And long before that, pidgin Latin was the lingua franca in the west. After that and before WWI, the French were trying really hard to make French the common language Western international language.

Us Americans should be pushing for adoption of Esperanto. We’ve benefited from it because of our economic dominance, but as our empire crumbles, there is a very real chance that the lingua franca will change. We may find ourselves forced to learn Mandari or Hindi to participate in the global economy; it would behoove us to use our waning dominance to push for adoption of an easy, regular language. If the language doesn’t give an advantage to one power group, it has a better chance of surviving global power shifts. The best global language is one which is everyone’s second language: it levels the playing field.

One day, Americans are going to find themselves at the bottom of that hill. We’d be smarter you flatten it as much as possible before that happens.