Give me some examples in History where a conquered people had their language taken away from them?

Question

Or had a language imposed on them?

Answer 1

Colonisation of Americas (North and South American Continents) and Australia is such an example. Here conquered races imposed their language on the natives or oborignes. English was imposed on United States of America and Australia while Spanish and Portuguese were imposed on the people of Latin American countries.

Answer 2

Let’s go way back in history and I’ll just cite some of the cultures around the eastern Mediterranean basin,
1- In the Levant the Phoenician language (also known as Canaanite) was supplanted by conquering civilization’s languages (such as Alexander’s Greek _ hellenisation _) then Romanization, later to be engulfed in the Arabic stream of conquests.
2- In Egypt the ancient Egyptian still merely subsides as the Coptic language that is spoken by the Christian Coptic monks in their few remaining abbeys.
3- The different ancient Greek dialects spoken all around the greek peninsula was replaced by Athenian dialects (since Athens practiced hegemony over the greek world).
4- All the ancient Sumerian languages are now lost first to Persian conquest then to arab domination.
5- The ancient Latin in Italy was lost to other dialects, which merged to form modern Italian.



AS was said before the Philippines was a land of many indigenous languages all lost to Spanish then to English, the current Philippinease language (Tgalog) is a mix of Spanish and English.



In Short whenever and wherever there was a conquering people which conquered another, the latter’s culture was lost, sometimes forever.

Answer 3

The Philippines is a great example, but really so is most of Central and South America for being under Spanish and Portugese rule.

Another that comes to mind where I live is here in Taiwan. While under Japanese rule (1895-1945), students learned Japanese in school and were forbidden to speak Taiwanese in school (many older people here speak a little Japanese), then when the Chinese Nationalists (KMT) came to Taiwan (1949), students were forced to speak Chinese in class, and were forbidden to speak Taiwanese. Now, the island is mostly multi-lingual.

Answer 4

One of the most famous examples is when the Germans took over the French provinces of Alsace and Lorain. The Germans mandated a complete switch from French to German.
The "Th" sound came into the English language because of a King who couldn't pronounce T's and D's. Anyone who was caught using T's and D's instead of The th sound was exacted. I know it's a pronunciation change only, but it's still interesting trivia.

Answer 5

England, after the invasion of William. English changed completely after French became the language of royalty for 300 years.

Answer 6

Where do I start???

The Phillipines (Island in East Asia) spoke Spanish until 100 years ago. U.S.A invaded, now they speak english, yet all have spanish names!!!

America in general. North America used to speak thousands of dialects now it's english. South of the border it's spanish, but also used to be comprised of indigeonous tounges.
A good example are the Maya and Aztecs, (Mexico/Guatemala) who had thier own written language. Everything was burned and all that's left are chronicles (of spanish explorers and priests) who translated some of the pictographs.

Example of not learning the forced language?
My own Puerto Rico. 100 years under American rule (U.S),
yet we still speak Spanish . I am one of 8% who speak English fluently here. We have resisted!!!


P.S- There are still many more, but it would be impossible to list them all. These are just a few.

Enjoy!!!

Answer 7

Additional information required

Answer 8

The whole American continent, the ancient England and some colonies in Africa

Answer 9

Hi, just wanted to say, I enjoyed this discussion. valuable replies

Answer 10

i guess none