If one examines the matter closely, thousand-year-old empires are hard to find. A generous view cedes to the Roman Empire only seven hundred years of hegemony. But as a world language, Latin has a history spanning more than twenty-three hundred years. Is English now a world language simply because the United States, Great Britain, and some other countries play a dominant global role in business and politics? Or does English now to some extent already exist in a space that is independent of nations? These questions provide a very interesting focus from which to make comparisons with Latin.
