Biggest possible British Empire without English becoming the World Language?

How small does the British Empire have to be for English not to be the unrivaled global Lingua Franca, even with America being like in OTL?
 
You'd probably need the UK to conquer sparesly populated areas and wastelands to avoid having English as the lingua franca
Canada, Alaska, Oceania, if they somehow managed to keep the 13 Colonies together and probably portions of the Middle East. Hell, they can even claim Antarctica and own it.
 
Two possibilities.

1. Have Britain behave more like the Netherlands. The Dutch model of colonialism involved more segregation between whites and natives than the British model, and a larger cadre of white colonial officials doing jobs that in the British Empire were done by British-educated natives. The British Empire encouraged the natives to learn English, the Dutch one discouraged them from learning Dutch. Result: Indonesia chose Malay as its official language rather than Dutch.

2. Have Britain end up in control of more linguistically uniform areas, which would revert to their local languages after independence, on the model of Burma, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia, and the Arab world. For example, let's say India were partitioned between the colonial powers rather than ending up in British control, and Britain ended up in control of Bengal, Gujarat, and the Madras area, administering them as separate colonies; in exchange, give Britain relatively linguistically uniform areas it did not have in OTL, such as Vietnam, a slice of China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.
 
I don't think it was so much the colonies that made English the global language of diplomacy and the ultimate lingua franca of the 20th century... you could still have all that and still not be a lingua franca, or you could have small colonies and continue to be a lingua franca. What solidified it and what you'd have to get rid of is- London as the world capital of finance, to be replaced by New York during WWI. Once London's financial markets dominated the world (probably around the Napoleonic wars, which is when the English realized they could win wars by financing allies and coming up schemes to out-raise their enemies with the money not having to come from direct taxes and seizing it and instead bonds, investments, loans, etc) English is going to be the global language. JP Morgan financing the Entente in WWI before America declared war and the Entente owing Wall Street sooooo much money (and having to repay it in dollars and not depreciated local currency) is what made NY replace London and continue the English tradition of being the language of international finance (Americans are notorious for not caring to learn other languages).

Look at OPEC for instance, a cartel of nations none of which have English as their official language, some of which had loose British control while many had no British control, and they meet in Vienna a German speaking city; but yet the language they use for official meetings is English. 6 of the 13 have Arabic speaking as official or majority. It's not English as a colonial language, or diplomatic language (like French was), that made English chosen; it's English as a financial language that made the decision for English to be the only obvious choice.
 
Maybe if the US has more Spanish speakers, and maybe preserve the German speaking populations in the mid-west, and the Americans will grow much more open to learning new languages. With that there might be enough Francophiles in the US to keep French on top, or if the Germans win a pseudo-WWI type thing you might see German rising to be the language of choice as the Americans sort of know it already too.
 
Maybe if the US has more Spanish speakers, and maybe preserve the German speaking populations in the mid-west, and the Americans will grow much more open to learning new languages. With that there might be enough Francophiles in the US to keep French on top, or if the Germans win a pseudo-WWI type thing you might see German rising to be the language of choice as the Americans sort of know it already too.

I don't think this is too likely. The trend throughout the Western world in the 19th and early 20th centuries was toward linguistic uniformity, with public education used as a means of disseminating the dominant language to the masses (sometimes by force). Minority languages in the United States could have perhaps hung on a bit more in certain areas, but not to the point that they'd have a national impact.
 
Company rule in India remains with Persian not being removed as the language of administration. This alone changes a lot.
 
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