Smith wrote:

> I was watching the Greek news recently and saw that the Greek and
> Jordanian government were having some sort of conference. They were
> communicating in English.

It is sometimes said that there is more English spoken between non-native
speakers of English than between native speakers. I don't know how true that
is, but its use as a common tongue for people from different language bases
is certainly as important as its use within the English-speaking world.

However, I think you are mistaking quantity for quality. The fact that
English is widely spoken doesn't make it a better language. English is in
its present position, not because it is superior to other languages from any
linguistic point of view (it isn't, any more than, say, Latin was in its
day), but because of history (the British Empire, the BBC, etc.). If the
outcome of WWII had been different, we might be having this conversation in
German. But if we were, that wouldn't make German a *better* language than
English.

> I can't imagine Chinese being used in this manner.

Actually, it has been and still is used in this manner. In the past, Korea,
Vietnam , Japan and the Ryukyu islands (now part of Japan) all used
Classical Chinese as a lingua franca, so Koreans talking to Japanese, for
example, would frequently have used Chinese, much as your Greek and
Jordanian officials were using English. And Mandarin provides a common
language between different linguistic/ethnic groups in modern China. The
scale is regional, not worldwide, but the principle is the same.

--
John R. Yamamoto-Wilson
http://rarebooksinjapan.com