Newsgroups: sci.lang
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From: pardoej@lonnds.ml.com (Julian Pardoe LADS LDN X1428)
Subject: Re: Esperanto? The EU? (Very, very long)
Message-ID: <D5sCG8.52B@tigadmin.ml.com>
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Reply-To: pardoej@lonnds.ml.com
Organization: Merrill Lynch Europe
References: <3kjqd7$bm1@nz12.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de>
Date: Tue, 21 Mar 1995 10:14:31 GMT
Lines: 39

In article bm1@nz12.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de, s_salomo@iraul1.ira.uka.de (Thierry Salomon) writes:
>c476896@mizzou1.missouri.edu (Amit K. Basu) wrote :
>
>> Through natural evolution, English has become the perfect common language 
>   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> for the EU.
>
>Ahemmmm....
>Do you know that at the beginning of the United states there was a vote to choose the language
>they'd use. I heard that for 2 or three more votes German would 
>have been chosen instead of English.

I've heard this many times but never found anyone who could show me the
slightest piece of evidence to back up the story.

As far as I know, English was by far and away the most widely spoken
language in the American colonies and it was certainly the language
of the elite.
>
>Do you think then, that if the US, the most powerful country in the
>world spoke German, the "(pseudo-)international" language would
>be English ?

Not clear!  People always seem to forget the role of the British
empire in spreading the use of English around the world.  In its
time Britain was far more economically dominant than America ever
has been and its political influence was pretty impressive too.

Talking of "natural evolution" may seem a bit odd but I think
Amit meant that the role of English evolved because of 
economic and political factors and not because anyone
consciously planned it that way.

I don't think he meant to imply that there were any linguistic
reasons why English has become so widely used.  (Did you, Amit?)

-- jP --


