[jacquesm]

If modern computers had been invented in China and had had a decade or two headstart on the rest of the world then you may well have had to do just that.

This was an accident of history, not some deliberate plan to get the world to bow to the English speakers. And English was already well established as a major language in trade (due to it being superficially simple to learn), next to German, French and Spanish. China was pretty isolated for a long time culturally as well as geographically and the complexity of its script is another barrier to it being accepted as a common language by the rest of the world.

One of the more interesting things along this line in recent history is that with Brexit the EU no longer has an England/Wales/Scotland and a chunk of Ireland in it, but another chunk of Ireland remains. This led the French to immediately propose that French become the official language of the EU parliament but the rest of the countries wouldn't have it, and rightly so.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/brexit-franc...

[b3orn]

> This led the French to immediately propose that French become the official language of the EU parliament but the rest of the countries wouldn't have it, and rightly so.

Didn't happen, they just said they'll use French during their council presidency (not the parliament, it's not even mentioned in your article), that's all, there are no rules against that. They would've done it regardless of Brexit.

[jjgreen]

Having French as the lingua franca, the very idea!

[acheron]

“Lingua Franca” historically has nothing to do with French. It was a dialect used by Italian traders.

Obviously this means the EU should run things in Venetian.

[jowea]

Nothing to do with French seems a bit strong. It's related. From Brittanica:

> lingua franca, (Italian: “Frankish language”) language used as a means of communication between populations speaking vernaculars that are not mutually intelligible. The term was first used during the Middle Ages to describe a French- and Italian-based jargon, or pidgin, that was developed by Crusaders and traders in the eastern Mediterranean and characterized by the invariant forms of its nouns, verbs, and adjectives. These changes have been interpreted as simplifications of the Romance languages.

[jjgreen]

Heh, TIL, thanks. Obliquely, I was in Venice some years ago; sitting on the steps of a church I set to rolling a cigarette. A couple of small boys stopped and stared at this activity, one pointed and said "Il fabricato fumer!", I knew exactly what he was saying (although I have no Italian). So Venetian it is.

[extraduder_ire]

I think that french diplomat just saw their shot, and took it. I doubt they actually forgot that there's still two english-speaking countries in the EU.

[bdsa]

Ireland and... Malta?

[acqq]

> due to it being superficially simple to learn

I, however, don't think most of the people who started using one of the named languages instead of their mother tongue ever really selected English using that specific criterion.