Alternative History
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Before Doomsday[]

In a world with approximately 4.5 billion people, the six most widespread languages were Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, English, French, Russian and Arabic - also the six official languages of the UN. Also of significant importance were Hindi, Portuguese, Bengali, Japanese, and German.

Since Doomsday[]

With the major devastation all over the world, especially the Northern Hemisphere, the worldwide language structure is shaken as well. With the destruction of the old USSR, Japan and Germany, the numbers of Russian, Japanese and especially German native speakers have shrunk dramatically. The worldwide dominance of English is reduced with the lack of the USA, UK and most of Canada. Many European languages have suffered a severe loss of speakers, with some of them going extinct, but others have benefited and increased in usage at the same time. The real cultural heart of English is now the ANZ Commonwealth.

On the contrary, however, Portuguese and especially Spanish are on the rise despite of the devastation of Spain and Portugal, as the economical worldwide activity is centering on the South American continent and ANZC, with the South American nations mostly speaking Portuguese and especially Spanish as national languages.

As China and India are still in a catastrophic state of anarchy, the (global) importance of their respective languages has also become quite limited. The effects of Doomsday and nuclear fallout has reduced their numbers of speakers as well.

Like Portuguese and Spanish, Greek is also seeing a bit of a revival period. With the Greek companies involving themselves in trade and petroleum drilling around the Mediterranean Basin, Libyans, Egyptians, Algerians and even some Sicilians are learning Greek as a second language.

Present Day[]

The linguistic sphere of today is a reflection of over two decades of reconstruction and development. The main languages of international trade and diplomacy are English (Anglo-Australian), Spanish (Latin American) and Portuguese (Brazilian).

Particularly in Europe, France and the Celtic/Gaelic languages have seen a resurgence in their respective spheres; owing to increased cohesion (Francophone community) and political emphasis (Celtic Alliance).

In many areas of the former UK, local dialects are sometimes recognized as individual languages. Among these are Northumbrian, Pitmatic, Cumbric and Clevish (Northumbria) in the northeast of England.

In North America, there has been a rise of several Native languages, such as Navajo, Lakotah, Oodham among others as well as less common European languages, most notably Pennsylvania German across former Pennsylvania and Ohio. Pennsylvania German's growth was spurred by the rapid population growth of the Amish and Mennonite populations, who had long kept the language alive in the region in contrast to other moribund immigrant languages. It is now one of the co-official languages of regional body United Communities.

South Africa has likewise seen a revival of interest in Afrikaans for practical purposes, although Dutch (its linguistic ancestor) is rapidly diminishing in relevance. German (Alpine Confederation, North Germany, South West Africa and Prussia) and Russian (Socialist Siberia) are relegated to "limited" influence by the WCRB, due to the relative isolation of their respective spheres, although both languages do enjoy considerable use and relevance within them.

The fate of Chinese as a major global language is uncertain, although sizable diaspora communities still uphold them: Chinese in South Africa, ANZC, Taiwan, the USSR and Southeast Asian states. Regional Chinese languages, such as Wu and Yue, have begun to compete with Mandarin Chinese as the principal language of China. For where it is commonly known as a regional language, Southern Mandarin is now the commonly heard language (ar/er sounds shift to "l" or silent), whereas in Socialist Siberia the Northern Beijing dialect and its Manchu variants has become the basis for "Russian-Chinese creole" or "Xīnhuá" (新华) (lit. "new speech").

Outside of the Home Islands, Japanese is still widely spoken in Brazil and Hawaii. Kabyle has transformed from a minor language to the lingua franca of Kabylie.

Meanwhile in Socialist Siberia, new creole languages have raised because of the large Han Chinese population of the SSR's which formerly belonged to the PRC. Because communities have become isolated in the former USSR, the language Chagatai, named after Genghis Khan's second son, which was on its last legs in the 1980s (dying in 1992 in OTL), has survived across a small but stable population of speakers.

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