What would be the world language if english wouldn't exist?

[Mino]

#1

[Spíosra]

Can it be Irish?

[tmwfte]

If England had have taken a left turn instead of a right? French, probably. It was the other option if the Germanic tribes populating England hadn't have gone the Germanic route.

Or maybe Frisian, just to confound people.

[Saarath]

Ursprungligen skrivet av ESB Josephi Krakowski:

Ursprungligen skrivet av K3-27:

Mandarin, not chinese, such a language does not exist.

官話, start practicing.

There's alot of languages for the chinese community, mandarin, hokkien, etc
and i've tried to learn them from my fellow chinese friends and it was so hard

Study Mandarin. It is the official. Beijinghua.Standardisation will come soon, to all regions.

[Mino]

Ursprungligen skrivet av K3-27:

Ursprungligen skrivet av ESB Josephi Krakowski:

There's alot of languages for the chinese community, mandarin, hokkien, etc
and i've tried to learn them from my fellow chinese friends and it was so hard

Study Mandarin. It is the official. Beijinghua.Standardisation will come soon, to all regions.

[Nine-ball]

German, for the simple reason that without the US or Britain, Germany would have become the most powerful force in the western world. It is already the most powerful force in Europe again, though it seems hell-bent on losing that spot. Communism spares no people.

I don't want to pick a fight with Tessa, but Mandarin Chinese and Arabic aren't really viable candidates for the same reason that Communist countries never adopted Cyrilic. Nobody outside of the cultures understands their alphabets, and since that's most of the world, they won't be adopted. The Latin alphabet is the go-to because the Latin-speaking Roman Empire spawned the cultures that spread their language across the globe.

It's also a lot more efficient than Pictograms or Arabic. Arabic is the more likely of the two, as the written word doesn't take much more time an effort than a Latin word. but the phonetics do. Asian pictograms consist of tens of thousands of characters that have only been condensed in recent times. But if you know the Latin alphabet and the phonetics of it, you can spell anything.

Spanish or French would be natural secondaries, French was already the international language of commerce and diplomacy once, but their colonies never really did much. As empires, they didn't have the success that Protestant nations did because of the laws the Catholic church had against usery - lending money with interest. Less re-investment in the private sector always creates less economkic success. The Jews became powerful in Europe and America because they weren't bound by such silly laws, and Muslim nations still enforce them, with the notable exception of Malaysia, the former British Colony. Even there Muslims cannot own banks because of their religion.

Really, if you want to start removing countries from the list of viable world powers, you kind of have to start with Protestant Christian nations and work down from there. If any one of them had not existed, another would have filled the gap during the schism of the Catholic Church. If it wasn't the Germans or English, the Swedes or Danes or Dutch or whoever would have provided the Enlightenment culture. I go with Germany because Martin Luther was a German and started the whole thing.

Only then can we start looking at other Latin-speaking countries due to the influence of the Roman Empire, and then after that, everyone else. It sounds terribly Euro-centric, I know, but the Chinese, Arabs, Africans, Japanese, Pacific Islanders, whatever, all had their own empires but they never spread and/or lasted. They certainly didn't create the explosion of science and culture that European empires did.

They could have. Still might. Kind of are in some cases. Wherever they can wrap their heads around individual rights. The language everyone speaks.

[Blank]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Nine-ball:

German, for the simple reason that without the US or Britain, Germany would have become the most powerful force in the western world. It is already the most powerful force in Europe again, though it seems hell-bent on losing that spot. Communism spares no people.

It says the language English no longer exists, it doesn't say any English speaking countries wouldn't exist.

[E3kHatena]

If the UN had their way, Esperanto. Otherwise, if we're talking suddenly tomorrow English was gone, probably German as that is the language closest to English in terms of origins, but if it just never ever existed, maybe Spanish or another language from that area, as Spain was on a conquering spree for centuries, leading to Spanish making its way into South America and the Pacific.

[King Narwhal]

My guess is Spanish, as it's one of the most used second languages, and, unlike Mandarin Chinese which is the most spoken language ever, it's not that high because the place it originated is way too overpopulated and overcrowded.

That, or maybe German.

[tmwfte]

Ursprungligen skrivet av E3kHatena:

...probably German as that is the language closest to English in terms of origins...

It's not, though. There are closer extant languages, one of which is cognate and often just considered a dialect and another that is almost cognate to English speakers.

[Mino]

Ursprungligen skrivet av tmwfte:

Ursprungligen skrivet av E3kHatena:

...probably German as that is the language closest to English in terms of origins...

It's not, though. There are closer extant languages, one of which is cognate and often just considered a dialect and another that is almost cognate to English speakers.

https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-d7137a8b5a287e813323d94e78f05792

[Mino]

English is a germanic language

[tmwfte]

Ursprungligen skrivet av germans are dumb and ugly:

Ursprungligen skrivet av tmwfte:

It's not, though. There are closer extant languages, one of which is cognate and often just considered a dialect and another that is almost cognate to English speakers.

https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-d7137a8b5a287e813323d94e78f05792

Look at that cute little speck in between.

[Nine-ball]

Ursprungligen skrivet av 「𝓛𝓜」:

It says the language English no longer exists, it doesn't say any English speaking countries wouldn't exist.

And who would have colonized those in the absence of the English?

[Blank]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Nine-ball:

Ursprungligen skrivet av 「𝓛𝓜」:

It says the language English no longer exists, it doesn't say any English speaking countries wouldn't exist.

And who would have colonized those in the absence of the English?

You're literally just changing English to another language, it's not saying any English speakers or countries are gone.

[tmwfte]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Nine-ball:

And who would have colonized those in the absence of the English?

Still the English, just with whichever language they developed that wasn't English.