Anglic is a language derived from English (as we know it) as Shakespeare, and even Chaucer knew it, but that can no longer be considered English. English was dead long before year-0x. To understand the rise of Anglic and the death of English we need to understand the Bureaucracy, and to understand the Bureaucracy, we need to understand the Great Collapse and the Time of Chaos.
The values underlying the Bureaucracy were heavily technocratic, rationalistic, and centralizing. The Bureaucracy's reason-to-be in its early years was to:
The Bureaucracy was a success.
It also became entrenched, self-sustaining, and host to a parasitic class of apparatchiks. From its foundation, the Bureaucracy was intolerant of linguistic, cultural, and even individual diversity. The rational technocrat working tirelessly to lift human-kind from superstitious barbarism was the Hero of the Bureaucracy. Parasitic intellectuals, artists and mystics were NOT tolerated.
As in the Soviet Union, the Bureaucracy strove to integrate everyone into a better, more rational, more humane world. This project demanded uniformity.
Uniformity of opportunity, and the transcendence of potentially divisive cosmopolitanism by a rational global unity required the abolition of Babel. By 160 BxY the Bureaucracy had designed the outlines for the semi-artificial languages of Anglic, Russic, Nihanic, PersoHindi, and SwaBantu. By 155 BxY the language reforms were in full implementation.
Draconian laws imposed harsh sanctions on those caught speaking any unsanctioned language in public. Where conversion to an official language was deemed too slow, in-home monitoring might be used to insure private compliance as well. The effect was particularly effective on old island powers such as Japan or Britain, or among largely monoglot continental powers such as China or Anglo North America.
The long 20th century had left English very much in command as the language of world trade, education, and above all of technology and science. Of all the official languages, the most favored was Anglic. Universal education insured everyone was exposed to the universal language. Higher education and all but the most local governmental and commercial services were conducted exclusively in Anglic.
Departments were charged with setting prescriptive standards for the languages. Those using un-authorized neologisms were warned, and punished if frequent violators. Government vigilance accomplished something unprecedendted --stifling the natural development of spoken languages.
When the Bureaucracy fell (circa 30 BxY), English was all but dead. Its nephew Anglic was more standardized and more wide-spread than any other language in history. The plurality of Earth's population were monolingual Anglic speakers --with the Bureaucracy actively pushing for full conversion.
After the fall of the Bureaucracy, the long-standing linguistic unity project lost all its teeth. The hated Language Use Laws were suspended, then nullified. The Anglic Institute was disbanded in 20 AxY. By that time it had long ceased to be effective. Anglic quickly became like its English ancestor, lacking any unified prescriptive body. By the Siege of Earth Anglic had made the full transition from the most effectively "prescribed" language in history to a fully "described" language.
Spoken Anglic remains largely understandable throughout Terragen space, but varies considerably from planet to planet. On more remote colonies Anglic is showing early signs of becoming a mittlesprach incorporating as much as twenty-percent of it's lexis from Galactic languages and other Terragen languages. In larger, predominantly Neo-Fin and Neo-Chimp communities, there is also much mixing of Anglic and either Trinary and Anglic-Sign.
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