> For some reason, the entire anglosphere[1] is just plain bad at language education[2]. That's not to say that learning a new language is easy, of course. It's just that we aren't even really trying. The anglosphere is perfectly willing to just sit and make the rest of the world speak our language.
Is this fair framing? Doesn't it seem likely that English speaking countries are bad at learning languages precisely because there's no urgent reason to learn one?
And is it really "making them speak English"? There's always going to be a lingua franca and it's English right now for complicated historical-political reasons. There's no reason to assume it will be English forever.
I kinda think that the lingua Franca, is very sticky. Think base 10 or the Gregorian calendar or QWERTY . None of these are the only or even best solution but they are going to all stick around forever just because it will never make sense to change them.
Another example: Quechua, the lingua Franca of the Incan empire, is still widely spoken on its past territory, even though the empire ceased to exist 500 years ago and the conquerors brought with them a very different language and civilization (Spanish/Christianity).
The cultural switch brought about by the Spanish conquest succeeded fully on the coast, but not so much in the mountains.
Yep. Latin was the lingua franca (or at least one of the major ones) in Europe until 1800 or so, more than 1000 years after the fall of the western Roman Empire.
Maybe you are confusing what lingua franca means.
Yes the literature used Latin but at that period only a tiny fraction of people could read or write. There where many more languages that we even have today spoken by the general populace.
French maybe came close to being a Lingua Franca in the 18-19th century when almost all aristocracy could speak, read and write it but then again the people did not.
The Real Lingua Franca was a mix of Italian, French, Spanish and Greek that was used by the merchants of the Mediterranean.
Only English has the People Mass to be considered a Lingua Franca for all intents and purposes.
Latin was also the lingua franca of nobles and merchants. Lingua Franca Mediterrania itself, the language spoken by medieval sailors in Italy, Egypt, and nearly all the coastline of Mediterranean is a creole of Italian, Portuguese, and Arabic. To the point that Shakespearean Moors spoke it as "Arabic".
Then, the language of science until the 1900s is Latin. Isaac Newton wrote in Latin. Nearly all scientific papers and books were published in "Neolatin".
Well, it's sticky, but not sticky enough that it's known as the "lingua angli". It will probably outlive QWERTY, but I'm not so sure about the calendar, and it'll die long before base 10.
That’s fair for America, as it’s both the local hegemon and a long way away from any near peer power that’s not English speaking. Our weight means that everyone in the neighborhood bends to us, for better or for worse. If someone from Mexico wants to come to America or do business with Americans, chances are they’ll learn English rather than expecting the converse to happen.
America is also huge in the way that few countries are. This means that you can trivially go your entire life enjoying vacations without leaving the country. Nobody in the EU has that luxury.
The UK though is not the local hegemon. They’re peers and close trading partners with several non English speaking countries, many of which are extremely close physically too. The UK is not politically and economically powerful enough to expect all the other European countries to learn English in order to do business with them.
It doesn't really matter about the UK's status. Nobody is saying "well I live in a hegemon, I won't bother learning another language". For the most part, people learn languages because they are useful.
I live in the UK and only speak English. I'm happy enough with that because speaking another language well represents thousands of hours of effort that I was happy to spend elsewhere - it is a huge opportunity cost. However, if I had to learn French in order to gain access to learning materials in my field and become qualified, then I would have done so.
But I didn't. The only reason for me to learn a foreign language would be curiosity - learning French or German or Spanish has almost no actual utility whatsoever for most in the UK. So few bother.
> It doesn't really matter about the UK's status. Nobody is saying "well I live in a hegemon, I won't bother learning another language".
That's a straw man.
> For the most part, people learn languages because they are useful.
Duh. But how useful learning a new language is to you is mediated by where you're living and it's local influence. As an American, I would have to go way out of my way in order to use a new language, let alone find it useful. This is largely due to the cultural and economic weight that America exerts on the region. Literally everyone I've done business with who isn't a native English speaker taught themselves English specifically to move to or do business with Americans. The UK is not in this position.
Also, again, size. I have to travel a very long way before I hit anywhere where English is not the overwhelming majority language. This also is a factor. If I want to learn French and use it, it's a $600 and 14hr flight for me to actually make it to Paris and use it, while a Eurostar ticket from London is $60 and 2hrs. This absolutely affects how useful a new language might be, even for pleasure, and is exactly why my attempts to learn French petered out.
> I'm happy enough with that because speaking another language well represents thousands of hours of effort that I was happy to spend elsewhere - it is a huge opportunity cost.
If learning a language was useful to people in the UK, they would do it. I don't know why you are saying that people in the UK are not in the same position - they evidently are, which is why few bother learning languages. If what you say were true, it would be reflected by reality.
In fact, although the UK is near other countries in Europe where speaking non-English languages is common, anybody who travels anywhere in Europe will find that everybody speaks English. If you are in the UK and want to do business with anybody across the EU - they're going to speak English. If you want to learn any materials for any speciality - it will be available in English.
The majority of people in the UK go through their whole life without ever having to communicate with people who don't speak English. That includes the odd week they might spend on holiday in France or Spain.
So people in the UK are in much the same position as those in the US. There is no economic incentive to learn a foreign language. That's 95% of the motivation to do so, completely gone.
Is this fair framing? Doesn't it seem likely that English speaking countries are bad at learning languages precisely because there's no urgent reason to learn one?
And is it really "making them speak English"? There's always going to be a lingua franca and it's English right now for complicated historical-political reasons. There's no reason to assume it will be English forever.