[coldtea]

>If China became democratized tomorrow, overnight, with no attendant problems, they'd still speak Chinese and the rest of the world still wouldn't know 3 words of it.

The world didn't know 3 words of French when that became dominant "linga franca", and din't know English when that replaced it, either.

People learn X's language because there's an advantage of knowing it and doing business with X, they don't do business with X because they speak their language.

The future language will probably just be some bastardization of English and Chinese, with some Spanish thrown in...

[free_rms]

Fun fact, lingua franca actually refers to a frankish-arab trading pidgin.

Back on point, that will take time, and it will follow china becoming dominant rather than leading to it. Also, Europeans learning French is a fairly easy lift compared to Americans learning Chinese.

[type0]

> The future language will probably just be some bastardization of English and Chinese

Threre's already Singlish in Singapore, something like that would have no chance to be a future language. Esperanto has more potential and that's a half dead language.