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After Babel, a New Common Tongue |
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Written by The Economist print edition
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Thursday, 05 August 2004 11:00 |
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After Babel, a New Common Tongue "It turns out to be English...IN THE 17th century, educated people across central Europe could still communicate with each other in Latin. By the mid-19th century, the handiest language for a traveller through Mitteleuropa was the German spoken by the Habsburg monarchs who reigned over Hungarians, Czechs and many others. A little more than 100 years later, the dominant tongue was Russian..."
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