re: #92 Teh Flowah

English became the lingua franca pretty much by default. Two hundred years or so ago, the language of diplomacy and commerce was French — the Russian language has a lot of French cognates because the language of choice at the Russian royal court was French. Before that, it was Latin — IIRC, that is still the common language of the Catholic Church. Before that, it was Greek.

There were also a lot of people trying to push Esperanto, an artificial language, a few years ago. Harry Harrison made it the common language in his Stainless Steel Rat stories.

English is the common language of commerce, the Internet, aviation and many other fields because the US, in spite of the Obama Administration’s efforts, is still the 800-lb. gorilla.

There are a lot of English cognates in the Russian language, too. The Soviet government was convinced it was a Pentagon plot.

:)