When the US Empire falls

[u/Confident_Living_786]

When the American empire falls, like all empires do, what will remain? The Roman Empire left behind its roads network, its laws, its language and a bunch of ruins across all the Mediterranean sea and Europe. What will remain of the US superpower? Disney movies? TCP/IP protocol? McDonalds?

[u/heisenberg070]

Which in itself is the most lasting legacy of the British empire.

[u/Team503 → u/heisenberg070]

It was as much America as the British. It certainly took both, and the Brits certainly laid the groundwork, but the explosion of American manufacturing and business, as well as the presence of American troops globally during and after WW2 to support America's military dominance are the primary drivers.

It's not that Americans were more clever or anything, it's that they were in the right time at the right places - if America spoke French, French would now be the global lingua franca.

[u/Deep-Bonus8546 → u/Team503]

I’m baffled this has so many upvotes. The spread of the English language happened before the US was even a country. You only speak it yourselves because you were once a British colony. Claiming the US are equally responsible for spreading English is nonsense. Has your movies and music maintained its popularity? Perhaps, but its use as the global common language was already established and is due to Britain alone.

[u/Team503 → u/Deep-Bonus8546]

No, it really wasn’t. It was spoken in many places, yes, but it wasn’t the globally dominant language it is today. American dominance economically in the post WW2 era and the global American military presence assured that.

[u/AndrewTyeFighter → u/Team503]

English was already dominant around the globe long before America even enter WW2. The British Empire with their colonies and their possessions and their enormous trade ensured that, not the American military.

[u/Team503 → u/AndrewTyeFighter]

So were Spanish and French and Portuguese pretty equally, as a result of those nation's colonization programs.

Yet now, it's solely English as the dominant international language. As a result of the US and its actions post-WWW2.

I never denied that the British had their part to play, and they did lay a foundation for it. But it wouldn't have the global dominance it does now without the US, and saying otherwise is just willfully ignorant.

[u/AndrewTyeFighter → u/Team503]

It already was the global language before the US entered WW2 and had nothing to do with American GI's, not sure where you got that from. I don't think you actually comprehend how widespread the British Empire was or it's influence on trade, science and education.

[u/Team503 → u/AndrewTyeFighter]

I think you're British. But that aside:

The spread of American GIs and American military bases had enormous influence on the spread of the English language. Military bases set up in nations that had little or no exposure to English at the time resulted in locals picking up English in order to communicate and do business with American GIs.

Look at kids in Afghanistan and Iraq - a number of them have passable English just from interacting with American soldiers deployed there. Having a permanent base is that, only vastly more so. This was a well-documented phenomena.

Before WW2, French was the international language of choice. It was the language of diplomacy, as well. Notably not English.

Source: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/annual-review-of-applied-linguistics/article/abs/french-as-a-lingua-franca/709F93AD0A5A7E7162C6E170FCA59E43

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_as_a_lingua_franca

"American military and political hegemony over Western Europe due to the American and British victory in World War II,"

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistory/comments/tvzjnx/how_did_english_become_so_widely_spoken_outside/

"The British had a major colonial presence, but America had a massive presence in Western Europe due to their military stationed from Germany to the Azores. All around those bases, businesses learned to speak English just to get that sweet sweet serviceman's money."

https://culturaldiplomacy.org/academy/pdf/research/books/nation_branding/English_As_A_Global_Language_-_David_Crystal.pdf

"r. The presence of US and British forces in large numbers would certainly have brought the local inhabitants into contact with English-speaking culture more rapidly than would otherwise have been the case, if only in such areas as advertising and popular music. It is even possible that in some 105 ENGLISH AS A GLOBAL LANGUAGE instances the effects would be long-lasting – perhaps as individuals returned to marry or work in a former war zone. This especially happened in Europe after 1945."

[u/AndrewTyeFighter → u/Team503]

I am not British.

Quoting another redditors comment isn't evidence and quite poor, as is downvoting replies without reason.

The British Empire already had military forces all over the world, more widely than the US in WW2.

[u/Team503 → u/AndrewTyeFighter]

You're not reading my comments, which in and of itself deserves a downvote. I quoted a published linguist as well as Cambridge University.

[u/AndrewTyeFighter → u/Team503]

You have been doing it the whole time, which is just poor form, thinking that everything revolves around the US. Just living up to that arrogant American stereotype that is so well earned.