English Language
«We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.»
«There is nothing easier than English, even the most dumb Englishmen can speak it fluently!»
English is our contemporary world's Lingua Franca, which is unfortunate because the language is rather difficult in both its pronunciation and structure, although it has a simpler practical grammar than most. Even Britons from remote corners of the island sometime struggle to understand each other [1]. Spanish would do a much better job as a universal language, and it may ultimately prevail from demographic argument. It already won much space in the United States.
English is easy enough to communicate basic needs and information (but then any language would do). But consider indeed concepts such as U and non-U English, i.e., being «ill in bed» or «sick on the boat» characterizes you as upper class while being «sick in bed» or «ill on the boat» appear, on the opposite, middle-class. Not even there is no logic, isn't it shocking that «what?» be posh and «pardon?» be lower class? Some Hegelian rhetorics in rhetoric itself.
On the Wikipedia's talk page, a user convincingly suggests: «Words such as "bike", "sick", and "rich" may seem non-Upper in their simplicity, but it is the self-confidence of the Uppers that lets them use such simple words. Non-Upper speakers, on the other hand, feel as if they must inflate their language with multisyllabic or Latinate words in their best attempt to imitate the more sophisticated Upper speakers.»
One advantage of English is that it does not commit you to the Tu-Vos distinction, which exists in most languages we know French, Spanish and Russian, mainly, but also German (Du-Sie) and a bit of Italian (Tu-Lei). We don't know languages where this crucial aspect of human contact is absent, such as Mandarin Chinese or, more surprisingly as a Mediterranean language, Greek.
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