Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

Susurrus03 t1_iuhj5mh wrote

Also don't forget other things, like:

Internet was invented in the US, and the buildup of sites in the early days that only snowballed being in English was a result. Obviously other languages exist on the internet by now, but globalization and bringing the world together has its effects.

Language of aviation probably has something to do with it. Idk how past aviators, but I'm sure it helped as more and more traveled.

The US is home to many large international businesses, that businesses from other parts of the world want to interact with. Yes, other countries have large businesses, too, but with a country and population size the US has a large amount. (You mostly mentioned this one I guess.)

Maybe skewed towards my experience, but English very much seems to be used by tourists and the places they're visiting to interact. It is easier to know English than learning the language of every country you're visiting, and likewise for people/countries who want your tourism money it is easier to learn one language vs the language of every person visiting. While there's no specific reason this one should be English outside of places where exclusively English native speaking tourists go, it probably latched onto the other mentioned factors and formed its own thing.

7

bbqroast t1_iuhk0dx wrote

France actually did a lot of work on the early internet too and even had their own network parallel to the internet.

I suspect English was just more cemented by that point, and possibly the fact France was a fair bit poorer in the 1980s than the US slowed the uptake of consumer digital electronics (and thus content creation on the internet).

4