Bongs Melt Down When Someone Mentions that The US Is The Reason English is Still Relevant

It's fairly obvious that both the British Empire and the United States have contributed to establishing English as the Lingua Franca. Anyone who denies that both are responsible is being bias and arguing in bad faith.

BAD FAITH aside, this is one of the less r-slurred takes.

We had a hard empire and a soft empire. We still have the Soft empire.

Some rocks off the coast of Argentina aren't really a "soft empire"

I wouldn't call the Falklands an act of colonialism. There was nobody on the rock til some British people moved out there

Que opinan, boludos ? !latinx

As a Bulgarian who learned English to be able to understand movies that have not been legally released in Bulgaria - this is it.

American culture did contribute a great deal and I'm not going to pretend that it didn't.

Other europeen chimes in that, yeah, it's because America.

Right, but where did the US get its language from? Did the English language there arise separately? The source of the language not one of its users, is the reason some of the world, speaks English.

As if Americans aren't just as much the descendants of the originators of English as Bongs.

An old man has a farm and many sons, one still lives in the farm, the others murdered and stole moved into a nicer new place, is the guy in the farm somehow more responsible for what the old man did than the other sons?

Yeah this is so obviously true i have no idea why this is on this sub.

Others agree that yeah, it's the US.

Because it's silly to credit an inheritor of a language (the US didn't create the English language) with spreading said language. The Brits spread the language to the American continent. It's like if Japan managed to make baseball popular in other parts of Asia, because it's popular in Japan. It's still an American invention. Not a Japanese one. The sport would be popular across asia because Americans invented it, not the Japanese.

This Scot is having a fricking meltdown.

It cannot unfortunately be denied that American culture plays a big part in the further anglofication of the world.

No shit, right? Not to Scrooge McCuck:

Except it's entirely based on what the British Empire did. And it's hardly as if the UK simply stopped producing content in 1775.

The biggest media properties in the world are all British, not American except for movies, of which the two biggest are largely filmed in the UK (SW and Marvel) and have a huge amount of British actors in them too. Even then 3 of the biggest movie franchises are British (HP / LOTR / Bond).

Biggest band in history? The Beatles, most popular book series in the world? Harry Potter, most popular author in history? Shakespeare, most widely watched television show in the world? Top Gear, most widely watched sports league? The Premier League, most widely watched sport? Football, followed by cricket, both British.

People overplay American influence and underplay British influence to an INSANE degree.

Lol and what are the other 7 on the Top 10? The top 4 are all American. It's fricking goyslop--but darn it, it's American goyslop.

English Empire did it. Not often in a good way, often destroying history and culture. All the US has done is distort the spellings, ruin jokes and populariise English as the choices for films.

Lol. You must be one of those creepy Americans, with a gun in your bed and a flag as your quilt cover. You have no sense of reality. If only you had a real education. One that involves experiencing many views and cultures. Enjoy your online anger, it's made me smile.

As if that isn't cool as frick.

−]MartinLutherVanHalen (deleted by user)113 points 6 months ago

Not even. A billion Indians and Africans spoke English before American culture had made a dent. The spread of English happened before 1920. American culture wasn't a real force until the 1950s. Americans speak English because of empire for gods sake

lol a Billion Africans and Indians didn't speak English before WW2.

Americans speak English because they're Anglos, lmao.

Do you think that British influence stopped after 1957? The UK is one of, often the most influential power in the world in terms of soft power. Still to this day this is true.

lololololololol