry each other, the English themselves could have ended up french speaking so you'd have a french speaking British empire.

The power of the modern USA is certainly behind the more recent spread of English but they had to get a language from somewhere. If the US had ended up speaking french I doubt that french would be as dominant as english is today. And if that had happened not many dutch kids would be learning english, if you see what I mean.

And if you go back far enough, English isn't really English, it's a form of German so we're all fucked anyway.

EDIT: I guess after the american revolution there was also an opportunity for the US to decide on their dominant language.

[Mr. Peanuts]

Theanks, I'll use that for my history essay too :up:

[Galleleo]

Chinese is the "biggest" language, but thats mainly because they have over 2 billion people living in China, and next to that all the Chinese people over the whole world.

It makes you wonder, if we (netherlands) would never have traded New Amsterdam (New York) for Indonesia, would dutch be the world language? Would New Amsterdam with the capitol of drugs? Would we have moron's like Bush? Its quite intriuging (or however you spell that).

[Nickname]

Alright, I have an assignment that is due Wednesday and it's about why English is as big as it is today. If you could give me some facts or point me out to a couple of helpful sites I'd be pretty grateful, because alas my google skills have not been of much use today and I have gotten a headache from all the searching. Thank you in advance my gallant knight.

- With great anticipation and not completely dry pants, Bilbo.

English was formed when the Normans, Anglos and Saxons invaded England in 1066. Until that point in time Brits spoke French (the mixing of the languages brought abotu English)

Use that

[Verthanthi]

Chinese is the "biggest" language, but thats mainly because they have over 2 billion people living in China, and next to that all the Chinese people over the whole world.

It makes you wonder, if we (netherlands) would never have traded New Amsterdam (New York) for Indonesia, would dutch be the world language? Would New Amsterdam with the capitol of drugs? Would we have moron's like Bush? Its quite intriuging (or however you spell that).

Whoa, you learn way different history than I did. We learned you lost it in a battle.

[Awesome]

just send troll king some money and get him to write it for you

[Ilya]

question:

would you eat an aborted baby (after being cooked, of course) for $750,000

serious answers only please

[Evasive]

Just let your imagination roll Bilbo, I'm sure you'll get an A+ or something

remember, this is bilbo here

[Vykromond]

When the late-medieval powers all went on colonisation sprees, Spain was initially the most successful country in terms of expansion. But after the rout of the Spanish Armada, the baton was passed to Britain as the dominant, mostly unilateral world power ("the multilateral world" that many cite as existing before America's rise to world prominence is a misinterpreted statement; the world was absolutely unilateral under Britain, though the other European powers such as France posed a threat, obviously). The British Empire was as impressive as, and in many ways more impressive than, the Roman Empire that was its close historical and psychological compatriot (Pax Brittania, ffs)- hell, "the sun never set on [it]."

Britain followed an extreme policy of cultural export in its colonies. Just look at the amount of English-speaking density still in India even though it has been significantly independent of British influence for a long while. Like other successful empires, the British succeeded through cultural and not just economic assimilation (I mean, something isn't even really an "empire" if it merely uses its colonies for economic benefit; that's why you don't hear it being called 'The French Empire' that often, since France had a much more hands-off policy except in cases of dissent or revolution). Customs, goods, habits, other social systems such as education, and the lingua franca (English, which is what we're dealing with here) were all popular exports, though different colonies decided to accept or reject whichever cultural exports to whatever extent they decided to resist them. There were also trade considerations: generally the more powerful party in a trade deal is the one that sets the rules, and Britain was the most powerful "party" in the world and with its naval armada the only one able to conduct really massive, world-scale trade operations (with comparatively little risk of piracy to independent organisations or other countries). English was the language where the money was. All merchants became versed in it, and we're dealing here with a time period in which the merchant is extremely important, more important in many scenarios than the soldier. Class-wise, mercantile habits would be imitated to some extent, and mercantilism was an increasingly English-speaking universe.

(The long and short of this is that TK's answer was correct.)

The American Revolution, though it created a nation independent of Britain that would later dominate the world and create its own "empire" of a sort, preserved an inordinate amount of British cultural foibles, since it was a nation composed of European, often English-speaking colonists and their descendants. The Native Americans, obviously, were disregarded or beaten out of the way. The USA would follow a policy of isolationism for a good long while (the War of 1812 a notable exception, etc. etc. etc.), but eventually it too would spread out, and I'll get to that in a minute.

[An aside: Jeansi's statement about English "not being the biggest language" is a highly colourful, oft-repeated fallacy. Mandarin is significantly more "popular" in terms of speaker numbers, yes, but just look at geographic spread- not even all of China speaks Mandarin! When we say English is the "most popular" language we are referring to geographic, financial, social, and cultural impact, in which it outstrips its greatest rival- French, which remains the official language of the UN in an amusing high-end snub- by a country mile.]

Before I talk about "the America effect," I just wanted to point out something interesting that was also alluded to in this thread. English is a fairly easy language to adopt among a gaggle of European civilisations because it is, more or less, a mongrel tongue. English is an unholy mixture of the heavily Germanic Anglo-Saxon dialect spoken before the arrival of William the Conqueror on the shores of England in 1066 and the early-Romantic French that he brought with him during colonisation. The nature of this mixture is still very readily apparent in modern English and American, which bounce from recognisable Romantic grammar structure and mellifluous word sound to more rough-hewn Germanic descendant words. We have, however, adopted the grammar of the Romantic tongues to a great extent. Thus, English is very "transferable" (taking international bias out of account here) to speakers of the various Romance languages such as French, Spanish, and Portuguese: though it may not be particularly easy to learn (in large part due to the idiosyncrasies that arise from melding German and French ), it's not the extreme departure that learning Farsi or something would be. As a result, colonies that changed hands (in cultural if not political influence) between the other European powers and England during its continuous ascent up until the early 20th century didn't have a particularly difficult time making the language switch, which was a necessary process for the reasons I discussed earlier.

I've lost track of where I was, lemme scroll up.

America- this is pretty obvious. America's expansion of the English language is the second such expansion, after British colonialism, but here it isn't a matter of "colonies" so much as sheer financial and political influence. The lingua franca of money and power is de facto, and quickly becoming de jure, English. It's an update of the whole mercantile effect we saw in England, but on an even more pronounced scale. English is taking over through absorption.

I hope that helps.

EDIT: Removed a misleading, pointless statement that led to a pointless misunderstanding.

[GoldenPlums]

Did you read my post? Try again.

[Vykromond]

I read your post.

[GoldenPlums]

And I read your's, which is pretty much spot-on, I'm just not sure what your point is?

[PaulOakenfold]

Whoa, you learn way different history than I did. We learned you lost it in a battle.

He also learned that the United States didn't help in World War I. The winners write the history everywhere but Holland. Also remember folks, Holland was a key defense in the second world war as it preoccupied Germany *snicker snicker* (tell that to Anne Frank).

[Verthanthi]

I dunno, I learned some pretty tainted stuff in my early levels of history, I figured maybe we made that shit up, too.