re: #75 Barefoot Grin

That was fun. About twenty years ago there was a government memo demanding that agencies cut back on the use of English loan words, but the memo itself was chock full of English loan words. Common English names usually end up getting shortened. So Sutabakkusu becomes Su-ta-ba, Makudonarudo becomes Makudo, etc.

There are so many Chinese tourists in Japan now that it makes me wonder if English will sometime become a thing of the past.

I suspect SF writers will turn out to be prescient, and the future common language will be amalgamation of English, Spanish and Chinese, with other useful words throw in as needed. At this point in history, though, English has primacy, courtesy of the British Empire and American dominance since WWII. Chinese (Mandarin), Spanish and Arabic have many, many speakers each, but not worldwide influence - yet.