>Give it 200 years, the whole world will be speaking one
fairly common language anyway

Perhaps two thirds will be able to use my favourite
global language, called "Broken English",
as a common lingua franca.

But they will never switch to English as a first language.
The cultural inertia and desire for identity is too great.

Even in a situation of invasion, it takes hundreds of years
to take on the language of the conqueror, it may never happen
(The English were ruled by French for a few centuries
but this led only to the absorption of new words into
a Germanic language!)

By the way, "lingua franca" was a "global language",
in the middle ages, a mix of French Spanish Italian Arabic
and other languages spoken around the Mediterraneum,
for the purpose of commerce. In the time of Jesus, the
common languages were Greek and Latin - the latter still
survives in current use in almost every city on Earth!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca

At about the Renaissance time, Italian began to dominate in
Europe, it still does in some art areas. Then came French,
the "language of diplomacy" and still official in more countries
than English is. Later German was a candidate especially
in science and industry.

I chose German rather than Russian for my reading
knowledge, required for a degree in chemistry.
In those cold war days, they said the optimists
would learn Russian, the pessimists Chinese!

The most prominent proponent of "Global English" is
David Crystal, author of 40 books on languages including
Language Death, English as a Global Language, and
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English language.
"As we see English spreading, we see it beginning to reflect
local cultural practices. When people adopt English they
immediately adapt it. No-one 'owns' English now. What
happens to it is on the shoulders of all of us."
"Three-quarters of the world's population are naturally bilingual.
It's perfectly possible to maintain the role of a standard language
as a lingua franca and at the same time maintain local languages -
the standard guarantees intelligibility; the local expresses identity."

From http://wordsmith.org/chat/dc.html
See also http://www.crystalreference.com/Davi...al/english.htm

So here in Switzerland we can enjoy the best of this process -
learning a common spoken language, and several major world
languages - which have their own dialect variations - plus being
able to speak English. Don't be discouraged, languages can be
learned, more or less, at any age (even Swiss German).

I learned a good trick today - when you pronounce the l sound,
the English way has the tongue touching behind the upper teeth.
Try it with the tongue touching the top of the mouth! It may
help you pronounce German words - like "gel" which in Swiss German
is the more open "gau" (from es gilt, it's true.)

Graham