AHC: Make French the Lingua Franca of the world

Deleted member 97083

I disagree about your assumption that the largest economy will by default be the lingua franca. Lingua franca of the Persian Empire wasn't an Iranian language, it was Aramaic (at that point Persia and majority of the world are pretty much the same thing, even China has never had as large of a percentage of the world's people or GDP as the Persians did at their heyday).

Only way to prove it is wait 100 years and see if Chinese ever becomes a lingua franca; im betting no. Resume this convo in 100 years?
The Achaemenid Empire used Aramaic because Mesopotamia was their most populous region--their "largest economy" if you will, strongest in trade and tribute--and Cyrus modeled the empire after a typical Mesopotamian empire, absorbing existing Babylonian structures.

The Aramaic language was first adopted by the Assyrian Empire due to its demographic strength; originally the language of peasants and nomads conquered and enslaved by the Assyrians, it had no prestige at all, and no religious significance, when it was first used as an administrative language.
 
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I disagree about your assumption that the largest economy will by default be the lingua franca. Lingua franca of the Persian Empire wasn't an Iranian language, it was Aramaic (at that point Persia and majority of the world are pretty much the same thing, even China has never had as large of a percentage of the world's people or GDP as the Persians did at their heyday).

Only way to prove it is wait 100 years and see if Chinese ever becomes a lingua franca; im betting no. Resume this convo in 100 years?

I think the rule holds in general but there are exceptions. Chinese will be one. It will not be a lingua franca, for two main reasons: first, English is becoming entrenched as the standard lingua franca, and there won't be a good reason to drop it; and second, because its writing system is just too much of a pain for non-native speakers to learn in large enough numbers. English can be challenging with its strange spelling and pronunciation, but Chinese is on an entirely different level of difficulty for foreigners.

Actually, there's a third reason: a century from now, India's population is projected to be much higher than China's (as the former will continue to grow while the latter will decline), and it may well be the foremost economic giant. Note that English is a lingua franca in India, too.
 
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The first condition does not demand much more than what France under the Bourbons managed to do, giving the language a strong reputation throughout Europe. If Germany comes together in a different manner then I expect it to be even stronger.
Now if only the people living inside France produced as many children as the English and Germans did during the 19th century....

So, to sum-up with your point and aegisflorin's, I would say that :
- France needs to retain and control a wide empire filmed by many french speaking people,
- this global french empire needs to be economically dominant,
- and France needs to retain political and economic supremacy in Europe.

This means a napoleonic style France is not enough because It lackd the colonial empire. The defining moment for the modern world was the seven years war when Britain ousted the french competitor from both North America and India. And in fact It was India that was the decisive prize far more than America because India was the massive milkcow that put Britain on steroids and that made Britain able both to fund such a large Navy, to fight and finance coalitions during all the wars against revolutionary and napoleonic France, and to finance the massive investments that turned english speaking north America and Australasia into advanced and developed areas.

Without the massive capital flows from indian origin that Britain invested in its settler colonies, british north America and Australasia would have turned much more into something like Argentina.

And this would have happened to a France dominated north America too. Without the indian milkcow (and also the chinese one after the opium wars) to finance its turbo-development, a massive french settler colonial empire will not become as modern as north America became OTL.
 
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So, to sum-up with your point and aegisflorin's, I would say that :
- France needs to retain and control a wide empire filmed by many french speaking people,
- this global french empire needs to be economically dominant,
- and France needs to retain political and economic supremacy in Europe.

This means a napoleonic style France is not enough because It lackd the colonial empire. The defining moment for the modern world was the seven years war when Britain ousted the french competitor from both North America and India. And in fact It was India that was the decisive prize far more than America because India was the massive milkcow that put Britain on steroids and that made Britain able both to fund such a large Navy, to fight and finance coalitions during all the wars against revolutionary and napoleonic France, and to finance the massive investments that turned english speaking north America and Australasia into advanced and developed areas.

Without the massive capital flows from indian origin that Britain invested in its settler colonies, british north America and Australasia would have turned much more into something like Argentina.

And this would have happened to a France dominated north America too. Without the indian milkcow (and also the chinese one after the opium wars) to finance its turbo-development, a massive french settler colonial empire will not become as modern as north America became OTL.

Britain (or rather the EIC) controlled India for less than 20 years before ARW. Surely, less than two decades of finance tunneling are not the only explanation of the US growth in the 19th and 20th c. ?
 
Britain (or rather the EIC) controlled India for less than 20 years before ARW. Surely, less than two decades of finance tunneling are not the only explanation of the US growth in the 19th and 20th c. ?

I was refering to the french revolutionary and Napoleonic wars (starting in the 1790´s). Not to the american revolution war.

And I did never say that british financing ever was the only explanation of US growth. I just said and meant that It was a big boost, meaning among other factors of course.
 
So, to sum-up with your point and aegisflorin's, I would say that :
- France needs to retain and control a wide empire filmed by many french speaking people,
- this global french empire needs to be economically dominant,
- and France needs to retain political and economic supremacy in Europe.

France doesn't need to achieve an overwhelmingly dominant position, so long as it can prevent another language from doing the same as ultimately happened with the UK/US duo. French had the benefit of already being the international lingua franca, hence all it has to do is prevent another language from attaining a prominence to the extent that it would make sense to switch to this from the previous French lingua franca.

Hence, just stopping the US from achieving the same prominence via the continuation of New France and possibly preventing a complete UK control of India (a rival French India, or just preventing colonization overall) should be sufficient. Asides from those two regions, the French and British colonial empires were roughly the same size.

Without the massive capital flows from indian origin that Britain invested in its settler colonies, british north America and Australasia would have turned much more into something like Argentina.

The British invested massive sums into Argentina too, and yet Argentina has not ended up as wealthy and developed as the US. In fact, in 1913, Argentina's investment by the UK was 319,565, while the American one was 754,617. Investment would still occur in the US anyway, if not to the same extent.
 

longsword14

Banned
France not losing most of its battles against the English / British would do it.
France bothering to invest in its colonial adventures is more like it. Britain really cannot do squat on the continent if France remains strong on the continent.
Maybe England should try and fight, rather than attaching itself on the tail end of whoever is fighting on the continent? Remember Prussia in the SYW?
 
The British invested massive sums into Argentina too, and yet Argentina has not ended up as wealthy and developed as the US. In fact, in 1913, Argentina's investment by the UK was 319,565, while the American one was 754,617. Investment would still occur in the US anyway, if not to the same extent.

I know. But these figures are just the picture in 1913 of the stock of british publicly invested in the USA and in Argentina.

It does not show the extent of all the loans that were granted and reimbursed during the whole 19th century.

This being said, I do not deny at all that US entrepreneurship's and US far bigger population's made a far more profitable use of the british financial flows than other countries. Nor that They were not other decisive factors for the US economic emergence of the US, the most important being local.

I just mean that british finance and worldwide connections were a big boost for the US. And the an alternate french North America would not enjoy such a boost.

An alternate french North America that would spread over OTL Canada and USA would probably be a bit less populated, less developed in specific areas such as finance and international trade than OTL North America has become because of its strong british print and british connections.

Even if the french took control of India in Dupleix's wake instead of the british, France would not exploit India the way Britain did. The french would not turn India into a captive market for its Homeland manufacturers as early not the same way as the british did. They would but they would do it later, to a different extent and in a different way.

And this would be a massive changer for the world as we know it.
 
I´d argue that Napoleonic hegemony in Europe would naturally make it a global lingua franca if Europe still skyrockets with the industrial revolution, given France would obviously expand into North Africa and to some extent elsewhere as well, and there is little Britain can do against a united Europe or at least against a bigger country in Europe without any continental enemy.
 
I know. But these figures are just the picture in 1913 of the stock of british publicly invested in the USA and in Argentina.

It does not show the extent of all the loans that were granted and reimbursed during the whole 19th century.

This being said, I do not deny at all that US entrepreneurship's and US far bigger population's made a far more profitable use of the british financial flows than other countries. Nor that They were not other decisive factors for the US economic emergence of the US, the most important being local.

I just mean that british finance and worldwide connections were a big boost for the US. And the an alternate french North America would not enjoy such a boost.

An alternate french North America that would spread over OTL Canada and USA would probably be a bit less populated, less developed in specific areas such as finance and international trade than OTL North America has become because of its strong british print and british connections.

Even if the french took control of India in Dupleix's wake instead of the british, France would not exploit India the way Britain did. The french would not turn India into a captive market for its Homeland manufacturers as early not the same way as the british did. They would but they would do it later, to a different extent and in a different way.

And this would be a massive changer for the world as we know it.

But that isn't that important to the goal of making French the continuing lingua franca. Since French already was the lingua franca, all that French needs is to ensure that the costs of transitioning to a new one are more costly than those of keeping French as the lingua franca. It isn't that France must be the most powerful, it is that France must prevent somebody else from becoming such. There are many other changes that could be discussed, but they're not relevant to the original question. In this case, simply positing a marginally larger French empire which has some reasonable additional influence to add to France and a castrated English empire, should be sufficient for French to keep her original position (and of course, ensuring that somebody else doesn't come along to do what the British did, so no wehraboo fantasies either). French is still important language currently, despite the predominance English has attained, so simply lopping off some of the English advantage will be entirely sufficient to keep her a position of superiority.

Concerning investment, much of the English overseas investment in the earlier part of the 19th century was directed not towards the overseas, but towards Europe. In 1830 the English invested 66% of their investment into the continent, 55% was the figure in 1855, and this ultimately faded to 5% by 1900. Of that invested overseas by the UK, only a portion of it would go to the US, and in this alternate universe where the UK doesn't take India, only a portion of that wouldn't be available - India was important, nobody here denies it, but its absence won't halt the industrial revolution in her tracks, and some profits would still be generated by India. Alternative sources of capital would also be available, the US historically did of course, experience capital inflows from the UK, but it also took advantage of a broad number of European capital sources.

United States borrowing in Britain began in the 1830s at the level of the separate states; most of the Southern members among them later defaulted, if not shortly after 1837, at least during the Civil War, with massive losses for British (and Continental) investors. The federal government had borrowed in the Netherlands in the 1790s, and in 1803 for the Louisiana purchase. With the outbreak of war with Mexico, it began borrowing in European capital markets more generally. The capital inflow was to rise in the 1850s, and spread from London to Continental centers such as Frankfurt where the federal government, the states, and even such cities as Wheeling, Covington and Sacramento, to say nothing of New York, San Francisco and New Orleans, were to have their bonds listed 1854-6 (B6hme, 1968, pp. 160-1). The borrowing shifted from governments to railroads, and gradually spread from London by the 1870s to Berlin, Frankfurt and Vienna. The houses of Morgan, Seligmann and Drexel fanned out from the United States over Europe to raise money for investment in the United States, an example of pull rather than push.
A Financial History of Western Europe, pg. 222

Capital inflows into North America might be lessened, but they wouldn't be cut off, even if we presuppose that investment only occurs along national lines and hence British investment only goes to English colonies, French investment only to French colonies, etc. etc. France after all, was an important source of foreign investment as well, even if she mostly served the European and Mediterranean markets (I believe it was... 9% of French investment that went into her colonial empire before WW1? This did rise in the Interwar though). The Dutch also made a switch to backing the French in the latter part of the 18th century, so I would presume that the French North American colonies would have access to the Amsterdam capital market.
 
France bothering to invest in its colonial adventures is more like it. Britain really cannot do squat on the continent if France remains strong on the continent.
Maybe England should try and fight, rather than attaching itself on the tail end of whoever is fighting on the continent? Remember Prussia in the SYW?

Disagree. First of all 'being strong on the continent' is a very abstract concept. Due to its massive population compared to other powers, its corollary of massive tax revenue, its strong, centralized state and excellent strategic position, France could very rarely ever be called 'weak' on the continent.

For centuries, France was a continental superpower kept a bay only by the Hapsburgs with their combined Spanish, Italian, Low Countries and New World assets and dynastic alliance with the Holy Roman Empire. The French bankrolled the Swedish support for the Reformation in the Thirty Years War; the French also financially supported the Ottoman Empire and the early expansion of Prussia.

One exception was the early middle ages, when the Kings of England had much more territory in France than the King of France did; but one could argue that at that time the Kings of England were French: due to their Norman heritage, where they spent their time and the language they spoke.

The gains Britain later made from its colonies far outweighed any gains any power made on continental Europe, in terms of population, revenue and therefore power.

The British repeatedly defeated the French in battle both on land and at sea both in the colonies and in Europe, at crucial moments: of course in alliance with other powers, which is how wars are won. French military defeats at the hands of the British in North America, India, and in continental Europe in the Napoleonic Wars were clearly instrumental in the grand sweep of history. Had those defeats been French victories, things would have been very different.
 
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longsword14

Banned
What the heck are you on about?
Britain on itself was not capable of dislodging France; if France has a decent alliance on land then it is in a very good situation, nothing for Britain to do about it.
Colonies were something that the crown did not take as a major priority and there fortunes ebbed and flowed.
Ex- All of Britain's victories on land in Napoleonic Wars do not match day 2 of Leipzig.
 
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Britain (or rather the EIC) controlled India for less than 20 years before ARW. Surely, less than two decades of finance tunneling are not the only explanation of the US growth in the 19th and 20th c. ?

America has got nothing to do with the use of English in India, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Nigeria, Australia, Canada, South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, etc, etc. It has something to do with the use of English in the Philippines and...
 
America has got nothing to do with the use of English in India, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Nigeria, Australia, Canada, South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, etc, etc. It has something to do with the use of English in the Philippines and... japan

Fixed it for you.

Canada doesn't really count in the way that you're talking about either
 
America has got nothing to do with the use of English in India, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Nigeria, Australia, Canada, South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, etc, etc. It has something to do with the use of English in the Philippines and...

In some of those cases (not Australia, Canada or South Africa obviously) the USA could have had an impact on the use of English. Of course, the British brought the language there in the first place, but it could have been dropped after the end of colonialism. The fact that English was the language of the dominant power (USA) could have influenced decisions to maintain it institutionally.

Contrast this with Indonesia, which dropped Dutch and switched to English as the main foreign language taught in schools, and the countries of the former French Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia) which have mostly dropped French in favor of English as well. This is where English really became a global lingua franca, when it became learned by people with no historical contact to anglophones; if it had remained restricted to former British/US colonies, its status wouldn't be all that different from that of Spanish, French, Portuguese, Russian, etc.

Across most of East Asia (China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Philippines), the spread of English seems to be largely attributable to the USA; from what I've heard, American English tends to be emphasized in schools over the British variety. The exceptions are the former British colonies (Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia).
 
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America has got nothing to do with the use of English in India, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Nigeria, Australia, Canada, South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, etc, etc. It has something to do with the use of English in the Philippines and...
I think any place continuing to use English after 1941 does have something to do with the USA... so, technically you're incorrect. And in the case of Pakistan and India, yes the USA being the world super power in 1948 had more to do with their keeping English than did the history of British rule.
 
In some of those cases (not Australia, Canada or South Africa obviously) the USA could have had an impact on the use of English. Of course, the British brought the language there in the first place, but it could have been dropped after the end of colonialism. The fact that English was the language of the dominant power (USA) could have influenced decisions to maintain it institutionally.

Contrast this with Indonesia, which dropped Dutch and switched to English as the main foreign language taught in schools, and the countries of the former French Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia) which have mostly dropped French in favor of English as well. This is where English really became a global lingua franca, when it became learned by people with no historical contact to anglophones; if it had remained restricted to former British/US colonies, its status wouldn't be all that different from that of Spanish, French, Portuguese, Russian, etc.

Across most of East Asia (China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Philippines), the spread of English seems to be largely attributable to the USA; from what I've heard, American English tends to be emphasized in schools over the British variety. The exceptions are the former British colonies (Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia).

All agreed about Asian countries turning to English due to American influence. But in Europe, from Holland to Bulgaria, people actually try to ensure they don't pick up an American accent when they learn English, and are ashamed when they do.
 
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