When was french the universal language

So English rules the waves. Does this mean French is no longer a language of cultural value? Not at all! The most recent generations of influential European philosophers and thinkers come from France: Sartre, Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, de Beauvoir, Bourdieu, Badiou, Baudrillard and their contemporaries have dominated intellectual discourse in the West since the second half of the 20th century. The language is still powerful enough to encompass 29 independent nations spread throughout Europe, the Americas, Africa and the Pacific where it retains official status.

It is spoken by 79 million native speakers and non-native speakers. France is one of the top six military powers on Earth, one of the top six economies and the most visited country on the planet. Its contribution to world culture is immense, from fashion and literature to architecture and cuisine. Nonetheless, English does win by a large margin, since it is spoken by million natives and 1. Estimates show there are around 1 billion people learning English right now!

And the more countries include English as a second language in their education system, the more English as a lingua franca will remain. Which begs the question: by conquering the world, is English now uprooting its origins? Is it a pyrrhic victory or a real triumph? The English language is a citizen of the world, traveling freely without a passport and residing everywhere, ignoring borders and facilitating communication. Try Babbel. Toggle Menu. Ready to learn? Pick a language to get started!

Step 2: Two languages vie for domination But it is precisely in the 18th and 19th centuries that the English language rose in influence. Mohamed Saligh Mohamed Saligh 1 1 gold badge 2 2 silver badges 7 7 bronze badges. Kosmonaut I suppose the power of a language is a function of the number of people and nationalities that will understand it.

By that metric I suppose English, Spanish and Chinese are the top contenders. Why are "they"? Spanish it's much easier than English. It's probably the easiest European language to learn. Is English is a universal language?

Chinese is the most spoken language in the world in terms of people who speak it as mother tongue and Spanish is the second. Show 4 more comments. Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. Ah, the irony of calling English the "lingua franca": a Latin phrase meaning "French Language". Claudiu: the vocabulary may be largely from romance languages, but the grammar is germanic.

The Franks were a Germanic group. Show 14 more comments. PyroTyger PyroTyger 3, 1 1 gold badge 18 18 silver badges 24 24 bronze badges. To nitpick: it should be "the United Kingdom" from ; "Great Britain" before then rather than "England" when talking about the Empire.

Ach, it's a fair point, but a contentious one. That's a debate I'll avoid, I think! To nitpick further: in my earlier comment, the year should be Steve Melnikoff: Come on Steve, get your acts of union right! If you don't want to be controversial, how come the Empire and trade were "caused by" naval superiority and not its causes? Add a comment. English has the following features that make it very easy to speak it well enough to be understood: No gendered nouns.

Compare to any Latin language, for example. No declinations. Compare to German or Greek. English has no accents. You're cheating with ir and aller. The corresponding verbs in English are "to be" and "to go", and their past tenses are "I was" and "I went".

No simpler than the Spanish or French versions. And the accents in Spanish and French make the pronunciation closer to the spelling I'd say having them is an advantage for these languages. PeterShor no they're not, go is ir and aller respectively. They are only to be if used to construct tenses which is not what I am talking about.

In any case, English verbs very rarely change from the "infinitive" to the first person singular which is my main point. Do you disagree that English is a particularly easy language to speak at a basic level?

French spelling is all over the place. Admittedly, so is English spelling but that's why I don't mention it. If the official language of the USA were German, today we'd all be speaking about its grammar being so logical and how phonetic its is.

If the US's official language was French we'd be musing about its musicality and importance in the field of art, literature and politics. You're saying people are choosing English because of its simplicity, I'm disputing your introductory line: I am very surprised that none of the answers has mentioned the obvious: English is simple.

Its spelling, pronunciation, phrasal verbs, slang, idiomatic expressions are far from being simple. To reach a certain level of communicability can be relatively easy to obtain, but to become proficient requires hard work.

We could well be talking about mandarin being the second lingua franca in 50 years time. And I am surprised that the "obvious" reason why English has become the lingua franca is not apparent to you. I know many Italian speakers who have said they preferred studying Spanish because it is easier. And I suspect the majority of Spanish speakers would say Italian, and French are simpler to learn.

Scandinavian speakers Danes, Fins etc. But I'm not sure the same could be said for Arabic speakers, maybe they prefer French for obvious geopolitical reasons. Wayne Wayne 4 4 silver badges 7 7 bronze badges. Kris The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, or the Francophonie for short, is an international organization that represents countries and regions of the world where French is the mother tongue.

These countries also have a significant amount of French speakers, known as francophones, with a tie to French culture. While French might not be the language of present day, as it was in the past, it may be the language of the future. It cites a study done by Natixis, an investment back. This study names French as the language of the future.

A lot of this influence stems from colonialism. These countries have a booming population that is expected to increase more over time. French is a prominent second language in Africa.