AHC: English Not Global Lingua Franca

As it stands out, anyone in the world who wishes to have social status must learn English, and any two people from opposite sides of the world will most likely be communicating in English.

With a POD no earlier than 1900, create conditions so that today the lingua franca for global commerce and education is not English, or there are several regional lingua franca and no globally accepted language.

Bonus: The Anglosphere continues to be wanked as it is OTL.
 
The US goes Red in the 30s à la Jello_Bafia's scenario, so, regardless of the actual outcome of any WWII in any such a scenario, English never becomes the de-facto universal language as the 'free world' is either led by Britain & France or by Germany.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
English is the lingua franca today mostly because of the British Empire. To prevent it, you'd need to prevent the rise of the British Empire, which would require a POD before 1900.
 

Devvy

Donor
You could perhaps have English and French as the 2 dominant languages world wide if more French friendly events happen in the 20th century? French would be the dominant language in west Africa, Quebec, maybe Indochina if it gets handled better, Madagascar...and France. Or maybe Spanish instead although I think that's heavily isolated to South America. And Spain.

Getting rid of English is near on impossible though.
 
English is the lingua franca today mostly because of the British Empire. To prevent it, you'd need to prevent the rise of the British Empire, which would require a POD before 1900.

Is it? Cause at the height of the British Empire, around 1900, in South America at least, the international language was French. That was the language of diplomacy, and the language people who studied a second language learned. This changed only around 1930, when the british possition was weaker*.


* For example, my grandmother learned English at school, but her elder sister learned french. She was borned in 1924.
 
English is the lingua franca today mostly because of the British Empire. To prevent it, you'd need to prevent the rise of the British Empire, which would require a POD before 1900.

Or an Axis victory in WW2....or a victorious USSR in WW3 (I REALLY need to update my TL soon...sorry to any readers who might read this :S ). Both scenarios would at least mean that English wouldn't in the long run continue to be lingua franca, even if it was before.
 

mowque

Banned
After 1900....Tricky since by now the USA, Oz, India, Canada and of course the UK are all firmly established. Maybe a more peaceful Germany which manages to dominate air traffic, business and technology ( the *Internet?) could sufficiently challenge it? Still, too geographically limited.

Uber-USSR? Still, Russian can't penetrate into South America and Africa very well.

Spanish somehow?
 
English is the lingua franca today mostly because of the British Empire. To prevent it, you'd need to prevent the rise of the British Empire, which would require a POD before 1900.
It wasn't just the British Empire, but also the rise of the US as a superpower. Having two successive English-speaking superpowers is what led to English becoming the lingua franca. Have the US not become the superpower that it did and English becomes akin to French in OTL; a regional lingua franca, but not the world standard.
 
I could see a scenario where different languages dominates different fields. Maybe the US stays firmly isolationist (and there is no US involvement in a general European war), so with so much competition, French maintains its role as the language of diplomacy by default. Imerial Germany never falls, and keeps its lead in hard science research. Anyone who wants to read scientific journals (or a good share of new patent applications) has to read German. English would still develop as the global language of commerce, but that alone may not be enough to have English become the global language of air traffic control, for example.

Several languages could become regional linga francas, like Classical Arabic in OTL. So, if an Armenian wants to talk to a Kazak, they will both speak Russian. If a Mongolian wants to speak to a Taiwanese, they will both speak Japanese, etc.
 
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