|
After Babel, a New Common Tongue |
|
Published by The Economist - print edition
|
|
Thursday, 05 August 2004 |
|
'After Babel, a New Common Tongue">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 traveler through Mittel europa 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..."
|
