By Gwyneth Dixon Gwyneth Dixon is a junior in Global Studies and Political Science at The University of Illinois. Gwyneth’s future plans include pursuing a JD. Gwyneth wrote this blog post in the 418 ‘Language and Minorities in Europe’ course in spring 2019. Source: Pxhere With 300 million speakers worldwide (BENCHMARKS), French owes most of its popularity to France’s history. In the seventeenth century, the nation-state benefitted from an influential role in the arts, a strong economy, and a powerful, successful military (“Studies on translation,” 2010, p. 13). Combined, these factors ultimately resulted in the nation’s prominent role as one of “the main political powers” of the world (“Studies on translation”, 2010, p 13). With this influence and power, French soon became the language of commerce, arts, and academics, and as more and more people recognized the benefits of learning French, the language became a global lingua franca (Wright, 2016). With France’s continued domi...