Teeth, language and racial origins, page-14

"I am not in anyway putting English forward as the auxiliary language, but I think it will get there by default anyway."

Probably already is in various fields like, science, aviation, business etc but that is often the more precise "specialist English" rather than everyday colloquial English spoken in so many other countries as a second language.

France must be just about the only country where if you identify yourself as English speaking they look dumb and mutter something guttural in French.
Show an Australian passport, make an attempt to communicate in French and suddenly their English is almost better than your own !

It's nice to imagine a common language would bring diverse people closer together and reduce prejudice and suspician but look at countries with one dominant language, disagreements and ** is still very prevalent. What is that saying .. "English speaking people are a community divided by a common language !"

Once cultural beliefs and customs are included, it is hard to see how even a common language would bypass human tribalism.

In any case, I suggest you start practicing Mandarin !!

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