off of an internet site. It looks like French is a pretty poor choice for an international language.

The following is a list of these languages in terms of the number of countries where each is spoken. The number that follows is the total number of countries that use that language (from Weber, 1997):

1. English (115)
2. French (35)
3. Arabic (24)
4. Spanish (20)
5. Russian (16)
6. German (9)
7. Mandarin (5)
8. Portuguese (5)
9. Hindi/Urdu (2)
10. Bengali (1)
11. Japanese (1)

The Summer Institute for Linguistics (SIL) Ethnologue Survey (1999) lists the following as the top languages by population:
(number of native speakers in parentheses)

1. Chinese* (937,132,000)
2. Spanish (332,000,000)
3. English (322,000,000)
4. Bengali (189,000,000)
5. Hindi/Urdu (182,000,000)
6. Arabic* (174,950,000)
7. Portuguese (170,000,000)
8. Russian (170,000,000)
9. Japanese (125,000,000)
10. German (98,000,000)
11. French* (79,572,000)

* The totals given for Chinese, Arabic, and French include more than one SIL variety. See chart for full details.

The following list is from Dr. Bernard Comrie’s article for the Encarta Encyclopedia (1998):
(number of native speakers in parentheses)

1. Mandarin Chinese (836 million)
2. Hindi (333 million)
3. Spanish (332 million)
4. English (322 million)
5. Bengali (189 million)
6. Arabic (186 million)
7. Russian (170 million)
8. Portuguese (170 million)
9. Japanese (125 million)
10. German (98 million)
11. French (72 million)

To be fair, French is the most common secondary language, with English second. So, it looks like Mandarin may be the logical first choice, and English second. French...not so much.

Michael Siskin