If english is not lingua franca...

A shift to latin wouldn't be terrible hard on some people, as English has a lot of loan words from Latin anyway (Kosmos, Deus, Rex, de facto, incognito, lingua franca(!), non sequitur, pax, pro bono, semper fidelis, valedictorium, etc.,) and most of these words are direct or near-direct translations.

However, as others have said, a language that could spread to the rest of the world would likely be Mandrain, as its spoken by more people anyway (But its only mainly in China, whereas English is world-wide).

Funny thing is though, even that English is a common language to use in Business & communication, that is no reason why people will use their native tounge otherwise. OO's signature about Star Wars is a good point: In the movies we see people talking various different unintelligable languages, but most, if not all seem to possess a knowledge of the Star-Wars equivalent of English. (I think the Robot C3PO said he has a database of over 6 million languages or something).

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Aardark

Er, what. They aren't translations, they're Latin words, and are used in many countries, not only English-speaking ones. A direct English translation of, say, de facto would be in fact. A direct translation of rex is king. Of course, there are very many English words with Latin origins, but almost all of those you listed are just plain Latin, not loan words.

Bah. The point I was trying to make was that there were a lot of english words with latin origins, as you said as well x_x

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Lord Styphon

This influence is extended because French and German are still living languages and as such can loan out new words and expressions as needed.

That point brings up an interesting question: How 'valid' would adding words to Latin be if it were done by Scholars? I mean, Language evolves and changes over time, but since its somewhat of a 'endangered' language, is there any sort of consortium on what can or cannot be added to the language? I know its an odd question but since English creates new words a lot, I wonder if the same could be said/done for older archaic languages like Latin or whatever.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.