# "If... we'd now be speaking..." **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 13, 2013, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-wed-now-be-speaking/666120 "2013-08-13T11:06:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-wed-now-be-speaking/666120/1 "2013-08-13T11:06:54Z")
A thing often come across, which annoys me – probably silly to get annoyed over; hence putting it on MPSIMS. In discussion of relatively-recent history: people tend to say that if such-and-such had or had not been done by key figures in conflicts between nations, things would have gone badly for us in – broadly – the West, and “we would be speaking… [usually, it’s German – or Russian] – now.” I know that this is essentially a metaphor – probably not meant literally – for “we would now be under the iron heel of rule by a nasty and hostile power”; nonetheless, it irritates me, as being factually inaccurate, and melodramatic – I’m afraid I prefer it when figures of speech and poetic conceits, are not totally off-the-wall. I’m not aware of any historic instance of evil conquerors being obsessed with rapidly wiping out the languages spoken by their defeated subject races; if they’re ready to let the conquered sub-humans stay alive at all, they’re happy to let them talk together in their barbarous baboon-jargons – they have more urgent things to do, than be the “language police”. Of course, the conquered would be required to learn at least the basics of the conquerors’ tongue; but wiping out the language of the subjugated folk? – over many centuries, perhaps – but in the course of a century or less; just, no. I’m perhaps influenced here, by my happening not to feel my identity / worth / honour particularly defined by English being my birth-speech; nor to feel shocked to the core by the thought that I might have been born not an English-speaker. IMO, language is first and foremost, a tool for communication. English can be reckoned among the world’s finer languages; but there are plenty of other fine ones, too. ---
**Author:** ![aNewLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-wed-now-be-speaking/666120/2 "2013-08-13T11:14:40Z")
> [@](#): > > I’m not aware of any historic instance of evil conquerors being obsessed with rapidly wiping out the languages spoken by their defeated subject races; if they’re ready to let the conquered sub-humans stay alive at all, they’re happy to let them talk together in their barbarous baboon-jargons – they have more urgent things to do, than be the “language police”. As we are talking about evil conquerors with language fetishes, Godwins’ Law is not applicable. One of Hitlers’ schemes to improve Germany was to define the German language. Anyone who didn’t speak Nazi German was in trouble. Inhabitants of the North American Reich would have had to learn German if they wanted to do anything or be anybody, same way Canadians have to learn French if they want to get ahead. Also, if it wasn’t for Jefferson and the Louisiana Purchase, everybody where I am would speak Spanish. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-wed-now-be-speaking/666120/3 "2013-08-13T11:19:43Z")
Plus, there’s no better way to learn a new language than through immersion. I, for one, would welcome an Italian new world order. ---
**Author:** ![aNewLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-wed-now-be-speaking/666120/4 "2013-08-13T11:26:31Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > I, for one, would welcome an Italian new world order. We could get tube trains- and they would run on time. 😃 I don’t want to call US action in WWII evil, but it does apply to this thread. Virtually everybody in Germany speaks English to some extent. Because we occupied their country for fifty years. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-wed-now-be-speaking/666120/5 "2013-08-13T11:30:33Z")
Not heard any news from Italy in the last few years? 😉 And virtually everybody in Europe speaks English to some extent. Because it’s sensible. ---
**Author:** ![aNewLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-wed-now-be-speaking/666120/6 "2013-08-13T11:39:12Z")
Before WWII, everybody spoke French. It was the \*lingua franca \*of the world, so to speak. (Dunno about train news from Italy, my post was a reference to an old joke here.) ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-wed-now-be-speaking/666120/7 "2013-08-13T12:25:43Z")
Didn’t we try to wipe out some Native American languages? And didn’t we nearly succeed? ---
**Author:** ![aNewLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-wed-now-be-speaking/666120/8 "2013-08-13T12:42:54Z")
Speaking of the Americas… if not for Cortes, everybody in Mexico would be speaking [Nahuatl](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nahuatl)instead of Spanish. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-wed-now-be-speaking/666120/9 "2013-08-13T12:51:28Z")
So I read the title of the thread and understood that the OP would be about language. And then I read the OP, and I kept thinking it was some kind of parody of over-punctuation. But, then I – after thinking about this for a while – came to the conclusion: there was no irony [intended] in the OP; I am just “struggling” to determine, in my own mind, whether less (in terms of punctuation) may actually be better than: more. What? are your… thoughts, Amer-ica? ---
**Author:** ![aNewLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-wed-now-be-speaking/666120/10 "2013-08-13T13:01:21Z")
If not for William the Conqueror, we all would be speaking Modern Anglic rather than English. ---
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-wed-now-be-speaking/666120/11 "2013-08-13T13:03:19Z")
> [@aNewLeaf](#): > > Virtually everybody in Germany speaks English to some extent. Because we occupied their country for fifty years. Except for those zones occupied by the French and Russians, of course. ---
**Author:** ![aNewLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-wed-now-be-speaking/666120/12 "2013-08-13T13:07:33Z")
True, I tend to gloss over the Russian side, sorry. I don’t think the French part is relevant to this current discussion, but what’s the status of Russian in the eastern parts? Was it ever a dominant language, and if so do people still use it all? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-wed-now-be-speaking/666120/13 "2013-08-13T13:39:01Z")
> [@vontsira](#): > > I’m not aware of any historic instance of evil conquerors being obsessed with rapidly wiping out the languages spoken by their defeated subject races It happens. It happens frequently. Usually by targeting the children of conquered populations. Often, “rapidly wiping out” the minority language isn’t the goal so much as “eventually wiping out.” Have you heard of the [Welsh Not](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_Not) or the [Symbole](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbole)? I know people who experienced this. It is also a big issue among Native Americans / First Nations in the US and Canada, many of whom were forced into [Residential Schools](http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/index.php?p=4) expressly to separate them from their language and culture. And in all of these cases, combined with intense social pressure both passive and active, this has been effective. Many languages are only now fully dying, but you’ll see more. Honestly, spend some time with people in indigenous minority communities, and you’ll see that it does happen. History tells us that a nation of 300 million people is going to keep its language for many centuries after conquest, perhaps millennia, but the protection is strength in numbers, not that conquest doesn’t push language change. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-wed-now-be-speaking/666120/14 "2013-08-13T14:49:32Z")
I think it is meant literally, and it’s meant to frighten. Have you ever spoken German? It hurts your mouth. ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-wed-now-be-speaking/666120/15 "2013-08-13T17:56:39Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > So I read the title of the thread and understood that the OP would be about language. And then I read the OP, and I kept thinking it was some kind of parody of over-punctuation. > > But, then I – after thinking about this for a while – came to the conclusion: there was no irony [intended] in the OP; I am just “struggling” to determine, in my own mind, whether less (in terms of punctuation) may actually be better than: more. > > What? are your… thoughts, Amer-ica? Apologies: I’m British, and there’s a general tendency for Brits to think that Americans under-punctuate, and for Americans to think that Brits over-punctuate. And I have a besetting personal vice of expressing myself altogether too elaborately; am told that I can make a lengthy and intricate essay, out of telling someone how to get to the corner shop a hundred yards down the street. ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-wed-now-be-speaking/666120/16 "2013-08-13T18:11:57Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > It happens. It happens frequently. Usually by targeting the children of conquered populations. Often, “rapidly wiping out” the minority language isn’t the goal so much as “eventually wiping out.” Have you heard of the [Welsh Not](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_Not) or the [Symbole](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbole)? I know people who experienced this. It is also a big issue among Native Americans / First Nations in the US and Canada, many of whom were forced into [Residential Schools](http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/index.php?p=4) expressly to separate them from their language and culture. And in all of these cases, combined with intense social pressure both passive and active, this has been effective. Many languages are only now fully dying, but you’ll see more. > > Honestly, spend some time with people in indigenous minority communities, and you’ll see that it does happen. History tells us that a nation of 300 million people is going to keep its language for many centuries after conquest, perhaps millennia, but the protection is strength in numbers, not that conquest doesn’t push language change. I hear you; but you’re talking about long-term stuff. (And there’s the factor that people are contrary – persecution tends to make many folk cling more keenly to what they’re being persecuted for, and to bring new recruits to the cause.) It’s the thing about “if the Nazis had won seventy years ago, or the Soviets fifty years ago, we’d now be speaking…the language concerned”, that pisses me off. It wouldn’t be so – we’d be discoursing with the conquerors in their lingo, when we had to; but speaking in our own tongue among ourselves. The metaphor often used, I find so highly “broad-brush”, as to be meaningless and silly. ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-wed-now-be-speaking/666120/17 "2013-08-13T18:27:09Z")
> [@vontsira](#): > > I hear you; but you’re talking about long-term stuff. (And there’s the factor that people are contrary – persecution tends to make many folk cling more keenly to what they’re being persecuted for, and to bring new recruits to the cause.) It’s the thing about “if the Nazis had won seventy years ago, or the Soviets fifty years ago, we’d now be speaking…the language concerned”, that pisses me off. It wouldn’t be so – we’d be discoursing with the conquerors in their lingo, when we had to; but speaking in our own tongue among ourselves. The metaphor often used, I find so highly “broad-brush”, as to be meaningless and silly. No. we might not be speaking German or Russian, but our children would be. And, for some of us, our grandchildren or even, great-grandchildren. 70 years, 50 years that’s a couple generations, at least. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-wed-now-be-speaking/666120/18 "2013-08-13T18:35:50Z")
I think I recall controversies about both the United States and Australia educating native/aboriginal children in the majority language and discouraging use of their birth tongues. This was feared (apparently with excellent reason) to be an attempt to supplant their culture. ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-wed-now-be-speaking/666120/19 "2013-08-13T19:03:45Z")
> [@picunurse](#): > > No. we might not be speaking German or Russian, but our children would be. And, for some of us, our grandchildren or even, great-grandchildren. 70 years, 50 years that’s a couple generations, at least. And I feel, “so what?” English is a splendid language – so are German and Russian, and all possess magnificent literatures. Even under the German or Russian boot – one takes it that English literature would still exist, and anyone interested enough, could go through the necessary hoops to get to study it in the original. I have trouble “getting” why what language one communicates in day-to-day, is such a big deal. Communicate in whatever language predominates, where one lives – go in for other languages as a hobby. ---
**Author:** ![Mops](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mops/32/16494_2.png) [@Mops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mops)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-wed-now-be-speaking/666120/20 "2013-08-13T21:14:36Z")
> [@aNewLeaf](#): > > As we are talking about evil conquerors with language fetishes, Godwins’ Law is not applicable. > > One of Hitlers’ schemes to improve Germany was to define the German language. Anyone who didn’t speak Nazi German was in trouble. > … Huh? There is no ‘Nazi German’ language - apart from the ideological use of language in a propaganda context. If Nazi Germany had prevailed, the languages of the defeated nations would only have displaced by the German language in the places where _the actual population_ had been displaced (via genocide) by speakers of German. Had WWII turned out differently, and that unhappy state of affairs continued to this day, e.g. the French nation would be exploited, oppressed, _and speaking French_ now. (of course the first foreign language taught in school would be German, as opposed to English). [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-wed-now-be-speaking/666120.md?page=2)