On a related note I think the world should all switch to English as the default standard language. So much less wasted effort, ink, paper, miscommunication, cultural opacity, etc. We might lose some things, but I bet it would be a net win.
Language domination tends to follow political, trade, and economic domination. The "lingua franca" of Europe used to be, as the phrase implies, French. Before that was bastard Latin, after that it was German. More people speak Spanish than English in the New World, and Brazillian is a close third.
The problem with suggesting a default language is that you are also implying worldwide domination. It's not usually a welcome idea. :)
There is a joke about that: air traffic control frequencies are shared, for obvious reasons. Once a Lufthansa flight was coming into Berlin. The pilot asked for clearance in German. The tower responded that he must use English, as that is the rule. The pilot responded: "Why? I am a German, flying a German plane to a German airport. Why must I speak English?" Another pilot cut in-- "because you lost the bloody war!"
This is actually true; if you don't trust the pilots of a former enemy, a good way to keep tabs on them is to make them use your language on the radio. QED.
Perhaps more controversially, I happen to think English is objectively the best[1] natural language currently available for this role. It's got by far the biggest vocabulary and is by implication the most expressive. Ayn Rand's native language was Russian, she was fluent in several other languages, and she wrote that English gave her the most freedom and power of expression.
[1] Assuming we can agree that a concept such as "best" can exist and we don't degenerate into nihilistic pseudo-philosophical examinations of first principles.
English is pretty good, I agree, though phrasal verbs are the work of the devil. It has a head start in aviation, mathematics, engineering, some television, finance, and computer science. The British did a good job of seeding it everywhere and WWII gave it a large boost. Then again, the dissolution of the empires in the 60s made English and French less fashionable in many areas of the world as nationalism took hold.
Favoring "gradual unforced adoption" is a fine thing. I suppose I favor it too, as a "lingua franca" but not as a single global language. Knowledge of history does, I'm sorry to disagree with you here, qualify one to have a credentialed opinion. Language hegemony has never happened without a lot of people getting killed. I do not favor that, and I trust you don't either. Maybe this time will be different, who knows? America has always had wonderful, astonishing optimism.
But keep in mind that what you are proposing is no less than closing the book on many venerable, vibrant, and (ahem) more populous cultures. They will push back as much as you would push back on being told that English was obsolete.
Just thinking outside the box. Long term.
I happen to disagree that "culture" is a null word or that it can be translated fully. Virtually all multilingual people I know think the same way. It's ok to disagree with, but not dismiss, that opinion.
Where one stands depends largely on where one sits. Would you be willing to give up English --completely, not even teaching it to your children-- for Spanish or Chinese?
I disagree, there are expressions that correspond to modes of thought that get legitimacy/relevance from their connection to the history and identity of your people. The expressions "blood, sweat and tears" or "keep calm and carry on" does not and can not mean the same thing in mandarin, if you never use them in english anymore you will have lost a connection to that particular historic/cultural experience.
http://karolbednarczyk.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/keep_c...
I also doubt that he's joking, but it is not insulting to assume so. The suggestion that "the world should all switch to English as the default standard language" is rather naive and, to many people, downright offensive. Assuming that the suggestion is a joke is actually being generous.
Clearly, my point is that the aforementioned suggestion is not a well reasoned statement.
Suppose I post a comment on HN like "hey, maybe we should physically segregate blacks and hispanics and whites; there will be a few problems on the way but surely the crime rate between races will go down". I'd expect that comment to be regarded either sarcastic or downright trollish. It would not be insulting to consider it as a joke.
(Of course, this example is an exaggeration to make my point clear. I don't mean the original comment is trollish.)
Yes, it's alternatingly irritating and hilarious to find how many animals we know by special names are called some variation of Cat or Bear, and I like to tell this as a joke, topping it off with the Katzenbär, which is both (Catbear). (A katzenbär is a red panda, in case you're wondering.)
But, at the same time, there is a lot of expressiveness in German that has no English equivalent. For example: schadenfreude. This is just one word of hundreds that are special, emotion-capturing words that have no real equivalent in English.
To argue that English is more expressive based on volume is silly.
And considering this, allyagg, i'm not convinced by your argument about vocabulary size, i've always felt the english vocabulary as quite compact (and thus more convenient to use compared to other more complex languages)...
EDIT: allyagg, a bit of googling proved you right :) From what i understand, english vocabulary seems more rich of "technical" terms while some other areas are less developed (i would say related to philosophy/poetry concepts for ger and ita for example ), rendering some words in other languages not directly translatable.
Among adults in Europe, I believe that in every country where English is not the main language at least half the adults speak it as a second language.
English is the standard for aviation and maritime use, by treaty. It's also the de facto standard in computing and most of science. If one is going to deal internationally, and is only going to know one language, English is the best choice.