(...)

What could become our lingua franca in the future? Language dominance depends on socio-political power. While

Esperanto was created artificially with the intention of serving as a lingua franca for international communication,

fewer than 200 000 people speak it today. With the emergence of Asian economies, Mandarin or Hindi, which

together have more speakers than English, could become next century's lingua franca. However, this will depend

on geopolitical balances, with hyperglobalisation and deglobalisation at its extremes.